Exclusive: Ruohan Nie Caps Off Design Trilogy with Geometric Elegance in Fall/Winter 2024 Show at Paris Fashion Week

Text by Jesse Scott

Presenting for the fourth consecutive time at Paris Fashion Week, Ruohan Nie continued her ascent through the fashion industry with a Fall/Winter 2024/25 show that further expanded the minimalist geometry-based vision for her eponymous brand. The show was the culmination of a three-season series in which Ruohan introduced her design vocabulary, with collections focusing on Lines, Forms, and Points respectively. 

While referencing silhouettes from previous seasons, this third and conclusory collection zoomed in on the anchor points of garments that define clothing in its most primitive essence. Emphasizing layering, and presented in a Marais show space that conversed with the collection’s refined geometry, the 34 looks highlighted points as the deceptively dramatic intersections of lines and the basic building fragments that had previously been folded into the “Forms” collection.

In an interview for Rain after the show, the eloquent and soft-spoken Nie emphasized the show as part of a larger narrative.  The initial three-season series is just the beginning of her promising fashion career, and Nie showed great humility as she told Rain about her progression season to season. 

“I need to form my own design language,” she said.  “I’ve evolved a lot since I’m still a very young designer…I have my creative aesthetic structure and then I pull out geometry, colours, elements and stories, and pull them together…I need to take my time to learn and dig into all of these chapters.”

Just as Nie’s aesthetic has evolved, so too has her design process.  Nie pulled back the curtain to give Rain a glimpse into how she has matured each season: “Since S/S 24, I’ve started to create a more rigid timeline for myself as a designer at work.  I have a routine and have really evolved in this year and a half time. I understand what to carry over…how to combine color, and how to recall your best selling pieces but in a more creative way so as not to make people feel bored.” 

Nie trusts her instincts. “The color palette was very intuitive this season,” she said.  The key reference point for color and material choice was rain, as manifested by natural and delicate shades. “The place to capture the rain is…on a window with its reflections. Throughout the color palette was a photo of a window,” Nie elaborated. “You see some reflections with dots, we see some structures inside the velvet with shiny plastic weave. You see some red, shades of grey, and five tones of blacks in this collection.”

“I played a lot with layering to recall the previous two collections,” Nie told Rain.  “For instance, the square shape from the first collection…we did a round cut-out from that square shape this season layered with some pleated skirt pants that recalled the pleating algorithm from the second collection.” This was just one of several versatile looks that were distinctly contemporary while suiting many ages and wardrobes.  

“Since Autumn/Winter 23, we always talk about ‘timeless’ inside the brand, inside the team, inside the collections…how we want to build a timeless wardrobe for our audience where from season to season you can do layering yourself.” Nie said.  Ruohan looks are practical and elegant; not meant for one season or event only but instead to be lasting staples to be brought back year after year.   

Simple footwear from Hereu and an array of shapely curvaceous bags completed this season’s Ruohan aesthetic.  

Form follows function in Ruohan bags, which Nie started designing for Autumn/Winter 2023 with a focus on utility. “The little bags are called the AM tote, as it’s a tote that you can bring to work in the morning. The big bag is called the “Artist;” here you can fit a lot of stuff when you go to the gym. The bags are a lifestyle. We also have our little moon bag; the moon has been very inspirational as a metaphor for me from the very beginning,” Nie told Rain.

“For the shoes, we’ve collaborated with Hereu, a Spanish brand, for four seasons already, starting with my first presentation” Nie said. “We meet with the creative team of Hereu to talk through the process of design, what they think would fit with the collection.” This season was all about complimentary colors. “For Autumn/Winter, we pulled out some boots that are the same color of our jackets,” Nie continued. “It’s really cool to have a total look that’s monochromatic, but with different layers of that color. For example, there are different layers of white, brown, and burgundy.”

Spring/Summer 2025 will be a watershed time for Ruohan. The designer has concluded the pre-mediated three-collection series in which she introduced her fashion vision; she will now be embarking into new territory. Nie hinted at exciting changes to come, referencing growth in her business team and strategy and explaining that she wants to take Ruohan beyond the bounds of seasonal RTW collections and develop a more holistic lifestyle concept. “I want to create a lifestyle and create a more full scope for the brand - bringing new stuff, not only clothing, into the full scope of the universe,” she told Rain.