Zuzi Chen is a Shanghai-based spokeswoman for Boho. At first glance, her spring 2026 collection—her second best since her big return at Shanghai Fashion Week last season—looks like she’s engineered boho chic with a fashion dictionary entry, checking every box with her wispy dresses, ballooning pantsuits, and defiance silk blouses. But as he explained in the show’s lead-in, Chen was getting into something deeper and more romantic.
He cites the French poet Arthur Rimbaud as an inspiration, but instead focuses on his early years and his Tord Relais with Paul Verlaine, reflecting on his later days. After spending his youth in the arts, living an uncertain, vagrant-like life with Verlaine, Rimbaud abandoned his career as a writer and began to travel widely. He traveled much of Europe on foot, and became a soldier exploring Indonesia, then the Dutch East Indies, eventually settling in Yemen. On his runway, Chen reflected on what Rimbaud had discovered during his travels.
To his credit, rather than a melding of disparate elements, what Chen unleashed was a sense of wanderlust. On the womenswear front, she presented some nice dresses and embellished both blouses and dresses with cascades of ruffles, which she paired with trousers – jeans or tailored, the former not always successfully – and flowy skirts. His boho vision was most clearly understood in his menswear: three-piece suits cut low but not overdone in elegant silk brocades and styled with either a shirtless or blouse and, here and there, a pantaloon—and always accessorized with sandals. The super short shorts helped add sophistication to the softness of the other looks, and overall enhanced the collection’s sex appeal. There was an air of sarcasm with his men’s look that the designer must capitalize on throughout his collection. The story Chen tells feels like Rimbaud traveled not to outdo his writing, but to document it as a poet.
