LII Designer Zane Li Fuses ’90s Minimalism With Couture Elegance—One Sculptural Silhouette at a Time

In 2019, when Zane Li was 18 years old, he moved from his hometown, Chongqing, in central China, to New York, where he enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology. It was his first time in America, and he was excited to breathe the same air as his idols, designers such as Helmut Lang and Calvin Klein. But after just one semester, everything came to a screeching halt with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I had to take video courses about patternmaking, which was really odd,” recalls Li. Isolating in his Brooklyn Heights apartment, an ocean away from his family, he couldn’t go to campus, the Garment District, or, really, anywhere. “I’d finish my homework in two hours and spend the rest of the time researching,” he says. He watched movies every night and pored over reference books, from Cure, by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, to Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo. “I wouldn’t say I liked it, but my pandemic experience really gave me the freedom to explore my identity and what I’m interested in.”

When lockdown restrictions eased, Li interned at Proenza Schouler, assisting the fabric team. He not only gained technical knowledge but also realized he was interested in every part of building a brand, from graphic design and casting to photographing the lookbooks and choosing the music for the runway shows. “I looked for an entry-level job where I could do all of this, and there wasn’t one,” he says, laughing. “So I was like, I’ll just try to do this myself.” Shortly after graduating from college, in 2023, he started LII. “I had enough ideas that I wanted to make in real life.”

In February of last year, at the age of 23, Li unveiled a 23-look collection for his New York Fashion Week debut. It was inspired by the hues and shapes of Ellsworth Kelly’s collages and Anish Kapoor’s sculptures, and it received an unusually enthusiastic response: Vogue named him one to watch, and Ssense placed an exclusive order. His starting point was a men’s T-shirt—similar to the ones he wears every day—but designed for women in a thick, double-face cotton twill that creates a boxy shape with sharp edges and looks like something a paper doll might wear. “It’s comfortable, but there’s still structure,” he explains. He also designed a style with slits that peel open at the shoulders, like a banana, and various dress versions in a range of bright primary colors.

While Li loves 1990s American sportswear—he first became obsessed with it as a teenager scrolling through Chinese social media apps—he is also attracted to the feminine glam of the ’50s and ’60s couturiers he learned about in fashion school, from Madame Grès to Cristóbal Balenciaga. His goal with LII is to combine casual and formal elements in a way that doesn’t feel overly nostalgic or derivative. A top from his second collection, which he presented last September, resembles both a vintage shawl a woman might show off at the opera and a gym T-shirt. “People think that if you wear something ladylike or something old-fashioned and traditional, then you’re uncool,” he says. “But I don’t think that way; I want to explore the possibility of putting practicality into glamorous dressing.”

Raised by a single mother who started her own beauty company and wore power shoulders to work, Li has always been ambitious and independent, and he has an appreciation for strong, stylish women. His mom, who had Li when she was 20, is still his muse. As a child, he would take her old clothing, cut it up, and refashion it with hot glue before he had use of a sewing machine. She was the one who encouraged him to leave Chongqing to study fashion in New York and, eventually, start his own brand.

Two months after moving to the city, Li met his now husband, the stylist Jason Rider, on Tinder. They fell in love during lockdown. Rider, who is 19 years older than Li, was always enthusiastic about his partner’s work—even when it was just a school project. But he didn’t realize the level of Li’s talent until he saw the renderings and prototypes for the debut collection. “I was blown away the first time we did fittings,” he says. “It was a combination of being really well crafted and having a new point of view.”

Rider is involved with nearly all aspects of LII, except for designing the collections. “He’ll ask me what I think and I’ll tell him, but the design comes entirely from him,” says Rider, who, unlike Li, has a penchant for prints and ruffles. Obviously, Rider is biased when it comes to the brand. However, as a stylist, he says Li’s clean-cut pieces are a “dream” to work with. “Every angle looks good to shoot.”

This year, Li is tackling menswear for the first time, all while continuing to refine the brand’s existing vision. “I hate to relate everything to his age, but he’s growing up and getting more mature in his sensibilities and color schemes,” says Rider. “That’s something I’m excited for in the next season: seeing everything get a little bit darker and a little bit more emotional.”

Hair by Junya Nakashima for Oribe at Streeters; Makeup by Janessa Paré for Shiseido at Streeters; Models: Yasmin Wijnaldum at The Society Management, RyleaBeth at Fusion Models, Grace Van Petten at New York Models; Casting by Ashley Brokaw Casting; Photo Assistants: John Temones, Anthony Lorelli; Retouching: Jodie Herbage; Fashion Assistant: Jamin Kim; Hair Assistant: Ubu Nagano; Makeup Assistant: Emme George.