Jenny Fax SS27 and the Fear of Being Too Happy. A concept not so familiar these days, and yet an invitation to go through your deepest emotions
Every culture has its own path, passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes it’s traditions, sometimes habits, and sometimes it’s a strange little belief you grow up with without ever questioning it. For Taiwanese designer Shueh Jen-Fang, one of those beliefs was that being too happy might not be such a good thing.
For Jenny Fax SS27, the designer puts this idea in the spotlight with a collection built around her personal motto: “Just don’t be happy, don’t be happy.”
It sounds almost funny when you first hear it, but there is something much deeper behind it. Growing up with Asian parents, Jen-Fang remembers the feeling that celebrating too much could somehow tempt fate. As she explains, “staying a little cautious could bring more luck.”
So how does this become clothes? Not through obvious quotes or literal references.
Instead, Jenny Fax turns the idea into something much more visual and playful. Multidimensional tailoring, unusual pattern cutting and optical illusions make the clothes feel slightly surreal, almost like something remembered from childhood rather than something designed to look perfectly polished.
The styling plays into this too. Mismatched stockings, different shoes, clashing fabrics and unexpected combinations make the looks feel intentionally unfinished. Some pieces almost look like they have been taken apart and put back together differently. A floral dress becomes something stranger through the styling, while tailoring gets distorted through unusual proportions and construction.
This slightly awkward, childish quality is part of what makes Jenny Fax feel like Jenny Fax. There is an avant-garde element to it, but it never feels like it is trying too hard to be conceptual. Things can simply be a little weird.
And the weirdness comes from somewhere very personal.
Jen-Fang’s collections often work through her own memories, and SS27 is no different. She grew up in Asia, while her parents were fascinated by European royal gardens and courtly aesthetics. She also spent three years at a deeply religious Christian school, surrounded by crosses, prayers and religious rituals, despite not being particularly religious herself.
Then there are the much more ordinary memories: an old, worn-out sofa where she and her siblings spent time together, Saturday afternoons in the bathtub, and piles of laundry stacked around the balcony like mountains.
These memories might seem completely unrelated, but for Jen-Fang, they all belong to the same world. Family, religion, Asian and European influences, childhood and everyday life all get mixed together.
The set continues this idea. The domestic environment, with its bathtub, worn sofa and everyday objects, feels less like a traditional fashion set and more like walking into somebody’s old family memory.
And maybe that is where the collection’s title becomes interesting. “Just don’t be happy, don’t be happy” doesn’t really feel like a warning here. Jenny Fax takes something she was taught to be cautious about and turns it into something playful, strange and completely her own.
Because maybe you don’t have to reject the things you grew up with. You can take them apart, mismatch them, make them weird — and make something new out of them.
