By now, you’ll have seen videos of Michelle Yeoh smizing in the face of the persistent downpour threatening to derail the Balenciaga Cruise 2025 show in Shanghai. Wearing a never-before-seen silver chainmail dress from the new collection, Yeoh had plenty to be pleased about. The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actor joined Isabelle Huppert and Kim Kardashian as a brand ambassador in November, which she describes as the start of “a beautiful journey”.
“I’m part of a creative community that shares the same values as I do and we’re able to collaborate and work hand in hand,” says the Oscar winner, whose fashion star ascended on the awards season trail for Everything Everywhere All at Once. “And of course, there’s the looks.”
Yeoh’s Cruise 2025 look came from the line-up of experimental semi-couture and couture dresses.
Photo: Mr. Fang
Some dresses in the Cruise 2025 collection were made from 10-year-old plastic bags, clothing rack covers and pieced-together travel bags, but Michelle’s chainmail number doubled down on high-octane glamour.
Photo: Mr. Fang
That swishy Cruise dress was a glittering follow-up to the dramatic tin-foil look Yeoh wore to the Met Gala, but while her beacon of a ballgown vied for attention among a galaxy of stars, the Cruise show was entirely Yeoh’s night. Engaging Hollywood mode, by employing an umbrella-wielding staffer as the most fabulous prop, Yeoh said she felt like she was shrouded in slinky “couture armour” and “ready for action”. Certainly, the brolly carrier would have been no match for the dancer-turned-martial arts pro should a droplet have fallen on her impossibly shiny, poker-straight blow-dry.
“Wearing Balenciaga always makes me feel bold and strong, because Demna is cutting edge, but he always makes it comfortable,” continues Yeoh, highlighting the 2022 couture show in Paris as the moment she truly fell for the brand. There was much for Michelle to love in the new resort edit, featuring elongated silhouettes inspired by Shanghai’s Pudong high-rises and deconstructed takes on Balenciaga’s famous hourglass silhouette, including dresses fashioned from old plastic bags. As per his usual nebulous manner, Demna chose not to over-analyse his work. “You know, I think so much less than people think when I make looks,” he told Vogue Runway after the Museum of Art Pudong show had played out. “I just like those silhouettes and I would like to dress like that and I would like to see women dress like that. There’s really no intellectualising behind it.”
The twinkling look was perfect for a show set in a “twilightscape” at the Museum of Art Pudong.
Photo: Mr. Fang
“Ready for action” in her “couture armour”.
Photo: Mr. Fang
It’s this quiet confidence that drew in Yeoh, who shares the same “love of peace and quiet”. “Those are the moments when we can wander into our own world of fantasy and create and imagine beautiful things,” she adds of a friendship based on thoughtfulness rather than Instagram followers. Indeed, a stressed Demna – unable to control the inclement weather – later decided the drizzle “actually added a layer of some kind of uncontrolled poetry to what I wanted to bring to Shanghai for the first time with Balenciaga.”
Catch her if you can: Yeoh zipped out of the district in her “incognito” uniform of hoodie, joggers, capacious Rodeo bag and Circuit trainers, but with the couture shows mere weeks away, it’s only a matter of time before we see this impossibly elegant – and fearless – actor on the fashion circuit again. Her Balenciaga ambassadorship suits her.
One of Balenciaga’s classic oversized coats made the big reveal of Yeoh’s dress all the more impactful.
Photo: Mr. Fang
Demna’s looks are not only cutting edge, but comfortable, says Michelle.
Photo: Mr. Fang
Editor
Alice NewboldCredit
Lead Photo: Mr. Fang