WINDOWSEN

WINDOWSEN is an independent Chinese fashion label founded by Sensen Lii in 2019. Its public emergence began with Lii’s VFiles runway appearance in New York in September 2018, followed by the formal launch of a brand operating between Shanghai and Paris. The name combines the Windows operating system with the designer’s given name, framing the label as a portal into a self-contained world shaped by early digital interfaces, science fiction, gaming and performance culture.

The label brings demi-couture construction into contact with technical sportswear. Voluminous organza, crystal surfaces and body-altering footwear appear alongside hoodies, racing jackets, bodysuits and modular ready-to-wear. The same silhouettes move between runway, music performance and retail, with custom stagewear forming an important parallel practice for musicians and performers.

WINDOWSEN established its early runway identity in Shanghai before expanding onto the Paris womenswear calendar from 2023. Collaborations with Nike, Beats and Preciosa have extended the label into footwear, technology and specialised embellishment. Its 2025 Nike Air Max Muse project brought the brand’s alien iconography and inclusive scale of footwear to a wider commercial release while the mainline retained its genderless, performance-led direction.

Sensen Lii treats clothing as an interface for altering the body. Garments enlarge shoulders, extend limbs and replace familiar anatomy with alien, robotic or bestial forms. Masks, prosthetic footwear and crystal-covered surfaces turn the wearer into a character whose gender and species remain deliberately unstable.

The construction often begins with a clash between couture volume and athletic function. Dense organza and tulle are rolled, trimmed and layered into large sculptural forms, while drawstrings, stretch panels, racing details and technical closures keep the clothes connected to movement. The resulting silhouettes carry the visual force of stage costume without abandoning the mechanics of sportswear.

WINDOWSEN’s gender position is embedded in fit and casting rather than treated as a separate message. Corsets, bodysuits, skirts and high heels are developed across bodies, with extended footwear sizing and mixed casting used to remove assumptions about who may wear a particular form. Chinese mythology, ballroom culture and early digital nostalgia enter the work as active material, producing a fashion world that is theatrical, synthetic and sharply legible.