C2H4 IS Here to Kick Your Wardrobe into the Future with Sci-Fi Workwear
The name of the brand C2H4 – stands for Ethylene, a chemical substance used for combustion, much like the mixture of things that Yixi Chen, the designer, creates in her “lab.” Chen’s aesthetic is a sort of futuristic sterile-meets-streetwear, but yet decidedly athletic driven. It’s a style that might look perfectly at home in the year 2082. “It’s basically imagining what people will wear in the future,” says the designer.
The C2H4 label runs off this scientific and constructive formula, with each collection telling a story about the current state of the world. Her labels meteroric rise is partly due to the success of her collaboration with Kappa. The Kappa capsule collection was comprised of all turquoise-and-white hoodies, tracksuits and jackets first seen on Luka Sabat. Once the Kappa pieces caught on, it immediately blew up from there. This season, Chen collaborated with Japanese streetwear brand Number (N)ine to create plenty of Hypebeast worthy pieces – like a $1000 pair of cargo pants and lab coats trimmed in weatherproof technical fabrics. Would you pay $1000 for cargo pants? Yixi Chen’s Emerging LA label C2H4’s certainly thinks so.