How Moncler, A$AP Rocky, and Rick Owens Threw the Biggest Fashion Party Ever

Even the swaggering Rocky seemed uncharacteristically awed by the whole thing. “It feels surreal,” he told me, shortly after the he toured the rest of the Moncler metropolis, a huge stretch of tarmac that usually serves as a convention center, dotted with custom installations by an Avengers of cross-cultural creatives in Owens, Glover, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Palm Angels, Nigo, Willow Smith, Edward Enninful, Lucie and Luke Meier of Jil Sander, Lulu Li, and Rocky himself. Each so-called Genius designed a custom collection of alpine-flavored technical sportswear, and was given free rein over how they presented their work. Rocky chose to build a Kubrickian living room enclosed by LED screens and silver leather couches, where models strolled around in sporty, brightly-colored down jackets inspired by “ancient Chinese warriors,” as he put it. “I’m still in the humility stage” of the experience, Rocky said. “I feel blessed and lucky to be here.”

Some numbers to illustrate the evening’s scale:

10: the number of Geniuses, not including Mercedes-Benz, which partnered with Japanese streetwear legend Nigo on a clothing line and a custom G-Wagon.

8,000: the number of confirmed guests, a mix of celebrities, members of the Shanghai creative class, Moncler clients, and local scenesters, each of whom received a personal invitation.

323,000: the approximate square-footage of the CoG.

30 million: the rumored production budget, in Euros. (A Moncler rep declined to confirm the figure, saying only that it was “a lot.”)

35: the number of looks conceived for a Jil Sander runway show.

8: the number of times the Jil Sander runway show was held, one every 30 minutes.

4: the number of go-kart drivers doing laps at a custom Palm Angels race track.

To be determined: the retail price of the “demountable mountain refuge” designed by Rick Owens and Hugh Broughton Architects for the occasion.

Countless: the number of bottles of Tsingtao beer and Moncler-branded pork buns consumed over the course of the night.