the sandy liang girl grows up

two years ago I would have been frothing with sample sale fomo

Sandy Liang was the first fashion brand I felt a genuine personal connection with. After two obsessive years of collecting pieces and often posting head-to-toe Sandy outfits on Instagram, I find myself no longer identifying quite as strongly with the brand.

What’s changed?

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Let’s go back to 2019. Her fleeces starting getting press. Worn by the likes of Greta Lee and LCD founder Geraldine Chung, wearing Sandy Liang was a way of signaling that you were a creative Asian-American. There was a cultural specificity to it. It meant you watched Youngmi Mayer TikToks, mourned the closure of Opening Ceremony and always made a stop for Pine & Crane if you were in LA.

one of my early sandy scores. the price is wild from the vantage point of a post-baggu post-salomon collab world

As the Sandy Liang brand grew, my sense of pride stemmed from feeling seen as an Chinese-American (and more specifically, Cantonese). It was easy to slip into a parasocial relationship with Sandy herself.