This designer creates seasonless clothes you can easily pair with what you already own in your closet

Let's be honest about resort wear — it's a peculiar subset of fashion usually comprising billowing caftans and gauzy confections that Instagram beautifully against turquoise waters, but once you're home, they're immediately banished to the darkest corners of closets. Because those bright botanical and jaunty maritime motifs that look great by the Aman pool rarely ever work in your neighbourhood Toast Box.

Which is precisely why an encounter with Lisa Crosswhite's latest collection, Senza Stagione, feels so disorienting. The Canadian-born designer — who creates under the fashion persona Lisa Von Tang, a name reflecting her Chinese-German heritage — has accomplished the seemingly impossible in her smart line-up of washed silk kaftans, long cotton beach dresses, Japanese denim and men's button up shirts: creating vacation-ready clothes that don't require a vacation to wear.

"I travel so much for work, and I wanted to do a wardrobe that could travel with me," Crosswhite explained during Lisa Von Tang preview in one of the pod suites in the newly minted Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree. Instead of the usual runway setup, her pieces are casually draped over furniture in the bedroom and outdoor timber deck, and hanging in the bathroom closet. Not a model is in sight — a subliminal acknowledgment that even beautifully designed clothes eventually have to exist in the messy reality of an actual home.

Senza Stagione (Italian for "seasonless") is striking for several reasons. The first is that it marks a philosophical departure as much as a sartorial one. Though nominally divided into men's and women's sections, the collection is refreshingly fluid — women can easily slip into the men's pieces, while men, if sufficiently liberated from fashion's rigid gender norms, could just as comfortably wear items from the women's line.

Secondly, where other designers might have launched these pieces as fleeting seasonal offerings (destined to be deemed embarrassingly passe by mid-year), Senza Stagione includes everything from naturally dyed silk pieces to what she calls "airport wear"— a concept so pragmatic it's stunning it isn't more common. 

Because these aren't one-off runway experiments. They are thoughtfully conceived staples: Unisex bombers, joggers, stretch ribbed linen tees, wetsuits, mix and match bikinis, silk-tencel lounge dresses, and thin cashmere tops that don't punish the wearer for daring to sit in economy class for eight hours.

"Everything we do at Lisa Von Tang, we try to make it seasonless," said Crosswhite. "This means we can keep on refining the same outfits — add a loop, swap out a material, refine a fit. I like redoing the same thing which is not easy with a seasonal show. This way, I can slowly change things. It's not sustainable environmentally and energetically to keep creating a new collection for each new season. I did it at the beginning of my career, but I don't want to do that anymore.

In other words, Senza Stagione isn't truly new — it's the culmination of years of incremental improvements to pieces her loyal customers already recognise. 

There's something quietly radical about a designer who rejects the fashion industry's relentless cycle of planned obsolescence. While most labels work tirelessly to make last season's purchases feel hopelessly dated (hello, fashion FOMO), Crosswhite liberates customers by creating items designed to evolve and improve over time rather than be discarded after a single season.

Even more revolutionary? The clothes are pre-washed, machine washable, and quick-drying. It's as if Crosswhite recognises that not everyone wants to spend on overpriced hotel laundry services.

Her business model mirrors this practical sensibility. Instead of chasing traditional retail distribution and its razor-thin margins, she sells primarily online and through carefully chosen luxury hotels like Patina and Banyan Tree, plus her boutique in New Bahru. "I prefer to focus on higher quality basics, rather than compete with chains in a highly unsustainable way."

This unorthodox approach stems perhaps from the fact that Crosswhite's path to fashion wasn't the typical Central Saint Martins to runway pipeline. Before creating her label in 2017, she studied political science, crafted marketing strategies at Ogilvy & Mather, and ran a multi-label boutique.

The most revealing tell of this background is her approach to modelling her collection. Instead of the usual suspects — professional models who make clothes look good at the expense of making real people feel bad — Crosswhite uses friends, including songwriter and music producer, Brandon Leo, and comedian Kishan J, who, during the Mandai Rainforest Resort photoshoot for Senza Stagione, discovered a new appreciation for his physique: "I never realised I had a butt until I wore the swimsuit!” If that isn't the highest endorsement for swimwear, what is?

Another piece that stands out is a black backless gown versatile enough to transition from beach club to dance club — solving that eternal vacation dilemma of packing separate wardrobes for day and night. There's also a sinewy kimono featuring white splashes on black silk inspired by Crosswhite’s grandfather’s calligraphy, bringing personal history into what could otherwise be just another beach cover-up destined for the "never wore it again" pile.

The textiles picked, and the way they’re cut and fitted create comfortable pieces that Crosswhite says "stay on top of the skin but don't grip”.

Her commitment to eco-conscious production also avoids the usual tropes of scratchy fabrics and sanctimonious messaging. Her silks are dyed in a studio near Ubud in Bali using mango leaves and natural woods, with even the runoff water recycled.

In an industry built on making us feel perpetually behind the curve and designing clothes that dazzle in controlled environments — photoshoots, runways, red carpets — Crosswhite's seasonless vision offers the ultimate luxury: stylish pieces that acknowledge we're human beings with different body types who sit, eat, travel through airports, and actually live in our clothes rather than just pose in them. 

All while looking absolutely fabulous.

Senza Stagione by Lisa Von Tang is available at New Bahru, and at Patina Maldives and Patina Osaka from May 2025.