Engineering a fashionable trend
Designer combines discipline and creativity to produce award-winning clothes, Xu Haoyu reports.
Success and challenge
The designer once frequently designed with black, white and gray colors, which are widely recognized as classic and advanced, when she just began to study at UAL. But she soon realized that "the best part of being a designer is the freedom to make gentle, carefree and spontaneous decisions".
"What's important is who you are," she adds.
Zhi has received many international recognitions, including the Asian Winner of the International Woolmark Prize 2019, the Fashion Scout SS19 Merit Award in the UK, the Fashion Scout AW18 Ones to Watch Award, the Lodz Young Fashion Award 2017, and the Lane Crawford Creative Collective Award 2017.
Her fashion and installation works have been exhibited in internationally renowned museums, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Design Museum in London, and she was invited by the MoMA to create an exhibit for the special fashion exhibition Items: Is Fashion Modern in 2017.
As a successful designer, Zhi says the greatest thing that the brand has brought her is courage.
"Establishing this brand was completely not my life plan, and the whole process of exploring and experimenting was full of challenge, as well as unprecedented happiness and satisfaction. It has taught me to be brave, to challenge myself and to explore different possibilities," she says.
Hu Zhixi, a Chinese singer, describes the show in Puyuan with the word "romantic".
Xu Yi, one of the viewers at the show, comments: "The eye-catching colors and the hat in a dramatic shape all look perfect. I surely want to enjoy the sunset by the ocean in such knitwear."