I was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Beijing, China. As I grew up in a multi-cultural environment, I gradually began to develop insights and interests in both the traditional Chinese culture and the Western culture. I feel that the designs which I have created are largely influenced by my culture and background, I try to incorporate both the Eastern and Western cultures into my creation of works. For instance, in my most recent collection, I was inspired by a traditional Japanese folk song that was remixed into contemporary electronic music. Hence, for my collection, I combined the traditional Japanese Boro technique and kimono silhouettes with my own interpretation of modern geometrical elements and patterns.

Personally, I find myself very attracted to the geometrics and graphic design aesthetics, where many solid shapes and linear lines are involved. A designer I look up to and admire the most is Issey Miyake. Besides looking into creations that are purely fashion-oriented, I also feel that I tend to draw inspiration from architectural design. I am very interested in vibrant colors and solid shapes, as well as how the structural spaces in architecture can also be merged into fashion. To me, the dimensional forms in architecture and fashion can interchange between one another; the process of forming structural shapes on the human body especially intrigues me. In my opinion, I think my style is more modern than traditional, more structural than linear, and more monotonous than colorful.

Throughout the semester, my research interests have developed and grown as I began to conduct more thorough research and reflect upon how these research interests could be incorporated into my works. I relate to my research topic deeply, as in my previous works, I have been inspired by the relationships between architecture and fashion profoundly, and have investigated both contemporary designers’ styles as well as contemporary architects’ design visions. I think I’m interested in the topic I’ve chosen as I noticed that my designs are primarily focused on the usage of structural shapes and straight lines. Many of my designs resemble architectural elements both in terms of their forms, shapes, and textiles.

To me, my accomplishments in ARS have enhanced my understanding of my own style and the area of interests that I’m intrigued in. It has made me realize that the repetitive motifs in my works could be continued in my future design works, and now that I’m aware of it, I could develop my works more successfully and intentionally by relating back to the origins of my research interests.

As an artist and designer, I approach researching an individual interest first by conducting visual research. I tend to research images that speak to my personal aesthetics and design visions, thus I would further analyze the origin of these images and research about their contextual background.

In my final paper I looked at how the works of contemporary architects Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid are influential to the contemporary fashion world. I would like to continue investigating the connections between fashion and architecture in the future, and I’m likely to incorporate this topic in my thesis project as well. I believe that I will carry on to explore the influence of architectural works by creating collections that resemble architectural elements and perspectives.