Jiarui is a Chinese fashion graduate from the University of Edinburgh, who specializes in creative draping, pattern cutting and print designs. Her personal interest is to explore he concept through innovative draping and structures. Her research topics often link Chinese culture with contemporary fashion.
With the experiences in China and the UK, Jiarui often expresses her family heritage, personal observation of Chinese social phenomenon or personal experiences in her design development. Cultural and structural aspects are her interests in fashion. She likes to research through primary pictures and interviews, then connect with Western artists and designers. Her design works are generally inspired by creative draping or deconstruction ideas.
INSPIRATION
The concept of this collection came from my primary observation in Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Nanjing. China has undergone rapid urbanization in the past decades, but there are also dystopian sides about it. I focus on the dystopian elements of urbanization through my observation of Chinese ‘villages in cities’ and the crowded underground, to reveal the difficult lives of young working Chinese people in metropolitan cities.
I wanted to explore escapism from modern, crowded life through clothing by reinterpret tailoring through several deconstruction experiments simulating the ‘compression’ concept. The experimental structures and tailoring were combined to inspire draping and pattern cutting in this collection.
DETAIL
I wanted to express this kind of compression and breathlessness of Chinese new generation after my trip to Guangzhou urban villages and observation of the underground in my hometown Nanjing. I researched into the photographer Michael Wolf who captured dystopian sites in Hong Kong and Tokyo. I also collaborated with jewelry designer Ning Zhang, who provided the necklace and earrings.