Show and tell

Have the events of this year impacted your designs in any specific way?

The coronavirus crisis has affected my collection. I've had to face a lot of pressure and difficulties; this year is a challenge for every design student. For example, many fabric stores in Sham Shui Po reduced their opening hours or closed entirely due to the coronavirus. It was challenging for me to purchase materials. So I needed to reserve more time to prepare materials and reschedule plans. When there are any situational changes, I've had to find ways to tackle all the difficulties. My plan has had to keep changing, and I've felt tired and frustrated, but I have to keep my faith until the end.

In my collection, I've applied various embroidery techniques. I had many ideas, but none of the embroidery factories in Hong Kong could do what I wanted, so I had to find them in the Chinese mainland. Without face-to-face communication, I had to contact the technician through a mobile app and it was hard to explain my design to him. As a result, production schedules have been significantly slowed and hampered by social-distance constraints.

Who are your favorite designers?

My favorite fashion designer is Lee Alexander McQueen. "I want people to be afraid of the women I dress," he once said. He created women into a femme fatale image. They looked so dangerous – but attractive. As evidenced by his tremendous work, he indeed maintained his savage beauty. He had his own sense of beauty, and his inspiration came from darkness and twisted stories. His design concept was evil but romantic, and his designs were a new form of strange, violent dreams; he was a remarkable designer. He found himself operating on the edges of darkness, attempting to respond to an often inhospitable world with cloth, trying to break the general rules and express his own emotions. He told his story through every design detail and used unusual ways to express his thoughts that went against the ordinary sense of beauty – he was trying to discover the beauty in the things that we missed.