What inspired your collection?

It was the 2021 summer break when I decided to go back to my home country, Indonesia. The Delta variant of the Coronavirus made its debut, which led me to spend most of my time isolated at home. I started playing board games at least once a week with my family, and my neighbours. These games made me feel excited and the unexpectedness gave me a thrill. So I thought to myself: “Hey, let’s do a collection based on board games!”

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

The premise of the game is to allow designers to create a design by  first following each rule and requirement (certain material, colour, techniques, or number of patterns they have to use). This shifts the control away from the designer, challenging consumers in an interactive and playful manner.

What did you hope to achieve with this collection?

I believe that the board games analogy have the potential to aid in co-creation and customisation of garments, increasing their value which ultimately result in a longer life span. It also encourages creatives to design a new garments using second-hand pieces, giving it a new life.

What inspired your collection?

The idea for this collection came to me during lockdown when I spent hours engaging in online discussions. It’s natural for us to shift our weight and assume various positions to get comfortable while sitting down for extended periods of time. And certain positions required more support than others. So I decided to base my graduating collection on creating garments that made those positions more comfortable.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

It was important to me to have as minimal an impact on the environment as possible during the production of my collection. So I chose to work with natural fabrics and employ natural dyes such as coffee and indigo. Also, because of where my garments were produced—Singapore and Indonesia—I used byproducts of the Kapok tree as padding.

Briefly describe your creative process behind the campaign images.

I pictured everything in detail according to my idea of comfort, starting from teddy bear placement in most shots, symbolising comfort. The messy set reflects my usual work environment.

What message did you want to convey through the visuals?

The main purpose of the campaign is to show how the garment supports the body. It also reflects how I spent most of my time during lockdown.

What inspired your collection?

Two things: Genderless fashion and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). With the rise of non-gender conforming individuals reclaiming their identities, I believe that fashion should follow suit. Individuals with ADHD, such as myself, sometimes take prescribed drugs to stimulate their brain and improve attention by helping normal brain chemicals work better. And I dream of a day when I can function without depending on those medications. This is how my collection got its name, Dreamulation. 

Briefly describe your creative process behind the campaign images.

I needed my garments to show two things: Stagnation and movement. As they stand still, listening to commands, the outer shell of the garment hides the prints. But when the wearer starts moving—or in this case, climbs wall—the garment exposes the hidden prints underneath, symbolically exposing the mind of an ADHD individual.

What inspired your collection?

In my pursuit of finding ways to modernise Javanese—my heritage—traditional celebrations, the concept for my collection was born. I want it to celebrate Javanese culture while featuring cultural iconographies such as the Janur Kuning (yellow coconut leave in Javanese) and jasmine flowers used in traditional ceremonies.

What special techniques were employed in the creation of your garments?

I used a laser cutting technique to create textiles featuring patterns inspired by batik prints. I also used those laser cutouts to create and emboss effect on the fabric.

Tell us about the concept behind your campaign images.

It’s the contemporisation of traditional Javanese celebrations through the lens of fashion.

What message did you want to convey through the visuals?

I wanted to remind Indonesian youths that we should we be thankful for our traditions, and recognise that it still has a place in our modern lives.

What inspired your collection?

It centred around a muse who holds an edgy and sensual persona. Specifically, it was inspired by a vocalist of a rock band. I am drawn to the persona of artists–people who are bold and edgy, and in touch with their sensuality.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

Zero-waste, transformational reconstruction-cutting (TR-cutting) and free-flow draping techniques are the different approaches I employed during the design process, highlighting and accentuating silhouettes, with drapes on the bias contouring the curves of the body.

Were there any environmental issues you were trying to solve with your collection?

The Sleeveless Top with raw finishing and edges merges the techniques of both zero-waste and TR-cutting, by manipulating the seam allowances and maximising the usage of a set dimension of fabric, while incorporating it as the design aesthetics of raw finishings.

What can we expect from you next?

For the coming year, I will continue working on my own pieces with the space offered by TAFF at The Makers’ Studio, setting up my brand’s online presence on Instagram as well as a website.

What inspired your collection?

The main inspirations for this collection are my family photos. It is about me reminiscing about my northern Chinese upbringing, and exploring my roots as a Chinese person, through both my personal photographs as well as other Chinese family photos from an online photography archive called Beijing Silvermine.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

For my collection, I focused on up-cycling vintage garments and leftover textiles. I’m able to resize the garments, change their silhouettes and give old garments a new lease of life.

Tell us about the concept behind your campaign images.

I wanted mundane everyday events and backgrounds to juxtapose colourful garments. I also wanted to play with the idea of what is tacky and what is cool. I even managed to convince my mother to model for the shoot as a nod to her wedding photos, appearing in my creative journals and mood boards.

What inspired your collection?

I was inspired by my hometown’s traditional craft of “curium porcelain,” which means using flat metal nails to put broken porcelain back together. [Li grew up in Weihai in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong.] I used this as a starting point to imagine putting different sizes or shapes of porcelain back together to get some silhouettes or patchwork patterns.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

In terms of techniques, my designs use a combination of hand knitting, crochet and hand machine knitting. For the details, I embroidered metal spring wire on the surface to simulate the marks of porcelain restoration. I also used traditional Chinese natural dyes, gardenia fruit and saffron for the yellow and orange dyes, to reduce water pollution.

What can we expect from you next?

I’m planning to build a slow fashion knitwear brand called WREN LI. I am currently designing and preparing to produce the first collection, which will be in small batches using organic materials in an environmentally friendly way.

What inspired your collection?

It all started with these questions: Why do people feel the need to fit into a garment when it should be the other way round? Why do we have a specific defined way to wear garments?

Through these thoughts, I was inspired to create a project that was free-sized, transformable and modular without having to attach or detach panels. Essentially, how the garment is worn is open to the wearer’s interpretations.

Were there any societal issues you were trying to solve with your collection?

The collection is all about modularity as well as transformability. This allows the garment to change according to the wearers’ preference and styling choices. It also eliminates the need for a garment to be discarded if it does not fit the wearer anymore, as it can simply just be worn in a different way so as to accommodate changes in the wearers size and their style preferences.

What message did you want to convey through the campaign visuals?

Abstractness, flexibility, fluidity, and minimalism. To focus solely on the garment.

What inspired your collection?

I’ve always been intrigued by old Malay films.

I looked into singer-actress Saloma’s archived kebayas which inspired the collection. The kebaya was deconstructed and made contemporary through my own digitally printed fabrics to create a new form of kebaya for the modern Malay woman.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

The traditional parang rusak batik motif was done using a stencil that was laser cut and then spray painted. Collages of the lace and the batik motifs were done by hand, then digitally. I also used a heat setting technique to create 3-D textures on the fabric after it was digitally printed.

Tell us more about your collection.

In this collection, I created hybrid garments that can be put together to become a kebaya; they can also be taken apart to be worn with what you already own in your wardrobe.

What inspired your collection?

Memento is inspired by nature. We often take for granted that nature is everywhere, surrounding us. Memento aims to remind how humans and nature are interconnected.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

I used natural dyeing sources such as leaves, barks and seeds. I also experimented by altering the process and ingredient measurements to get different results.

Were there any environmental issue you were trying to solve with your collection?

The collection uses natural ingredients and traditional methods of colouring and printing textiles as a way to tackle issues regarding high chemical use in the normal dyeing process.

What inspired your collection?

The cassava bag was the first thing that came to mind to help overcome problems within the fashion industry such as pollution, water usage, textile waste, and worker safety.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

Cassava is quite sensitive when it comes into contact with water, so I had to reduce its contact with water as much as possible. Otherwise the material will start to shrink and create an uneven surface. I explored so many recipes and techniques in pursuit of natural handmade fabric paints, and I found that spray painting is the best approach.

What inspired your collection?

My collection is a marriage between two disciplines: Fashion and Chinese art (painting, calligraphy and its principles). I have been practising Chinese painting and calligraphy for 15 years, and studied fashion for five. As such, these two disciplines have been a huge part of my life.

What special techniques were involved in the creation of your garments?

The garments are interactive in two ways. First, some elements within the painting can be hidden or displayed depending on the wearer. Next, the garments can be worn in  multiple ways. The skirts can be worn as dresses, and tops can be worn with or without sleeves. This enables more interaction between the wearer and the pieces. In turn, the consumer develops a stronger connection with the pieces.

Tell us about the concept behind your campaign images.

The inspiration was to showcase the works as paintings and as fashion garments. Hence, the garments were hung on a wooden pole to mimic art pieces hung on the wall, and the model also wore one of the garments.

What message did you want to convey through the campaign visuals?

I wanted to convey a sense of timelessness, and for the audience to question if this is a fashion collection or a painting collection. The lighting was also neutralised with the structures. It has a clean look to it, which resembles both a fashion editorial and a museum poster.