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I am a dedicated, versatile designer trained to a professional level in fashion, skilled in garment design and textile surface design with an international mindset. A self-starter who can conduct a design project with given brief independently, as well as a team player with good communication skills. Always work with can-do attitude, willing to push the boundaries, and open to a diverse designer role with wide-range tasks.
From 2017 to 2020, I have been professionally trained in several high-end fashion brands including CIMONE, DAVID KOMA, Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, and SAFiYAA London as a Design Assistant in London, UK. I have also gained precious work experiences at TOS Gallery and Reconstruct as an Assistant Designer in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I was mainly responsible for womenswear design with expertises applied such as textile experiment, pattern cutting, toile / sample making, trend & design research, and art direction for shoot.
Besides, I have also worked on a collaboration project with Givaudan Scent Company to produce textile surface design for branding, along with packaging design campaigns for their fragrance products. I carried out this project during my study in MA Fashion at Kingston University, London.
Rethink Feminism
Personal Project
Fashion Design & Styling (2019)
The Overlapping Space
MA Major Project
Fashion Design (2017)
The Smell of Distance – Part 1
Givaudan Scent Project
Textile Surface Design (2017)
The Smell of Distance – Part 2
Givaudan Scent Project
Print & Packaging Design (2017)
Parasitism – Part 1
BA Final Major Project
Fashion Design (2015)
Parasitism – Part 2
BA Final Major Project
Fashion Design (2015)
Fragileness
Collaboration Project
Print Design & Filmmaking (2016)
Japanese Impressionism
Fashion & Print Design (2016)
Displace-Mental
Fashion Design (2016)
Grunge Erosion
Fashion Photography (2015)
Rethink Feminism
This womenswear collection aims to explore the diverse facets of women, by decoding the development of feminism in fashion history. It also provokes discussion of how 'femininity' is represented as stereotyped design elements in garment design. Such elements include lace, bow tie, skirts, silk satin, translucent fabric, fitted patterns, and floral prints. These symbols of style seems to be expendable, as designers nowadays try to position themselves as powerful feminists. They do so by integrating features of menswear such as suits, trousers and loose fit patterns into womenswear. It raises a provocative question: Does a woman have to dress like a man to be taken seriously?
As Simone de Beauvoir expressed in the feminist Bible 'The Second Sex', “Man is a human being with sexuality; woman is a complete individual, equal to the male, only if she too is a human being with sexuality. To renounce her femininity is to renounce a part of her humanity.” It’s possible to re-define modern women's dressing philosophy from a perspective that differs from Normcore. The compromise between male gaze and female autonomy is not only related to the length of the skirt, the revelation of bare skin, or the transparency of fabric. It is more about how women could express their genuine desires by wearing clothes. Real feminism is to embrace one’s inner character, and to accept masculinity mentally and physically. This means a woman can be sensitive and adorable, yet strong and intelligent at the same time.
This garment collection visualises such a design concept with pleats, unisex patterns, garment layering, and hardware elements. It balances the traits of men and women, as well as elegance and strength. By doing so, an angelic human form beyond the gender binary is born.
The fashion styling and art direction of this collection are also focused on the feminism paradox, with an interesting contrast between the two main functions of garments, which are revealing yet protecting at the same time. To be liberated from the appeal of dressing up to earn social status, a woman is given a choice to decide what to wear on her body, how to wear these clothes, and how to use garments as proof of her own identity. Furthermore, she can choose whether or not to be defined by any kind of beauty standard.
Photographer: Cielo Yu
Fashion Designer / Stylist: Ming-I Hsu
Art Director / Set Designer: Sunny Chiu
Make-up & Hair: Zhi Zhi
Make-up & Hair Assistant: Ted Kuo
Model: Kate Usok
The Overlapping Space
"How does lighting affect our spatial perception, and in what ways can this be visualised in garment construction?"
Spatial perception is vital to observe the orientation of objects, and the environment that surrounds us. The ability to comprehend two and three dimensions depends heavily on our perception of space. Architecture, for example, utilises spatial perception to envision structures from various angles. However, space cannot be visualised without light. This raises the following questions: How does light construct space? How does the interaction between light and shadow influence the viewer's perception of a certain object? Is it possible to alter dimensions of space by manipulating natural and artificial light?
This conceptual womenswear project is to explore the intricate interation between architecture and lighting, with the great architect Stevel Holl's design philosophy applied, to interprete the spatial relationship between human body, the environment, and the garment itself.
Designer: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Ezzidin Alwan
Make-up & Hair: Andrew Velasquez
Model: Mila Alex
Lighting Assistant: Max van Mesdag, Lanhua Huang
The Smell of Distance – Part 1
This collaboration project with Givaudan Scent Company is to translate the "Shadow Affection" fragrance into visible language, with textile surface designs and print/packaging designs.
The smell of scent can always be associated with certain type of emotion, memory or even tactile sensation. For Shadow Affection, it intrigues the feeling of distance. For example, the physical distance between two locations, the mental distance between two people who are in an unstable relationship (or technically speaking) the 3D demonstration of distance condensed into 2D photography by using different depth of field.
Additionally, this scent can also be visualised with marine color tone, mainly consisting of blue, green, cream, and white.
Designer / Art Director: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Max van Mesdag
The Smell of Distance – Part 2
This collaboration project with Givaudan Scent Company is to translate the "Shadow Affection" fragrance into visible language, with textile surface designs and print/packaging designs.
The smell of scent can always be associated with certain type of emotion, memory or even tactile sensation. For Shadow Affection, it intrigues the feeling of distance. For example, the physical distance between two locations, the mental distance between two people who are in an unstable relationship (or technically speaking) the 3D demonstration of distance condensed into 2D photography by using different depth of field.
Additionally, this scent can also be visualised with marine color tone, mainly consisting of blue, green, cream, and white.
Parasitism – Part 1
The project is inspired by the sculptures created by Kanemaki Yoshitoshi that presents a mixture of several human bodies, as well as Theory of Personalities put forward by Sigmund Freud. The conception of “putting two souls into one body which are parasitizing each other” is embodied by these conceptual art works, and executed under no limitation for garment construction.
Designer: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Leo Liu
Hair & Make-up: L.H Wu
Model: Rong Chen
Parasitism – Part 2
The project is inspired by the sculptures created by Kanemaki Yoshitoshi that presents a mixture of several human bodies, as well as Theory of Personalities put forward by Sigmund Freud. The conception of “putting two souls into one body which are parasitizing each other” is embodied by these conceptual art works, and executed under no limitation for garment construction.
Designer: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Leo Liu
Hair & Make-up: L.H Wu
Model: Rong Chen
Fragileness
Gesture language — no matter whether random gestures that give more hints to support the spoken language, or the sign language for deaf people — both are significant ways to conduct conversations. Through these visual means of communicating with gestures, facial expression and body language, people with hearing impairments develop their own information exchanging culture.
The process of people talking by signs is like invisible emotions and thoughts flourishing among their fingers and the whole body. Based on this understanding, we decide to create a series of photo shoots expressing inner struggles and conflicts. In this project, plan of utilizing the projection technique to visualise this imagination for communication has been made.
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Using withered rose and broken leaves as the main visual factors to create the vision of spatial distortion. The boiled depressed emotion continuing rolling in the deep inside one’s heart, with thin surface tension supporting one’s sheer thread of rationality, keeping oneself from losing his/her purity.
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Rendering cold tone to construct one’s inner brain, while complicated memory coding language symbolizes dark secret—the one you cannot tell a soul. The dialogue between one and his/her Id self silently drowns into the flowing words with transparent but blazing atmosphere to express unknown feeling.
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Creating imagery with fragments of broken ruins as the background, with chains and ropes tying up one’s struggle from escape. One cannot do anything but being imprisoned by a virtual jail built up by one’s hidden dark secret, suffocated inevitably by heart-broken emotion.
Director: Sunny Chiu
Photographer: Mose Photography
Producer: Ming-I Hsu
Stylist: Sunny Chiu
Model: Rong Chen
Print designer: Ming-I Hsu
Soundtrack: H1987 “Astral”
Japanese Impressionism
The project is to deconstruct and reconstruct Japanese culture with concept of spatial distortion and the contrast between concretisation and abstraction, mix traditional and contemporary materials into innovative print development, as well as artisan textile experiments.
Designer: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Leo Liu
Hair & Make-up: L.H Wu
Model: Jessica Kuo
Displace Mental
The project is to explore the concept of incompletion in terms of Gestalt Psychology. Sometimes we rather see "Incompletion" as the synergy of several broken parts than a defective individual.
Skills like misplacing, overlapping, and cut-out to displace certain clothing parts from where they should be is used, thus redefines a new way to integrate garment construction.
Designer: Ming-I Hsu
Photographer: Leo Liu
Hair & Make-up: L.H Wu
Model: Jildou Heijungs
Grunge Erosion
Collaboration project with stylist Sunny Chiu.
To explore the sub-culture phenomenon like ‘90s Grunge fashion, along with the unorthodox beauty lies in homeless chic.
Photographer: Ming-I Hsu
Model: Kelly Sun
Make-up & hair: Sunny Chiu
Clothing designers: Sunny Chiu, Zoe Yeh
