A unique vision
It is impossible to describe Yiqing Yin simply as a fashion designer. More than fashion, she is passionate about fabric. She does not work behind a drawing board, surrounded by a multitude of colored pencils, ready to imagine her collections and sketch them on paper. Why? Because her work is instinctive and takes shape directly on the fabric. Her clothing is designed like armor, a second skin that protects and strengthens. Yiqing Yin works with her hands. A rectangle of fabric, how it moves, falls, wraps around. The shapes take form on their own, finding their balance between tension and fluidity to better outline the space around the body. It's easy to understand why Yiqing Yin imagined herself as a sculptor.
Yiqing Yin, a woman with an unusual background
Born in China, Yiqing Yin left her country at a very young age for Australia, then France, where she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. She quickly gained recognition from the profession, which saw her as the future of couture, winning the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris, appearing in Vogue, and exhibiting at the Joyce Gallery. Then came the ANDAM prize in 2011 with her first collection. She joined the official haute couture calendar as a Guest Member in January 2012, and Guerlain, Cartier, and Lancôme commissioned her to design creations for their advertising campaigns. Audrey Tautou wore one of her dresses at the opening ceremony of the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
Today, she is responsible for breathing new life into Maison Léonard, bringing her energy and craftsmanship to a new generation of nomadic, modern women, without abandoning her own couture and ready-to-wear collections, which she sees as the essence of her brand.
Constantly experimenting
For the past three years, her fashion house has been shaking up the rules of couture and breathing new life into the industry. Her clothing designs are inspired by the architecture of the human body, the natural world, and its metamorphoses. Rather than freezing things in place, she deconstructs and tears them apart. She starts with the material, allowing movement to take over and mixing natural and technological elements. For the Summer 2015 collection, she focused on working with the Jacquard technique, using images of lichen and faded walls, as well as embroidery combining silk and Lurex, all against a backdrop of origami techniques that highlight her attachment to organic architecture. The structure of the garments is never fixed; the volumes seem to be in flux, in perpetual motion for a woman filled with a certain paradox, between sensuality and violence, dream and rigor, who wears the garment like soft armor.
Yiqing Yin creates an exciting universe that restores fashion's sometimes lost beauty. His designs bring grace and strength through taut lines reminiscent of architecture and an undeniable poetry of movement. An experimental, almost anarchic work that produces a wonderful unpredictability.
Photo credits: ©poiret
