“in tran · sient,” by Parsons School of Design graduate Yayi Chen, earned her Emerging Fashion Designer of the Year at the 2019 International Design Awards, as well as Gold in women’s avant-garde. Developed with London-based artist Cathy Mou, with accessories by Andree Kong, the project combines fashion, performance and film.
Its subject is the overlooked labouring body of women in the Chinese immigrant community in Europe. In Chen’s design system, symbolic objects from the interior of a Chinese restaurant are transformed into wearable garments through performance. Mounting drop beads, flaring fringes and decorative knit jacquards adorn the figures, deliberately heightening the objectification of the immigrant woman’s body.
Chen grew up between Spain and China, studied at Parsons in New York with an exchange at Central Saint Martins, and worked at The Row and Thom Browne. The project draws on that trilingual, multicultural background. Its strength is that it treats clothing as an argument as well as an object, making visible the labour that usually stays out of sight.
Official award record: International Design Awards winners
What we decorate, we often stop seeing.
International Design Awards, 2019 — Emerging Fashion Designer of the Year