Meet ZiLing Dong, the winner of the Sportswear & Leisurewear Award at GFW21. ZiLing, who is a graduate from Edinburgh College of Art, impressed the judges from GymShark with her work, which is inspired by physical and mental imbalance. “I got inspiration from distorted body shapes, bad living habits, and unbalanced life states,” she says. “The collection presented the transitions between balance, imbalance, compensatory balance and many other states in a dark and exaggerated way.” Read on below!
How do you feel about winning an award at GFW21?
I feel very excited and honoured that my work has been recognized by an authoritative organization of Fashion. In the process of preparing my graduation project, I would get excited when I came up with a good idea, and I would also feel self-doubt and collapse when I met a bottleneck. I am very grateful to my tutor (Lyndsey) for her patience and exact demands. She always asking for more from me. And I am also grateful to my parents for their unconditional support and trust in me. Because of the epidemic, I have experienced a lot of hardships this year, but what I can know is that I enjoy design more and more, and I love life more. I will be more confident and determined to go to my dream place in the future.
What is the most valuable thing you have learnt at university?
I think the most valuable thing to learn is a change in my mode of thinking. When I meet difficulties, I need to find ways to solve them by myself instead of waiting for the teacher's help. The awareness of independent learning helps me to find more shortcomings and constantly improve myself. Learning fashion design also let me observe life and myself better. Everything and emotion can give me different inspirations when interpreted from different perspectives. I think the change in my way of thinking makes me discover a whole new world.
What was the starting point of inspiration for your final project?
The collection is about the expression of imbalance, which comes from the physical disease, named scoliosis. During the understanding and cure of this kind of disease, l did a lot of self-reflection. Finally, I found that I not only had an imbalanced body but also had mental imbalance (anxiety and insomnia), which both caused by an unbalanced lifestyle. It means that too much time was spent on working without any exercising or relaxation. I got inspiration from distorted body shapes, bad living habits, and unbalanced life states. The collection presented the transitions between balance, imbalance, compensatory balance and many other states in a dark and exaggerated way.
What form does your FMP take?
The customers are the diverse women who are bold, confident and keeping fit. They enjoy participating in parties and being the centre of the crowd. It is worth noting that they are fascinated by sported style fashion even on some formal occasions. I referred to the concept of wearing one garment in more than one way to express different states and establish the relationship between garments and customers, which can increase the usage rate of one product and support sustainable development strategy. I try to break the boundary between the accessory and garment, which means I want to deconstruct the accessory and transform it into part of detachable garments.
What materials have you used and how did you source them?
I selected navy and dark as the main tone decorated with neon lights colours. The comfortable elastic fabric was used as Close-fitting parts. As for the big volume of silhouette, I choose supported shinning fabric, including nylon organza, Sandwich stretch mesh and so on. Most of the time, I will choose fabrics in the ShiLiuPu Fabric Mall in Shanghai, China, in which I can find almost all kinds of basic fabrics. In a physical store, I can actually touch the fabric and feel its texture. These fabrics in malls are more suitable for doing some fabric transformation. In my spare time, I will also collect samples of high-end creative fabrics on Taobao, which are suitable for direct use in fashion design.
How has it evolved from your initial ideas and what have you learnt along the way?
As for the big silhouette, my inspiration mainly comes from the unbalanced power caused by bad living habits. I used similar interspersed flat panels to create three-dimensional effects. I tried to create complex and exaggerated structures and volumes through a minimalist approach. This is a great way to get more results with less effort, and it allows you to achieve significant results with minimal effort. What is more, the randomness and uniqueness of this way can bring people a sense of surprise.
As for the design of the tight part, I used a special elastic material to produce mixed colour pleats. This part of the inspiration comes from the disease mitigation methods and the characteristics of the special materials. For the overall look design, I used the combination of exaggerated silhouette and tight parts, which can highlight the sense of imbalance and morbid distortion. In the process of research, I learned to use more accurate and interesting methods to express and strengthen different concepts and ideas. Gradually, I found my own style and design language.
What are the messages and themes behind your project that you want people to take away? Do explore any topics like diversity, sustainability or politics in your work?
This collection is conceptual but functional, which is aimed at revealing the phenomenon of life-work imbalance in society and arousing people's reflection and introspection. What’s more, the concept of wearing one garment in more than one way not only create more functions of one garment but also increase the emotion between the customers and products, which can increase the utilization efficiency support sustainable development strategy.
What’s an aspect of the fashion industry that you’re passionate about fixing or having a positive impact on?
First of all, environmental protection is a topic closely concerned by all sectors of society. In the future design, I will regard environmental protection as my necessary research task. What I'm most interested in is shape-shifting clothing. I am also very interested in technological clothing and biological fabrics. I hope they can be applied to my design in the future. I think both fashion and art serve people. After people's material needs are met, their spiritual needs should not be ignored. Therefore, Fashion, as an artistic language, the story, emotion and meaning behind garments are very important. I will also continue to explore the artistry of clothes and try to find a balance between conceptual and artistic.
Now that you have finished your degree, what's your plan?
Next, I will prepare my works for the postgraduate entrance examination, hoping to continue higher study in fashion. The four years in university let me have a preliminary understanding of fashion, myself and life. I hope that my design style and language can become more mature during the postgraduate period. Then I want experience the real life through traveling and different part-time jobs. Finally, hope to find more things I am interested in and discover more aspects of myself.