From "Butterfly Lover" to "Yuji Silver Building", from "Paris Chinatown" to "Candlelight Flowers", the works of fashion designer Qi Yueqi always naturally exude the fusion of Chinese and Western styles and identity belonging from the homeland. Drawing creative inspiration from traditional culture and history, she applied eye-catching Chinese dragon motifs, vases and other elements to her design, combined with traditional weaving techniques and glass bead strings, to create a different style of women's design culture characterized by romance and grotesqueness, and successfully qualified for the semi-finals of the 9th LVMH Young Designers Grand Prix.
As one of the most plump and distinctive Chinese designers in the current narrative, Qi Yueqi uses Chinese language to depict the present, extracts inspiration from different fragments of time, creates new ideas, uses fashion to express the output of Chinese culture and the collision of Eastern and Western aesthetics, and conveys unique aesthetic ideas in the contemporary context; in the continuous exploration and experimentation of traditional crafts, through the innovation of the couture concept, to promote the perceptual boundaries of women's clothing.
The collision of oriental aesthetics and modern design
YUEQI QI Fall/Winter 2021 Collection
Qi Yueqi founded the same name brand Yueqi Qi in 2019, studied in St. Martin and worked in the couture design department of CHANEL, DIOR and other brands gave her rich creative experience, and the growth process of Lingnan is the root of her design, and also achieved Yueqi Qi's ingenious retro style and avant-garde tone.
In Qi Yueqi's view, design is an expression that is biased towards personal narrative, and each creation is derived from what the individual sees and hears, which is a pure perspective. Since the creation of the brand, Qi Yueqi's several seasons of creation around the Chinese narrative have all taken the traditional Chinese customs as the starting point, such as "Butterfly Lover", "Paper Jewelry", "Goodbye, Rice Field" and other series, which are easy for Qi Yueqi to be labeled as a "Chinese style" designer by the outside world. Especially at present, the title of "Chinese designer" implicitly pins on a beautiful expectation and a heavy sense of responsibility, and it is necessary to undertake the mission of cultural export. In this regard, Qi Yueqi said that "Chinese designer" is a classification of identity, no matter where you go, Chinese identity and cultural traditions will be integrated into the body and mind. Because of this, no matter how she does it and how to express it, it belongs to her own "Chinese style perspective".
YUEQI QI Fall/Winter 2021 Collection
"Interpreting the essence of traditional Chinese culture in your own way, so that oriental aesthetics and modern design collide" is Qi Yueqi's creative pursuit. In her view, the combination of traditional craftsmanship and modern style in the new Chinese aesthetics not only loses the charm of oriental tradition, but also the style is bold and avant-garde. She is willing to integrate the retro Chinese intention into the wave of modern fashion, using Chinese elements such as Tang costumes, Hanfu and qipao in traditional craftsmanship, while adding Western-style ready-to-wear structures to the version, while drawing on the style of modernism and innovating.
YUEQI QI GUCCI VAULT
In the Spring/Summer 2022 collection, named after Johnny Thunders' song "Bright Lights, Big City", Qi Yueqi has made fashion have a higher spiritual value through the complexity and artistry of traditional Chinese craftsmanship. Interestingly, the distinctly Chinese elements of the past dissolve into the style, and the details of the clothing are presented in a more elaborate form. Qi Yueqi uses bead embroidery to form a three-dimensional print, and uses a mirror material to laser cut into a representative "love" totem. "This season's work also belongs to the 'personal Chinese expression', but on the basis of Chinese history and culture, elements of the rock spirit are added, and the rock spirit is common to both China and the West." Qi Yueqi said.
The romance and grotesqueness of glass beads
UEQI QI Spring/Summer 2022 collection
Glass bead strings and traditional weaving are the core fabrics in Qi Yueqi's design, carrying her original intention of dedication to craftsmanship. In the traditional process, glass beads are only part of embroidery, but Qi Yueqi improved it, using beads to connect them into a flexible fabric that can be spliced with other different materials. At the same time, she is also good at using color to render emotions, and the coloring of heavy ink and color is interlaced with traditional Chinese totems and patterns on the costumes, and the beauty of the regional characteristics is eye-catching.
In the 2020 "Yuji Silver Building" autumn and winter series, the design made of bead embroidery and traditional weaving techniques, the Chinese aesthetic under the wave of nostalgia and retro has made Qi Yueqi famous. In her creation, Qi Yueqi uses jade beads as a bright thread, uses traditional weaving techniques and characteristic glass bead strings, and weaves a "gorgeous dream" with the concept of couture, while integrating the Chinese thermos print of the 1990s to present the warmth of the times. She not only replaces digital printing with a pattern woven from beads, but also strings inconspicuous beads into a whole piece of colorful "three-dimensional fabric", and on this basis, she creates a fanciful creation, pushing the bead embroidery and embroidery that were originally used as supporting roles to the spotlight of the people and becoming an important protagonist. And this is also the most distinctive style feature of Qi Yueqi.
YUEQI QI Fall/Winter 2021 Collection
In the 2021 "Fairchild" autumn and winter series, Qi Yueqi gave her personal story to a richer layer of expression to the series. Black and gold beaded woven flowers attached to the armor-like woven coat extend upwards; medal-like beads are embellished on soft and comfortable fabrics, like a family legend and a comfortable life at home; tassels embellished with iconic glass bead weaving and colorful love fabrics are lightly jumped, Chinese, exotic, retro, and grotesque beaded weaving and unique fabrics exude Western romance with Chinese flavor; the flowers embellished in the re-created jade check print symbolize the return and renewal of the original culture. And the designer's perception of hometown and bloodline changes in different spaces and times.
For Qi Yueqi, the exploration and innovation of traditional Chinese aesthetics is a continuous and long-term process, and the source of these traditional images is not only related to the physical level, but also to emotion, experience and perception. Qi Yueqi reconstructs the connection between clothing and Chinese elements, presents the unique aesthetics of romance and beauty with the iconic bead weaving process, conveys true emotions in one ingenious work after another, and looks for answers to the language and narrative system of Chinese fashion development.