Rippling Realm: Woven Poetry
A year of hand embroidery to keep the light on the sea, one summer afternoon.
Concept
It was a summer afternoon. I was sitting on a lounge chair at a seaside café, the breeze was soft, and sunlight was breaking across the sea into countless glittering points, flickering and shifting without pause.
I wanted to keep that moment. Not as a photograph, but as something that could be worn.
The dress took a full year to make. At its base is Lunéville embroidery: layers of dyed organza build up into seaweed that grows along the lines of the body. Over the seaweed, sequins, beads and crystals are added one at a time. Under light, they scatter small flashes of colour, just like the water I saw that day.
What I wanted to hold on to was not only the light, but the feeling: calm, and dazzling at the same time.
Exhibitions & Awards
Interweaving the Future — 2025 Paris Fashion Art Biennale
WILDE, Paris, France · 10–13 Oct 2025
Part of Light from China Fashion Art Week in Paris
In October 2025, Rippling Realm: Woven Poetry was shown at WILDE in the Marais, Paris, as part of Interweaving the Future — the 2025 Paris Fashion Art Biennale, the main exhibition of Light from China Fashion Art Week in Paris. Built around the idea of cultural interweaving, the Biennale brought together fashion art by designers and artists from China and France. The work received the New Exploration Award.
Carrying the creative light of China's younger generation, illuminating the way forward across the open field of fashion.
Design & Making: Jinming Zhang
