Implicit Beauty in Eastern Culture

2022 Fashion Design MFA graduate thesis collection created by Yunjiao (Ciea) Mao. Presented on June 8, 2022 at 'Unbound: Fashion Design MFA Showcase.'
Department: Fashion Design.
"I cannot say that my dreams and reality are entirely separate. They are intertwined. Dreams are a kind of subconscious. They reflect our subconscious cognition of things during the daytime. Scenes of our dreams may also appear in our real lives as a kind of prediction. With the passage of time, this dreamland seems to become a part of my memory. As more time passes, I sometimes can't tell if something that happened was a dream or something that I actually experienced."
The collection is inspired by the cultural dilemmas that I have experienced living in Eastern and Western societies. Going back to personal roots, I use folds, layers and dimensional fabrications to find beauty under the more veiled expression of Eastern culture. It's a journey of self-discovery to explore two aspects, nature and people, and to understand the harmony of them. It's free and restrained, strong but soft. It aims to empower women with its oversized silhouette and create an emotional resonance through a surge of power in a static state.