31 Jan YI @ Who’s Next / Paris

The B2B ready to wear fashion fair happened in Paris this past weekend. The fair gathers numerous fashion designers and brands from France and all over the world to present their upcoming FW17-18 collections.
While visiting the fair and discovering new trends and brands, The Chinese Pulse had the chance  to cross the road of YI,  a Chinese brand showcasing its collections on Fame, the trendiest section of Who’s Next fair.

We met with Yiven Bai, designer of the brand Yi, and discussed about her inspiration.

All her designs are inspired by Chinese rich history and culture, she will look into the different dynasties, Chinese landscape painting and poetry. For this winter collection, Song Dynasty was the main inspiration.

Soflty challenging the bad connotation of « Made in China », Yiven Bai is searching for the best quality fabrics to develop her products. Each year, she goes to Premiere Vision fabric fair in Paris to source European qualitative fabrics. Most of them come from Italy. Except for silk, where of course she recognizes the best ones are coming from China!

Yi is a good incarnation of what is a main part of Chinese fashion turning to: A Nationalism rebirth but conscious about quality. It’s a fusion of East and West with pure and clean shapes created and inspired by China and with qualitative fabrics coming mainly from Europe.

She presented three of her key pieces:

A premium coat made of Italian wool & cashmere

The use of red color for Chinese tradition & symbolic

Insertion of neon PVC material to twist the design of a traditional coat

Click here to get more info about YI