A break from tradition

Born and raised in Hainan, China, Han Wen moved to the U.S 6 years ago and graduated from Parsons The New School for Design In May 2016. Being privileged enough to live in two great but very different countries; he is an innovative textile driven designer, who is constantly inspired to combine techniques and ideas from different cultures and to incorporate them into his collections.

These new textiles are thoughtfully applied with a natural method he develops for the silhouettes he designs. Constantly experimenting with new ways of creating textiles, he has been exploring different techniques as well as different materials. Han strives to create a balance between his passions of couture construction and wearable clothing.

Every design begins with a fantasy that allows him to rebel and escape from the unfair and unpleasant reality. With this, a confident, powerful and feminine woman figure was born, and this figure has led him to create a thesis collection that encapsulates all these aspects of this strong female figure.

“My senior thesis collection began with this fantasy about what if the world was powered by women. I was inspired to create this fantasy after looking into my own Chinese heritage and the strong women in my family, especially my mother. The textiles developed in this collection were originally inspired by a character that I discovered in one of my mother's novels, of a prominent female general in Chinese history. At first I was quite drawn to the armor that she was wearing, inspiring me to start my own textile experiments.

In order to add diversity and to prevent this collection from being a literal representation of armor, I created my textiles through complex methods and worked with unique materials in order to achieve new fabrications. Additionally, when I was formulating the patterns of the clothes, I converted all the patterns into shapes that would allow all the textiles to harmoniously build into the construction of the garments.

My thesis collection is an exploration of my creativity before I enter into the real industry. It tells a story about the powerful female figure and shows that women can be powerful and feminine at the same time. Most importantly, it represents who I am as a designer. I am proud of this collection and I look forward to developing it further towards a more wearable fashion.”

Photography: Dalong Yang

Makeup: Brooke Benoff & Makeup Pro New York

Models: Ann Kuenmuse & Elena Sartison

Published in VMM Volume 3, Fearless