PLAYING WITH COLOR

Zhi Chen, the founder of a brand that focuses exclusively on knitting, tells her story and talks of what inspires her

While many fashion designers insist on injecting complex concepts into their works, Zhi Chen keeps her designs simple and delights customers without imposing philosophical burdens on them.

"If fashion is superficial, why should I pretend it isn't?" says Zhi, 27, the founder of a brand called i-am-chen, which focuses exclusively on knitting.

She is deeply influenced by the delicate designs of American sculptor Alexander Calder, especially his signature mobiles.

She thinks Calder's work has blurred the boundary between the world of toys and art.

"In his artworks there are no obscure and intricate parts - it is all simple and happy."

Last year, Zhi produced knitwear pieces that ranged from large bucket-shaped hats to skirts and jumpers for her graduation collection, Playground, at the London College of Fashion.

To design the collection, she first projected images onto the models' bodies.

Then, the lines and shapes generated from the projections were used as the inspiration for the structure and details of the designs.

At the university, she developed a technique which enables the seamless merging of color blocks and knitwear patterns. And using the technique, she produced knitwear underpinned by highly intricate and sophisticated fabric structures that render a smooth surface and present the intricacy as a harmonious whole.

Later, she was commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in New York for an exhibition called Items: Is Fashion Modern?, for which she created a pencil skirt that spliced lycra, nylon and angora wool together seamlessly.

It was densely knitted with nontraditional yarn, and does not wrinkle.

Paola Antonelli, the curator of the exhibition, described the skirt as "liberating and accommodating".

This year, the brand launched its spring/summer 2018 collection.

The collection is inspired by the British painter, David Hockney, who records the beauty of daily life using very bright colors.

For the collection, Zhi first put down her impressions of spring and summer in drawings only an iPad, and later translated the images into knitting patterns.

Lemons and swimming pools are the main themes of the collection.

Among the designs are one which features cactuses in green with a yellow edge, and a green plant in a blue vase.

The brand presented over 60 pieces of knitwear in the 2018 autumn and winter collection titled Color Bomb at the Freemason's Hall in London on the second day of the Spring Festival.

The name of the collection came from a quote by Andre Derain, the founder of Fauvism, which says: "Color became a bomb. They will inevitably shine. In the sense of freshness, anything can rise above reality."

Although Zhi is not sure whether she fully understands the meaning of this famous quote, she was deeply attracted to the words "color" and "bomb", and also the use of bright colors in Derain's early works.

Meanwhile, Color Bomb is the brand's first collection that features traditional knitting materials such as wool and cashmere.

But the collection also has classic elastic fibers, which allow the traditional loose knitwear to stretch.

Zhi says she spent a lot of time in the factory to study and discuss new techniques. And, as a result, they broke through the limitations of monotonous colors and simple patterns of seamless knitwear by using Jacquard.

Looking at Zhi's design works, it is not hard to see that she always attaches importance to technological breakthroughs.

But what is not known is that passion comes from her family background.

Zhi was born into a family that runs a machinery business in Fujian province.

And, as a science student in senior high school, she applied for an engineering place in university, hoping to help the family business.

Although she later opted to pursue fashion design, she has always been fond of machines.

So far, i-am-chen, which is a year old, is being sold by Lane Crawford and Browns in Britain.

Last month, it won the Business Potential Award at Shanghai Fashion Week.

For now, it may seem that the path to success for Zhi has been short and easy, but she went through quite a struggle to find her feet.

Initially, she was drawn toward the public aesthetic and was swayed by the preference of people around her.

In fact, at first, most of her design works at school comprised dark black, gray and white.

She says that at the time she was mostly modifying her designs until they turned into totally different works based on her tutor's opinion.

"As a student, I should have chosen what I listen to, rather than follow people's suggestions as an order," says Zhi.

And, she says, this went on until the day her mentor Nigel Luck suggested that she should let the design represent who she really is.

And she adds that this is when she started to follow her real passion for color.

"People are born with a unique aesthetic sense, so don't fight with it." says Zhi, who thinks that studying design should be a process of discovery.

Speaking about her work, Zhi says she does not consider herself an artist.

"I don't see design as something emotional, especially when it comes to business. It is just a calculation of how to make the design serve people with comfort and maintain its personal style to the best extent possible."

Zhi says she is glad that her designs are appreciated by different groups of people, including museums like MOMA, magazines, and workers at her factory.

"Today I feel so happy because the cleaning lady came up to me and said my dress looked really pretty."

xuhaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/05/2018 page20)