Twenty-something Chinese clothing designer Yiqing Yin is making waves in the fashion industry. The designer, who lives and works in Paris, serves as the creative directer for the Léonard brand’s fall-winter 2013/14 season—she recently debuted her first ready-to-wear line for the brand— while also working her own haute couture and casual wear lines. While the life of any designer may be quite busy, Yin, a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, is showing six collections a year and her designs can be found stores around the globe. Yin’s creations are sold by both luxury and department stores alike including 10 Corso Como in Milan and Seoul, Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, Joyce in Hong Kong and Beijing, and Montaigne Market in Paris. Referring to how she manages such an immense workload and designing two vastly different clothing styles, she told South China Morning Post, “It’s all about staying focused and having a well-organized team around you. It’s true that the frantic rhythm of ready-to-wear is new to me, as designing couture has always been my main focus. It is a unique and personal process, and is designed according to a woman’s personality. But juggling both is a great experience, even if haute couture and ready-to-wear require a completely different approach on design and work rhythm.” So how did Yin become such an accomplished designer at such a young age? Aside from studying design at a prestigious university, she was also handpicked by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (the French Federation of Haute Couture and Ready-to-Wear) to show her couture line. Being picked is a huge honor as the federation chooses to feature the lines of only a few promising designers and labels a year. The young designer impressed the board of the federation by presenting clothing that integrated conceptual, traditional, and innovative elements. “In my own collections, the haute couture appellation is reflected through my take on craftsmanship, [and] that I constantly explore as I want it to be boundary pushing, fresh and young,” she said. Yin’s approach to couture includes many novel and experimental methods. She is known for creating custom fabrics, using liquid organza, tie-dyes, laser cuts and using other modern techniques.”For us, couture is an experimental laboratory. We embroider common materials with rather luxurious ones, such as medical gauze, which we elaborate with node points and pad with fleece that is usually only used for the lining of clothes, but we use to embellish the surface of our garments,” she said. Yin also added that much of her inspiration comes from nature. She said elements of light, form, and fragility all influence her designs in some way. In all of her lines she aims to create clothes that function as “second skins,” and are designed with body shape in mind. She describes those who wear her clothes as flâneuse, “a medusa of modern times with a casual state of mind who feels at great ease with her self.” With such a promising and already impressive career, Yiging Yin is definitely a designer to watch out for. With modern twists on traditional wear and an eye for innovation, Yin is certain to maintain the attention of the fashion industry for quite some time.

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