Interview with Tingyu Hu

Tingyu Hu ("TH") interviewed on Monday, 19 December.

Could you please tell us about your experience as a designer, artist, architect or creator?

TH : I graduated from Pratt Institute in 2020 with a fashion design background. During my student era, working as an assistant at Vera Wang and Anna Sui shaped my path to combine couture techniques into her apparel works. Besides fashion, I also took many fine art classes like Artist's Books, silkscreen, and Illustrations. These courses helped me a lot with developing textiles and other opportunities as a designer to present my works. And I am currently working as a freelance embroiderer for a luxurious gift-shop company and that is a chance to apply my self-taught skills to real industries, which makes me satisfied and grateful.

How did you become a designer?

TH : Before focusing on 2D and 3D art, I was more into stage art like playing the piano and dancing ballet. I was deeply influenced by classical music and aesthetics, Tchaikovsky, 'Little Women', 'Little Princess', you name it. Later on, during my teenage era, I explored Japanese street fashion and historical gowns and it was the beginning of everything. I learned to draw anime figures and then moved on to draw fashion illustrations when I got enough skills. Fashion design is one of my dreams in my childhood, but in my early teen era, I considered that an unrealistic wish. After I got accepted by Pratt Institute in 2016, I finally realized my childhood dream is come true.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

TH : Everything beautiful. Keeping it in my style is my top priority. No matter which form, Ready-to-wear pieces, historical remakes, or more-conceptual garments and accessories, but most of the styles are inspired by historical fashion and movies. I am an old-school person, so 90% of my work relies on hand tasks, and it also influences my fabric choices too. I collect vintage trims and my favorite fabrics are cotton sateen and lace, every time I use them, it gives me a feeling of 'home'. But most of all, concepts are the starting points of everything. I enjoy mass researching on every point I brainstormed of, and move forward from that.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

TH : Peace or euphoria. Most of the time is bittersweet. The beginning is always exciting, then I dive into difficulties with selecting ideas, and the development is relatively impatient for me, and after the struggles, I try to let the result comes with 100% satisfaction.

What particular aspects of your background shaped you as a designer?

TH : Usually the collection of books about my favorite artists and designers inspired me a lot, and literature and poems of 20th-century modernism, Virginia Woolf, Jean Cocteau, Paul Celan, and books that stimulate my brain with vivid visions, and books about art history. About fashion designers, Runway shows by Comme des Garcons and Maison Margiela. The structure and fabric manipulation are always amazing. Every time after watching their shows, I want to create. And my passion for historical and slow fashion, keeps me creating conceptual pieces and garments that consume much time with handy crafts.

What is your growth path? What are your future plans? What is your dream design project?

TH : In the future, I want to focus more on making wearable art pieces, by using the techniques of making installations so that I could try more heavy materials. I am still on the way to discovering possibilities, whether it is opening a studio for making ballet costumes or taking commissions to make performance costumes in general, but for sure I am going to do more historical reconstruction to explore more in historical fashion.

What are your advices to designers who are at the beginning of their career?

TH : Art and design are like labor. To keep it as a habit, do some little practice like writings and doodling in journals, and research art every day to keep me in the atmosphere of creating art and absorbing things. And When you feel something is not right, stop immediately and think over it before you continue.

You are truly successful as a designer, what do you suggest to fellow designers, artists and architects?

TH : To learn how to promote yourselves, but before that, you need to have enough work and build a portfolio. Moreover, you need to understand who is your target customer and what kind of role you are in the industry, such as your strengths and weaknesses. It is not necessary to be good at anything, one or two strengths and developing them to full scale is more important.

How do you keep up with latest design trends? To what extent do design trends matter?

TH : I look at the trend but set up a boundary that I do not want to take too much influence from it. You could say that designing a collection based on the current trend is a strategy though, but in my opinion the most important thing fo r a designer is to keep his/her style under the wave of fashion.

How do you decide if your design is ready?

TH : Put it there and look at it one or two days after. If there is anything I need to fix, then continue to make it till I am satisfied with it; if everything looks fine, then it is enough, I can stop here. I often dig up older projects and think of alternative way to interpret them. Usually, I have multiple projects going on in my head, and sometimes ideas from other projects could inspire me too.

Who is your favourite designer?

TH : Personally, I prefer designers who create the work with deep research behind it. Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo are two examples. As for McQueen the rich historical information behind every collection and the idea of presenting it through performance, every time I watched the video of his past shows it still haunts my mind, I just can not get it off my mind. For Kawakubo, she breaks the boundary that most of her runway pieces do not look like an 'ordinary' garment, her interpretation of every technique that we are used to seeing is like an earthquake to the audiences. I respect every designer who brings the strong visual impact but also balances it with beauty.

Would you tell us a bit about your lifestyle and culture?

TH : I would say I am a world citizen, in a conceptual way. If I am not a designer, I might dive into comparative literature or social science like anthropology. Literature is one of my major inspiration resources, and it is always my hobby to write, while I am keen on researching histories and cultures of every corner of the world. My internet background influences me to build up my aesthetic system but living in a foreign country definitely broadened my views about different topics that I did not think about before, and it gradually influences me on many aspects.

Tingyu Hu Profile