An inspiring story about how fashion shouldn’t be defined
Written By: Alex Miller
Whatever can be defined is not fashion. Instead, it refers to any way of performance or interpretation that is favored by anyone at any time or place. That’s why Yuyao Wang is going against the so-called trends and hoping to break the conventional boundaries of fashion.
Graduating from Pratt Institute, Wang is known for her bold fashion style that was not encouraged by some people in the first place for reasons such as showing too much skin, too artistic but not practical as well as not attaching closely to the lines of a human body.
“This is exactly what I want to do. I am not blindly following any trends because I just want to be myself,” Wang highlights, “I wear what I like to wear. The most important thing to me is to wear comfortably.”
Wang pays lots of attention to the connection between fashion and health. Unlike other fashion designers, her designs aim to protect human joints rather than always expose them in the air. As someone who struggled with arthritis in the knees, Wang knows health should always be put in front of everything else.
From the perspective of health and not limited by genders, Wang launched her eponymous brand Lis Yuyao Wang in 2021. Being a big fan of dressmaking, she was thrilled about this milestone in her career even though the process was not that smooth.
Wang has always loved fashion when she was a kid and would always draw dresses on paper. But without the professional techniques in painting, she never received many compliments from those who were already in the fashion industry and was told she is not “designer” material.
The critic didn’t knock down Wang. She has proved herself to those critical voices by non-stoppingly putting into effort and consistency. In the meanwhile, Wang applied everything she learned in retail and marketing to the operation of Lis Yuyao Wang.
“For me, having my own brand is a dream come true and where my heart belongs,” Wang says, “I witnessed the whole process when I went from a beginner that didn’t know how to draw at all, to a fashion designer whose collection successfully got on Vogue. I’m just so proud of myself.”
Wang has launched the first collection of Lis Yuyao Wang, which featured a red “knee protection” theme. She is looking to tell a better story and grow her brand at the same time while sticking to her bold breakthrough ideology.
