Catherine Hui’s year-long exchange experience in Europe during her fashion studies in Hong Kong led the designer to ponder her roots and identity. She stayed proud of her cultural heritage, even when she was away from home.

Her collection is named after Virginia Woolf’s famous quote, “I am rooted, but I flow”, and through the collision of hard silhouettes and flowing graphics, the designs present the contradiction and compatibility of one’s self-identity within a multicultural context. To illustrate the fluidity of identity, Hui integrates Chinese cursive calligraphic elements into her designs. With mirrors and transparent acrylic panels laser-cut to the curvature of the body, a long skirt is formed. The calligraphy is abstract and dynamic, coexisting with the cold, hard materials in the space drawn by the body. The wearer makes a different pattern with each step and gesture, while viewers are drawn by the collection’s visual dynamic.

The evidence of climate change and resource depletion is plainly evident, but many still seem oblivious to it. Even though our survival is closely related to the natural world, some still follow a lifestyle that harms the environment in the name of convenience. Currently a knitwear design student, Delia Tsoi has always been concerned about the planet. She uses the monster as an allegory for the imminent crisis, and utilises this imaginary enemy as the blueprint for ‘Doomsday Revenge’.

Tsoi uses Shima Seiki technology to weave colourful patterns and motifs reminiscent of the creature’s poisonous skin. The monsters’ mutated physical features are crocheted, tentacles are woven and pinned to eyes, with tumours and abscesses made from cotton-filled fabrics. The collection incorporates knitting extensively, and uses bright reds, yellows, and blues to recreate Tsoi’s own conceptualisation and warn of the approaching apocalypse.

“I want people to do what they want without being confined by labels.” When a person is labelled due to a rash judgement of character, their subsequent actions and words tend to be judged by that same first impression. This is a phenomenon known as the “labelling effect”. All it takes is a word or two to label someone, but whether it’s intended or not, the damage is done.

This negativity is reflected in fashion designer Carol Tong’s 'In Disguise’ collection through the patina effect of the fabrics. Based on feminine curves, she deconstructs and highlights out-of-place proportions, emphasising the uncertainty of identity with twisted and fluid forms. The tight smocking and rubber bands on the inside express a sense of constraint, while the fluffy sheath dress on the outside covers the curves of the body. Tong also creates a melancholic atmosphere with eco-friendly materials. She uses kombucha to dye a fabric brownish-red, which is combined with velvet, lace and satin to form asymmetrical silhouettes.

Fashion designer Yoyo Chan is bored by the ordinary and wants to shatter expectations, finding freedom in unconventional forms and expressions that exist outside the formulaic.

At the age of two, we enter our first rebellious stage in life, and then are institutionalised through education, Chan believes. In a daze, we find ourselves marching to the beat of mainstream social expectations. The school uniform is a symbol of discipline, but we never free ourselves from its constraints even if we take our uniforms off.

Yoyo’s ‘Trouble X’ series breaks the stereotypical association of school uniforms by deconstructing the style, adding playful elements, and subverting expectations in the details. Highly saturated reds are interspersed with warm yellows, presenting a hot-blooded attitude and independent personality. Traditional English plaids are reconstructed into a quilted skirt embellished with buttons. She adds handmade details such as studs and lapels to school uniform styles from different eras and cultures. As she frees the clothing from the rigidity of occasions, fashion design becomes an advocate for ageless rebellion.

Fashion school graduate K Ng views the world with a sense of spirituality and delivers his ideas with storytelling. In his eyes, we belong to a greed-driven era where information overloads our life. The choices people make plunge the world into darkness, mingling with the faint light to create a piece of chaos. The occurrence of war has never halted, but we are mesmerised by the sparks and remain unaware of the destruction we’ve caused and the disaster about to befall us.

In his competing series ‘Remnants of Light’, Ng creates scenarios with details on fabric: the embroidery on the coats look like fireworks, but actually symbolise explosions from war. The piece is a luxurious floor-length coat, but as the wearer grips the straps and wraps themselves tightly underneath, they resemble a refugee. Ng’s designs initially appear to be glittering and elegant, but underneath the glamour lies the darker side of the human condition and the fragility of the human mind.

We can’t stop the passage of time, but there are always things that can transport us back to the past. In ‘Time Passes’, Nick Cheung, a final year fashion design student, explores his childhood memories and finds keys to be a visualised embodiment of time. With keychains and keys forming a dress, the rattling brings back memories of an object gradually being replaced.

The black and white palette highlights the traces of time and use. Cheung applies the traditional Chinese lacquer technique on fabric for the first time, using the stone-like mottled texture to directly represent the passing of time. Incorporating Guizhou embroidery and ceramic buttons, the manual process shows the involvement of time. Through geometric silhouettes on the garments, he examines time and space together, and the stone-like installations set the garments directly into time, conveying emotions through textures.

Fashion design Cowon Yeung was inspired by the play of light and shadow on the street, and began studying images produced by light interacting with different substances and angles.

Inspired by black and white photography, the ‘Shadow’ series exposes our hidden shadow personalities, transforming shadowy compositions into distinct silhouettes. With sunlight, the shadows reflected on the floor form an irregular polygon with the window. The collection incorporates tough synthetic leather to reproduce the structure captured by the camera.

While only black was used in the collection, different materials and fabrics create layers on the garments under the refraction of light. The repeated use of organza in the collection adds a soft texture, while glossy leather and matte denim overlap to create a contrast between the front and back layers.

In the future, Yeung hopes that people can identify her designs even if they’ re not labelled.

Children look to become adults, while adults yearn for childhood. Jenice Tam, a recent textile and fashion graduate familiar with both sentiments, mixes whimsical fairy tales with complex emotional motives to create dark tales out of classics.

In ‘Dear Peter Pan’, Snow White is transformed into a wicked witch desperate for physical perfection, while Pinocchio is torn between duty and love. As familiar characters are reimagined with new backgrounds and personalities, a dystopian worldview links four sets of designs based on different characters. The fantastical settings are realised in a flamboyant style, with big silhouettes in vibrant yet coordinated colours. Textured velvet, lace, and tulle are used to a gorgeous effect. The accessories are handmade according to each character, with pearls of different sizes and shattered crystals highlighting the split between imagination and reality.

Tiger Chung reenters the competition as a proud advocate for subculture, with his collection exuding the energy and vitality felt at a music festival.

Rage evolves from the moshing culture of hardcore punk, where the crowd reaches euphoria as an uncontrollable transcendence of state. In his collection ‘Rager’, Chung takes inspiration from Dragon Ball’s Son Goku, who transformed into a giant ape when really angry, and the werewolf in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, who dances with zombies under a full moon. He also pays tribute to the rock singer Marilyn Manson’s style, mixing the structure of an evening dress with dungarees to combine the elegance of actress Marilyn Monroe and murderer Charles Manson.

Tailored to the violent nature of rage, Chung’s four designs feature impact-resistant pads and abrasion-resistant materials for protection. With the damage of moshing mitigated, ragers can unleash their rage without fear at the mosh pit.

“Art creation is the inner self, while fashion is the external expression of it.” With a strong belief in the power of visual art, final year student Einar Lai interweaves elements of gouache and illustration into fashion, turning clothes into wearable art.

‘Cockcrow’ refers to the moment of the rooster’s crow, or dawn. People are just rising from slumber, getting ready in the morning light, or snoozing before starting a busy day. In Lai’s ‘Cockrow’ collection, suits and trousers are split down the middle, with one side monochromatic and ready-to-go. The other side is hand-painted and sprayed directly on, to capture this messy state.

To represent the commute, Lai constructs a wooden frame at the shoulders, and works with elastic fabric and canvas to shape the human body, creating a disarray between the flat surface and the human body. His oil paintings are printed on cotton and cut into shirts, and the wooden frames are designed to resemble the lapels of a suit jacket, bringing the wearer into the essence of art.