Right after the Shanghai Fashion Week AW/18, TUBE Showroom, a creative platform to build-up local designers, media and buyers, launched “DIA LIVE EXHIBITION” to showcase the creations of five top talented designers. The exhibit took place at the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, from 5th to 7th of April 2018.
To encourage young designers, BONAVERI collaborated with the talented i-am-chen to display their AW17 and SS18 collections on the beautiful ALOOF mannequins.
This exhibition attracted media and KOLs, including Vogue Italy, Elle Hong Kong, WWD, HYPEBEAST, Jie Mian, as well as famous Instagram blogger Susie Bubble to name a few.
2017AW from i-am-chen
The inaugural collection of i-am-chen playground is an all-knitwear collection that conveys playfulness and lightness while the garments are underpinned by highly intricate and sophisticated fabric structures. The elaborate patterns, rich colors and distinct textures are all knitted into one integral piece of seamless fabric. The collection is offering a new knitwear that renders a smooth surface that bears intricacy within a harmonious whole, as if the fabrics are born this way, natural and pristine. This collection redefines knitwear.
2018SS from i-am-chen
i-am-chen expands its exploration of the playful emotion into the spring/summer 2018 season, this time inspired by the recently much discussed David Hockney, whose blunt and minimalistic naming system for his paintings deeply intrigues the designer.
Painting names such as White Porcelain and Amaryllis in Vase deliver the simplest messages about the works; inspired by this straightforward approach, Chen strives to reflect the mood of spring and summer in her debut collection out of school.
Like Hockney, Chen freely draws her impression of spring and summer on an iPad and translate the image into knitting structures, creating complex fabric patterns consisted of reflective and matte yarns.
About the Designer
Zhi Chen dropped out of university as an engineering student in China to pursue her dream in fashion. She eventually won a national scholarship to study at the Parsons school of design for one year. Chen then continued her study at the London college of fashion and graduated with distinction in 2017. She founded i-am-chen shortly after her graduation.
Chen sees herself as a technician rather than a fashion designer. She spends long hours in factories to study machines and exploit their capabilities in fabric making. While contemporary art feeds chen profound inspiration for her design, practicality dictates the final product of every work of i-am-chen. She strives to combine aesthetics and technology to deliver immaculate chic pieces comprised of stunningly intricate fabrics, developed independently by Chen.
