During 2018AW Shanghai Fashion Week, XU ZHI hosted ‘Who is Jane Morris?’ an exhibition around the concept of the designer’s new collection. BONAVERI sponsored tribe collection mannequins for their exhibition.
XU ZHI’s 2018 AW collection is based on the celebrated muse figure during the Pre-Raphaelite art movement Jane Morris, and how her image was constantly borrowed and referenced by various artists to create representations that were so similar yet still very different from each other.
As commissioned by XU ZHI, ExhibitingFashion, the Shanghai-based fashion studies studio took XU ZHI’s source of inspiration for its 2018 Autumn/Winter collection—-the famous muse figure during the British Pre-Raphaelite art movement, Jane Morris as the starting point, and constructed several themed compartments within the exhibition space in accordance, all the while emphasizing the complementary relationship between the artists and their muses, as well as the conflictive characteristics of Jane Morris herself.
The setting of the exhibition is jointly designed by the creative design studio mattersofseeing. and set designer Joseph Dejardin. Mattersofseeing. created a space of exploration and self-awareness for the exhibition and took up elements like mirrors and curtains as displaying installations to imply the character of Jane Morris; while Joseph Dejardin created a series of small sculptures by using materials of diverse colors and special textures to mimic the postures and hair styles of Jane Morris in the classic Western paintings, thus adding supplementary embellishment to the whole space.
In the meantime, Xuzhi Chen, the founder and artistic director of XU ZHI also commissioned Los-Angeles-based multi-media artist Song Huang to design a set of video-displaying installment for the exhibition. Four patched digital screens are presented face-to-face in the designated space, and on these screens, the model wearing the special items from XU ZHI’s 2018 Autumn/Winter collection are walking in the British countryside, with decorative tassels and crystal sequins swaying and swinging all over them. The segmented visual effect, the mysterious heroin and the screening setting that allows the audiences to take full initiatives are all echoing with the ‘who is’ concept in the exhibition’s theme.
About the designer
Xuzhi Chen is a fashion designer graduating from Central Saint Martins with a BA degree in Womenswear Design and once worked at J.W.Anderson and Craig Green. In 2014, he established his own fashion brand XU ZHI in London. With its exquisite design and unique technique, the brand has received unanimous recognition within the industry in a short period of time. The designer himself has been nominated for LVMH Prize, International Woolmark Prize, H&M Design Award and many other significant fashion design awards. In 2017, Xuzhi Chen was named by Forbes as the receiver of magazine’s 30 Under 30 list in Asia.
