Transcriber: Huyền Trần Reviewer: Denise RQ
I'd rather call myself an inventor than a designer.
I'm not yet working commercially,
but I enjoy creating and reinventing my designs.
Not because it's an economical or an environmental way of designing.
To be honest, it's simply because at the beginning of my design career,
I didn't have a lot of work with.
So the methodology I used to reinvent my designs
are three main methodologies.
The first one is called "change the perspective",
to simply wear the same outfit in different ways
or to look at it from a different angle.
This is a dress I did it a while ago,
inspired by the metamorphosis of an insect.
It looks like a different dress from a different angle,
but it's actually still the same dress.
Still that same dress again.
The second method I use is called "Transformation",
pretty much like origami.
We can create anything from a single square piece of fabric.
This cape here is made out of a square piece of fabric.
This is an other design that I made.
It's also made from a square.
Since design is iterative
sometimes, the first design is a foundation for the second design,
and the second design turns into the third design.
This is still the same design
from a square piece of fabric,
but has been reinvented to become a new design.
The third method that I used is called "Manipulation"
to deconstruct and reconstruct a garment.
This is the first garment - in its first life -
and here I have given it a new life.
I use the same material.
I cut it into small pieces,
and then, I build up a new dress.
It's still the same material,
but there are endless design possibilities
you can go from one single piece of material.
As I was reinventing my design,
I started to realize our life is our given material.
If our life is our given material,
we can literally design anything we want,
we can be anything we want.
We just need to look at our life,
first of all, from a positive angle,
to see what beauty it embraces.
So we can start working with that material
knowing that there are endless possibilities we can go from there.
Everybody here has an equal chance of turning our life
into something beautiful and meaningful.
That's why I love turning ugly and unwanted fabrics
into beautiful dresses.
I want to note that a dress is not just about being beautiful,
a dress has to last long.
We need to understand our material,
and we need to have a clear design in our head.
We need to have ambition,
then we need to see what are the skills that we need
to implement ourselves with.
I dropped out of high school three months away from graduation.
I realized that no matter how many times
we deconstruct and reconstruct our materials,
the core value and textures stay the same.
I was lost and brokenhearted
I changed different hair colors, I changed boyfriends.
At some point in my life,
I didn't have my parents around me
because I was alone, I didn't have any friends.
I was lost and brokenhearted.
That's when I started to see my elements clearly.
I'm gay.
I'm ethnic minority.
No matter where I am, I cannot run away from that.
When I start to embrace my identity,
I realize what a beautiful thing it is.
Make feminine quality strengthen my design ability.
It gives me the ability to understand women,
it gives me the ability to understand the female form.
My ethnic minority background inspired me
to design urban clothing with a touch of tradition.
This is a picture taken in my hometown.
Suddenly, I design other clothes,
and other clothes I see disappear.
I started to design invisible clothing
to reveal the person underneath,
to reveal our true materials,
to reveal our true core value.
I'm still seeing in the world
so many people hiding underneath their clothes.
There are women out there having to cover themselves up
because of traditions and religion.
There're men who cannot dress the way they want
because of the society's expectations
of how men should be;
the masculine stereotype.
There are transgender people who have to dress against their will
because they live in a conservative community.
And there are ethnic minority people
who have to hide their background
because they're afraid of discrimination.
I believe that women can dress free of social constraint,
men can have more freedom of choice,
and we can choose our own identity.
Anyone of you here,
who is hiding underneath your clothes,
if you want to be a chef,
but you're afraid of other people's expectations,
or maybe you're afraid that you don't have so much time left
to change your past, your career...
In life, we always ask ourselves the question,
"What if we had done things differently?"
I ask myself,
"What if I had done things differently?"
Because last year, I had a chance of studying in an European art school,
but I can't go, because I don't have a high school certificate.
It doesn't matter.
Life is full of unexpected surprises,
and happiness can come from the surprises in life.
We just have to not give up trying.
In design, we call it a happy mistake;
make the mistake a part of the design.
If I have a message to send to all of you,
it would be to follow your dream, your ambition,
no matter how difficult it is;
if you have a clear design in your head
of what you want to become,
and you never give up,
you keep reinventing yourself,
you use obstacles as the playground for creativity to flourish,
then you will get there.
If your life is through material,
how will you design your life?
Thank you.
(Applause)