Wen Shi Proves She Has What it Takes to Make it in Fashion
Wen Shi, the winner of the Crest 3D White Design Competition, stunned everyone (and proved that we were right by choosing her) with a capsule collection of sleek white outfits—that she completed in less than ten days! Check out this pre-New Garde fashion show video to learn about this budding fashion designer.
We sat down with Wen Shi just after the show to get the scoop on how she felt about the whole experience:
So you just showed your collection—what are you thinking?
Wen Shi: I think I’m on cloud nine. I’m still, like, floating..I’m hoping it’s like the first collection of many, and I’m really, really excited.
How did you prepare for the show?
WS: I literally put everything together, like, in the last ten days. Being that it’s Fashion Week, factories I’ve have had relationships with for five years that sew for some big names on 7th Avenue couldn’t even sew one thing for me, and I really, really had to get in touch with a lot of people that I know just to get references. And once I received the grant, basically, what I did was make sure all the details are done, buy my fabric and then make sure that I get the execution out and get the patterning help and the sewing help and, um, really have the manpower to just execute everything. I literally picked up my last piece today, like 3pm. (laughs)
Obviously Crest was an inspiration, but tell us what else really inspired you for this collection?
WS: I was kind of thinking Fall and thinking [about] just changing into a new shape a little bit. Everything was becoming a little bit oversized over really slim column shapes. And I started to look into the early 1900s a little bit, which might be a little bit odd at first. But, I was thinking about white and then I remembered that if you look at tailoring, you go back to actually a lot of riding wardrobes that people wore back in the early 1900s and one of the things people don’t know is that the most expensive color that you could wear it in is actually in white, because to do sports in white back then was considered very, very luxurious. And so I kind of took some of those elements like the double vent in the front of the dress and taking those utilitarian kind of elements and mixing that with pure, but a dark kind of glam, really inspired me.
Is the dress you are wearing one of your own designs?
WS: This is one of my pieces, actually, from before, yeah. This is one of my previous collections.
What can we expect from you this year?
WS: I think this show really helped me to establish the kind of woman and the kind of look that I really want to go with and I really, really want to kind create a Fall collection to follow. I am kind of looking into possibly starting a luxury jersey line.
The sounds awesome!
WS: Yeah, I love the idea of building a woman’s closet—kind of just elevated pieces that you absolutely have to have. I sometimes think, like who needs another v-neck? So, I really want to create only those standout pieces.
Who would you say is the woman that you design for?
WS: I think that she’s a strong woman, and I think she’s very intellectual, but in, you know, an understated way. And she is somebody who is very, very aware of herself. And at the end of the day, I want to design for a real woman. I don’t really want to design for, you know, kind of an unrealistic body figures. I just want things that a girl can just throw on, but add them to her closet and mix into everything. And just create something that is glamorous but really, really understated and easy [in an] effortless way.