// BIOGRAPHY //

Photo Nicolas Guérin

“Returning to my clothes, was like living once more within my body and my emotions; I was at home.”

Born in Beijing in 1985, Yiqing Yin immigrates from China at the age of 4 to France then Australia. Living between countries, her clothes have often provided her with a point of reference. She aims to create a garment that protects and reinforces, being at the same time a second skin and a flexible armor. Examining the dynamic potential of pleats, she imagines never-fixed structures, always-in-mutation volumes. She sculpts the emptiness around the body through the pursuit of balance and points of disruption between flowing zones and sculpted zones. Through the modernisation of smock technique and the elimination of any order of construction, she experiments garment “tombé”, seeking for fluid lines. She models loose shapes with staggering structures and confesses her attraction for an intuitive method of creation, a sensory wandering, and a search for voluntary accidents.

Graduated from the ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) & armed with her innovative vision of Couture, Yiqing Yin is distinguished by the Grand Prix de la Création of Paris in 2009. During the Festival International de la Mode of Hyères, in 2010, her oniric creations are staged in display at the Ministère de la Culture, in the Théâtre National of Chaillot, then at the prestigious Galerie Joyce. In June 2011, she wins the Award of First Collections of the ANDAM and presents her first fashion show during the Haute Couture Fashion Week of Paris. The same year, Yiqing Yin joins the 8 young designers list edited by the magazine Vogue France. In 2013, the Maison Léonard appoints the young designer to head its ready-to-wear collections. Yiqing Yin collaborates as well with prestigious brands such as Cartier, Guerlain, Hermès, Swarovski and Lancôme.

From the very beginning, the maison Yiqing Yin is part of the Fédération Française de la Couture official calendar as guest member. In December of 2015, the Fédération Française de la Couture rewards her work through the attribution of the Haute Couture appellation and, by doing so, the status of official member.

As a complete artist, Yiqing Yin explores various artistic areas: in 2013, to the Biennale de Venise’s invitation, she creates the piece “In-Between”. For the Blooming Ashes collection, she combines material to light in the STELLAR dress, in collaboration with the sculptor Bastien Carré. Especially sensitive to the art of dance, Yiqing Yin signs the stage costumes of the étoiles Dorothée Gilbert and Mathieu Ganio for the ballet Tristan and Isolde directed by Giorgio Mancini.