Having graduated from the London College of Fashion last year to roaring praise following her hugely successful graduate collection, Min Wu is welcomed back to Fashion Scout for a second season. Here she gives us some insight into being a much lauded young designer as well as her latest collection's development.
Your previous work has been influenced by artist Anthony McCall, what did you base your collection on this time?
I started from philosophy, like articles about how you define the human body. So because before we can say one human had two eyes, one nose, two ears but now you can watch things from monitors and you can hear things from miles away, and technology has become everywhere. So I was thinking if you take one part of your body away from you and grow and change it a little bit and put it back onto your body would you feel uncomfortable with it? Because it's still a part of you, but it's now different and has been developed. I started from that idea and used it as my design methodology to play with the fabric.
Can you talk us through your colour choices and design techniques for SS15?
I think the dip dye colour is kind of my signature but I'm not doing dark, it's still colourful. I want to do something new every season. I don't want to always just dip dye, so this season I've put a stripe on the trousers and it looks nice. It's not just dip dyed, I'm still playing with it. I'm also doing print designs as well, so I wanted to develop and add a little bit more every season.
Does your collection have a name?
I haven't decided the name, it's kind of a big decision.
What type of customer do you think about when you are designing?
I think about girls my age, who are interesting and who like styling themselves because most of my stuff you can combine with other items to create your own unique look. I'm not the kind of designer where this has to be cotton, this has to be silk - I can keep my mind open to everything.
Why did you decide to start your own label so soon after graduating?
The MA showcase was just so successful and I got a lot of good feedback from press. The new collection has kind of been expected from other people, press and media, or I've been asked about a ready-to-wear collection because my graduation collection was a bit more like art pieces. I don't know why, it just became something that I had to do. I didn't want to disappoint others.
Can you describe your Fashion Scout experience for us?
I really, really appreciate this opportunity to be part of Ones to Watch and it's been an amazing experience and the Fashion Scout team have been really helpful. And not just for the show, but even Martyn and Rebekah have been really helpful about the future of the brand. They've been teaching us about how to talk to people who visit our exhibition.
Have you got any upcoming projects planned after Fashion Scout?
For this collection I'm going to Paris with Fashion Scout and I'm going to Beijing for Design Week. Then I'm going to Shenzhen at the end of November for International Talent Scouting and that's a collaboration with Vogue Italia. Also I'm developing a new line. It's not really relevant to this one, it's more pieces that I liked that I couldn't include in this collection. I don't think I will be sleeping for the next few months!