Representing the creative future

Izzy Du: Shapes from another planet

The Chinese-Canadian designer walks us through the process of creating gravity-defying pieces

Izzy Du is a young designer from the Royal Academy of Antwerp whose international and gravity-defying approach to design yields weightless pieces and organic shapes that are hypnotizing. The designer shared with us her experiences at the Academy and how she’s grown since, as she starts setting the foundation for her new RTW collection that will make her boldly inventive creations available to consumers.

Can you share a bit about your background and who you are?

I was born in Chengdu, China, and when I was two or three I went to Canada. Then I went back to China for boarding school and elementary school and then back to Canada for middle and high school. In between, my family and I also traveled a lot. I really grew up in Vancouver, where it’s very multicultural in the sense that it was super mixed. There wasn’t really one dominant culture, so I grew up traveling a lot, and seeing different ways of thinking and doing things, especially in Belgium. Hence, I have always been interested to integrate different ways of thinking as I went from CSM to Antwerp, which was also very different.

“I love the way that clothing affects society and my ideas.” – Izzy Du

That’s a unique experience to get all of those different perspectives from the various places you’ve lived in.  What led you to fashion?

I was always into so many different creative mediums: painting, drawing, clay. Without sounding cliché, my family and my mother are very into fashion. I also grew up mostly wearing uniforms since I was very young—whether it was in China or Canada. I was always wearing uniforms and at first, I used to hate it but then I realized it frees so much creative space in my mind because I wouldn’t be limited to anything that I could put on myself. I could just draw and make whatever, incorporating all the different elements that I like from all these other mediums and combining them into clothing as well. I always thought it was interesting because everyone wears a uniform, even when we’re grown up. It’s our moniker, identifier and it’s really interesting to see what people choose to wear and what they’re supposed to wear. I was always very inspired by that. After school, I would always have so many different extracurricular activities or family dinners so I would always end up being in all these different places in my uniform and I loved being kind of out-of-place in my uniform and seeing how people react. I love the way that clothing affects society and my ideas.

“I wanted to do this one before I worry about commerciality or anything.” – Izzy Due

Your pieces seem so surreal, with gravity-defying silhouettes and a luminescence that you achieve with your fabrics. At the same time, a lot of your forms appear so tied to nature. What are some of your main sources of inspiration?

In terms of form and shape, people often see that it’s very big, but I never make anything with a goal in mind to just make it big. I think everything we do—whether you’re an artist or a performer doing a show or you’re trying to do a painting—you should never have that goal in mind. I have this form and shape in mind and how I want it to fit on the body and it ends up naturally taking the size or the shape that it does. I have smaller pieces as well and that’s also a play on these forms and how they contrast with the body. I usually start pretty abstractly. With my last collection, I had a tangible idea, and also because of my way of working with the Academy; they often prefer students to have something that they can follow along and understand. In this collection, I was really like “I want to do this one before I worry about commerciality or anything,” so it’s quite conceptual in that sense. I had a lot of elements of nature and I pictured this planet where all these beings live with a specific time and season.

Who actually is your muse, or who do you design for?

I often have a body in mind. I love menswear and womenswear in similar ways and in separate ways. We are used to seeing unisex or two-gendered collections having the woman dressing more like the man and it’s just a blazer that’s fitted and tailored a different way and or combined in a way that is just more androgynous. I think there are different beautiful elements on every body, so I design according to that, thinking of where I want to put my spotlight. I love to have a contrast between tension and release; a focal point and then having everything spiral out, so I usually start with a certain part of the body that I love.

“The school really pushes you to try a lot, hundreds of options before you pick final designs, and I think they also want to train you in your decision-making and focusing.” – Izzy Du

Jumping off of that thought of letting the body itself inform your shapes and tying into how you develop your shape without the objective of size, but in order to plot your abstract forms on the body, what is the true starting point for your designs and how do you achieve your forms from there?

I start with the idea and I actually have quite a few that I want to try out. I go through them and think about which one I want to do. I start with the idea and then draw out more abstract shapes or abstract inspirations in terms of looking at imagery and patterns, types of drapage, not doing anything on the body, basically just doing some loose drawings. Then I start doing my drawings on the body and usually, my drawings on the body aren’t as clean as they’re supposed to be for the Academy. I just kind of go for it and start doing some designs. The school really pushes you to try a lot, hundreds of options before you pick final designs, and I think they also want to train you in your decision-making and focusing, so it’s never like “show one and this is the one.” I’ll have to show multiple options and oftentimes I do options for them which is also benefiting me because it’s like “Oh, wow, I didn’t think to go this other direction.” Once I have at least the first look I start toile-ing and, depending on what it is, I’ll develop a pattern but with bigger shapes, I start on the mannequin, figuring out how I can create those shapes. The green look is really gravity-defying in the sense that if it was just stuffed everything goes down, so I had to figure out a way to make it “float”. I put boning, toile, and foam stuffing. I covered it with fabric to have the first toile, then I take that back and make a rough pattern of it and then I take that again and figure out how to make the shape smoother. With that one, I hand-stitched couch foam into the shape. It ended up being a nightmare because it was hand-stitched and inside there’s different types of construction. For that look, I used pool noodles because other types of foam couldn’t withstand it. I cut up the pool noodles into that shape and made these pillars on the shoulders to hold them. I’m also very big on asymmetry just because I love asymmetrical shapes, so when it gets big balance and weight become important. How to distribute the weight in different places, especially if you’re trying to scale up. That was actually really interesting to figure out and a lot of math.

 

“At the beginning, Walter [Van Beirendonck] told me: ‘If you don’t do this well, it’ll be very bad. If you don’t do this the way that you want to, this will be a bad collection, so it’s up to you if you think you can do that.’” – Izzy Du

Do you ever start making a shape and start figuring out the mechanics and just have to say “this isn’t going to work, this isn’t feasible”?

I definitely have moments on my own in my studio or in my apartment, but the thing about the school is once they select a design or an idea, especially working with Walter [Van Beirendonck], who was my main mentor for the school year, you can’t. He really gets attached to an idea or to something that he can see that I am attached to and not doing it because it’s hard. In the very beginning, the school pushes you. If you choose a design, then that’s what you’re going to do. They’re very strict on sticking to the drawing. I also know myself and as I start to toile I’ll start to get all these other ideas and it gets easy to get lost. I think that’s how a lot of students get stuck. One way to help with that is with the school being like “what are you doing here? This doesn’t fit your drawing. What is this? This is a different look,” so I will have to just save that idea for a different look. Even at the beginning, Walter was like “This is a very ambitious and difficult collection,” and he told me straight-up, “If you don’t do this well, it’ll be very bad. If you don’t do this the way that you want to, this will be a bad collection, so it’s up to you if you think you can do that.” He was very forward with me from the beginning.

A lot of your accessory work involves 3D printing, how did you get introduced to this medium? How do you blend it with your organic forms?

I played around with 3D printing in my first collection. It was a womenswear collection and I have a friend who was in Antwerp at that time and who was also interested in 3D printing. I wanted to do this resin chunky necklace that altered the look underneath it and that was my first time creating a piece. Also, I have this kind of footwear with heels in mind and they’re very difficult to make traditionally without a really great craftsman, so I thought “I should try this in 3D printing to see if I can do it and see if it works,” because with 3D printing you can do so much. I love to work with these very organic forms and different mediums from wadding and tech foam to metal to make soft and hard shapes. I really love to see how the different angles come together.

“I didn’t set out to start a brand, but along the way, I realize that there’s so much still that I want to make and create and there’s no other way to do that if I just stop now. ” – Izzy Du

You’re planning on launching your brand soon. Where do you see your brand in the discourse between art and wearable fashion?

I didn’t set out to start a brand, but along the way, I realize that there’s so much still that I want to make and create and there’s no other way to do that if I just stop now. I have so many ideas and I’m so excited now that I wake up at 5:00 am every day and get started. At first, I had the burden of the Academy and all that stress and need for approval and I dreaded having to sit down to design—all of us would—we would have trouble trying to sit down and figure out things for a collection that would take months to do—even to design—and now I have a rough lineup within a week. I’m so excited about it and I’m young and I should just go for it! With the brand, it’ll definitely be commercial as far as certain pieces that you can wear because, even with this collection, I think it’s very special and very art/object but I’ve gotten a lot of requests from people wanting to buy it and wanting to wear even the grey puffer. I honestly didn’t think anyone would want to wear that, but it would be so cool to make these forms in a way that people actually can wear and enjoy, so the goal is to have a collection that (at least the first collection) will have hopefully a couple looks that are still like what I’ve been doing and the rest will be these ideas in a wearable way.  I will still be doing the same way that I use color and print and puffing. Honestly, puffers are my life. I’m Canadian, and I’m Chinese, and it’s cold everywhere and we’re about to go skiing tomorrow. I make puffers, I wear puffers, my life is puffers, so I would never stop because it’s hard to find ones that I really like, so I need to make them.

“I think every student or young designer has this internal struggle of liking multiple aesthetics and finding how to amalgamate that or decide which part is them.” – Izzy Du

Speaking of some of the similarities between places you’ve lived, you’ve traveled a lot in your life, spending time in China, Canada, London, and Antwerp. How has that influenced your approach to design?

I think every student or young designer has this internal struggle of liking multiple aesthetics and finding how to amalgamate that or decide which part is them. I’m sure we’ve all been through that, and I’ve had that especially at the beginning of school. I love traditional tailoring in Western fashion, but I love the qipao dresses and silk and satin. I love brutalist minimalism, but I also love warmth and wood, so I would always have all these contrasts and things I like from different places—the same goes with my taste in music. I used to think that that was a conflict until I realized that it’s not because I really hone in on what I like about it and not just the surface of what looks good. If I take elements of what I genuinely like, then I can turn it into this whole other thing. There are more particular reasons that you like everything. I love puffers and utilitarian ware and how versatile and practical they are, especially when it’s so cold. For example, puffers would have to have a bottom closing because if you’re freezing on the mountain, you need to have that closed, but I find that’s an interesting element to work in different ways and play with even if it’s just for fashion. I also love tech fabrics and tech ware. I’m big on hiking and I love rock climbing and seeing the way that they use hardware finishings. For Chinese garments, I love how it’s slick and flowing with the body, I love different types of Japanese fabric, and in Western culture, I love corsets.

“In London it’s very easy to get lost in the social aspect of things and in the social aspects of fashion.” – Izzy Du

I think that’s an important message to share with young designers and new graduates.  It is essential to find out why you like what you like in order to create your own vision. I’m interested in knowing: What is the biggest lesson that you learned from the Academy?  And what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned since graduating? 

From school, I would say perseverance. I’ve always been very tenacious, but I think if you talk to any Academy student, they would say that it is very rough. The teachers are hard on you and the overall social aspect and the environment is all quite toxic. The school has its requirements and it made me realize that if I want to graduate and if I want to pass this year I need to listen to my teachers and I have to hit all these requirements. That’s how it is in life too, so I think that was a very big lesson. The last collection was about me learning to stand my ground because at a certain point, in any creative thing that you do there’s going to be a lot of people giving you their opinions and advice and it’s always about you having to keep an open ear and take it in, but at a certain point, when it gets really hard, and when someone tells you that something “isn’t fashion,” you just have to stay true to what you want. If you’re sure of what you want, you need to just go for it. I think that’s really one of the most important things. When I came to Antwerp to apply from CSM, it was kind of like “how hard can it be?” It’s very different because the school really doesn’t care about who you are. It’s one of the main reasons that I went to the Academy, because in London it’s very easy to get lost in the social aspect of things and in the social aspects of fashion.

“I would always have this timeline for myself and expect so much for myself very young, very fast. It’s very important to take the time to just be patient. ” – Izzy Du

Especially for young fashion students networking is crucial, but I think that, in the beginning, it’s very easy to take your focus away from what you’re actually there to do and what you’re trying to learn and work on. A lot of people can get by with a great social profile and social image, but if you look at their work it doesn’t really speak for itself. I’m still really young and I think it’s good to take this time to do that. I would always have this timeline for myself and expect so much for myself very young, very fast. It’s very important to take the time to just be patient. It feels like a long time ago that I graduated already and I was in Vancouver for about two months to chill out because I was really burnt out from this year, so I took time hiking and camping with my family, and then I was in Los Angeles for a month, checking out the logistics to potentially place my base there. I’ve learned a lot about the industry and manufacturing and production and I’m really taking my time because I know a lot of people who are jumping right in and I think I’m kind of a little bit slower because I want to make sure that everything is in place. I don’t want to rush. You’re gonna make a lot of mistakes on the way, but it’s important to have most of your shit figured out before you go for it. That’s what I’m working out. It’s difficult but exciting.

“You can’t do this shit alone at all.” – Izzy Du

Design school and breaking into the fashion industry to start a brand can be really trying times, who do you lean on for support? How do you keep motivated and how do you recharge? 

I definitely had a period this summer where I didn’t pull up my collection, I couldn’t look at it and  I was so burnt out and too critical. Also, at the school, they are very critical, and I think sometimes when you really need a break but you don’t give yourself a true break it won’t feel like a break, because you’re mentally still stressed. Even though you’re not doing anything, you’re still stressed out. This summer I clearly defined time for myself: “I’m taking these two months and I’m not going to worry about the collection.” It’s in the back of my mind always, but I’m not going to spotlight it. If I want to rock climb, if I want to watch a movie, I’m just gonna do that and it was actually really important. It’s also really important to have good friends for sure. A lot of relationships are for work and it’s very important to have really good friends where you are. When I was in LA, I stayed with one of my best friends growing up, she’s in architecture school and she’s graduating this next year and we had the best time even though we’re both stressed out with work. Right now with the business I have a partner, Nick Allard, he’s a really good childhood friend and he’s working on more of the business aspect of things: marketing, logistics. It’s been really great to have him on board. It’s just been so great because he is such a great soundboard and he’s also super smart. You can’t do this shit alone at all. One of the most important things is having a good team and I don’t have a team yet, but that is one of the main things to have. In school, it was rough because I just had to work it out on my own. To be honest, everyone else is so stressed out that you had to be careful. Sometimes your friend was super stressed out and you’re having a really great day so sometimes that would stress them out more or you’d hear, “Oh my God, Walter just loved my jacket,” and you’d get stressed out about it. I see this happening a lot and I just tend to keep to myself often and I have a good time with friends in the evenings. The first two years I would go to parties and then I would mostly just recharge at home.

“One thing my dad always said was to better to be slow than to stop. Just don’t stop. Keep making progress little by little because if you think about the alternative it’s just to stop and give up.” – Izzy Du

That can be incredibly difficult to not only have to think about your own progress but also compare to those around you.

There’s not an obvious solution, but with my friends, we decided we would stop telling our parents about all of the moaning stuff because I used to tell them everything in the first two years or so. I realized very quickly that it’s not really fair because for them it’s like, “we’re spending a certain chunk of money and it’s your choice to do this,” and I shouldn’t be complaining because it’s still my choice to be there. Especially with my mom, if I go to her with a problem that I don’t know the solution to, she’ll end up freaking out too, and then I’ll end up comforting her for something that I wasn’t OK with at the beginning. They don’t have a solution either and they get stressed out, so now I tell them the general gist. One thing my dad always said was to better to be slow than to stop. Just don’t stop. Keep making progress little by little because if you think about the alternative it’s just to stop and give up. As long as I keep going, it just takes the pressure off because I’m not giving up.