Pin Mirin: Shaping A New Beginning

“I never set out to become a fashion designer, I just knew that I wanted to inspire people.”

“I moved to the UK because my mother met my step-father,” explains Mirin, who, back in Isan, lived in the countryside surrounded by mountains, far from the city. “It made me realise that people in the UK had such a better life than me. I asked myself, what can I do to make people see this?” Inspired by her extreme change in surroundings, for her graduate collection, Mirin decided to explore the stark differences between her two lives through the concept of free shapes. “In the UK, everything is more architectural and straight,” notes Mirin. “My collection is about bringing back the organic shapes of my life in Thailand. I’ve brought the silhouettes from these two worlds together and created new, free shapes which are unique to me.”

Picking her final concept initially proved challenging for Mirin. “I tried so many different things and, it just wasn’t me,” says the designer. “I was crying for weeks and weeks. I really didn’t know what to do. I felt lost.” After some harsh words from her lecturer – “my work wasn’t good enough. I was told to put it in the bin” – and discussions with her boyfriend, Mirin finally decided to focus on her past and question why she always wears head-to-toe black. “My boyfriend said to me, ‘Sometimes you look at things too far away from you. The things that are closer to you mean the most,’” she recalls. “Since I moved to the UK, I told myself that I’m going to wear all black to remind myself of where I came from, that is why my collection is designed entirely in monochrome.”

“I never thought I’d be working with something so soft being a menswear designer. I want to use it forever.”

At the start of her research, Mirin regularly took photos of herself, documenting the clothing and jewellery she had worn that day. Once she had developed her references, the designer then used experimental draping and 3D pattern cutting to establish her silhouettes – techniques which she had refined during a 3-month internship at Paria Farzaneh during her second year at university. “I love to drape fabric. For example, silk my nan sent over from Thailand. I draped it across a mannequin to see what shapes I could get from it,” says Mirin. “My design process is all about finding a different way of wearing clothes on your body. If I design a jacket, it doesn’t have to be a jacket. It can be a different garment depending on how you want to wear it.” For her fabrics, Mirin chose jersey due to its ease-of-use and ability to stretch around the body. “I never thought I’d be working with something so soft being a menswear designer. I want to use it forever,” she laughs.

Like the majority of fashion students this year, the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on Mirin’s graduation, with Ravensbourne making their 2020 degree show digital. Lockdown restrictions in mid-March also meant that Mirin could only complete five out of the eight looks she had planned to create. Despite this, however, the designer looks at the positives, regarding the whole experience as a learning curve. “The pandemic made me realise that sometimes things don’t go as planned,” she says. “But, there’s always a way to get around it.”