The City of Lace and Fashion in Calais celebrates the hybridization of artistic disciplines by Yiqing Yin, between grace and elegance, fluidity and movement, dream and exploration of the senses.
Portrait of Yiqing Yin. Vertebrae dress, Spring-Summer 2013 Haute Couture collection, On the Edge. Photograph © Laurence Laborie, 2024.
“Returning to my clothes was like living in my body and emotions again; I was home.” With these words, Yiqing Yin sums up her approach on her website. Today, the Calais cultural institution invites us to discover more about her and offers an immersion into her dreamlike work.
This multidisciplinary virtuoso, originally from Beijing, was the first Chinese designer to obtain the official "haute couture" label awarded by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture in 2015, ten years after creating her brand. The imaginative vision of this intuitive craftswoman, who is simultaneously "seamstress, artistic director, costume designer, and muse," has not gone unnoticed by the industry.
Her sculptural works play with shifting volumes, diagonals, curves, arabesques, pleats, drapery, and skillful blends of rigid and ethereal materials. Above all, they weave a delicate dialogue between humankind and nature, driven by a constant desire for the liberation of body and mind.
Portrait of Yiqing Yin. Ando dress, Moth Spring-Summer 2014 Haute Couture collection. Photograph © Laurence Laborie, 2024.
Experimental laboratory
The exhibition "Of Air and Dreams" thus highlights her mastery at the crossroads of the arts, focusing here on dress design, where "chance, the unexpected, and the indeterminate" coexist in a sensory journey. "Yiqing Yin draws her inspiration from the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, thus developing a poetics of the living that forms the central thread of the exhibition. Each creation reveals itself as a dreamlike landscape, where dreams and the awakening of the senses intertwine in an aesthetic of metamorphosis ," explains curator Sylvie Marot.
The immersive experience showcases her haute couture gowns, punctuated by sound textures (murmurs, rustling air), olfactory passages, photographs, films, and drawings. This is precisely what makes Yiqing Yin so rich. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris (ENSAD), she arrived in France at the age of four, then spent time in Australia before returning to France. Since then, she has dedicated herself to couture. "By modernizing the smocking technique and eliminating any structured construction, I experiment with garments that 'fall,' searching for fluid lines ," explains the prodigy.
Her turning point? She owes it to Yohji Yamamoto. It was while studying at his exhibition "Just Clothes" that she decided to launch her career in 2005. Recognition came quickly. In 2009, she won the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris. The following year, the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography brought her into the public eye. And everything fell into place. She presented her first runway show during Paris Haute Couture Week and was included in Vogue 's list of "Eight Young Designers to Watch ." Naturally, the awards kept coming.
Twilight dress, Blooming Ashes Spring-Summer 2016 Haute Couture collection. Photograph © Laurence Laborie, 2024.
Creativity beyond borders
Ten years of exploration and already a major designer with a promising future. She, who will turn forty in 2025, has served as artistic director for the French fashion houses Leonard and Poiret. She is also responsible for several women's ready-to-wear collections in her own atelier and beautiful creations with clients such as Cartier, Guerlain, Hermès, Swarovski, Lancôme, Vacheron Constantin, and Dominique Ropion.
She quickly expanded her reach to the worlds of film and art. She worked at the Venice Biennale (2013), designed costumes for Audrey Tautou as mistress of ceremonies at the Cannes Film Festival (2013), and for Marion Cotillard in Leos Carax's musical film Annette (2021). She also made her mark in the world of opera, notably with the ballet Tristan and Isolde conducted by Giorgio Mancini (2016) at the Florence Opera House. In particular, she designed costumes for Dorothée Gilbert and Mathieu Ganio, the dancers from the Paris Opera who performed the lead roles.
A complete artist, Yiqing Yin continues to reinvent haute couture, between modernity and innovation, with her silhouettes full of strength and confidence, elegance and sensuality.
Minima Naturalia dress, Dubai World Expo 2020, 2021. Photograph © Laurence Laborie, 2024.
Minima Naturalia dress, Dubai World Expo 2020, 2021. Photograph © Laurence Laborie, 2024.
"Of air and dreams"
City of lace and fashion
135, Quai du Commerce, Calais
From June 14, 2025 to January 4, 2026
