Yolanda Zhou

Yolanda Zhou

Collection

Threaded in Silence

Graduation Collection Statement：
Threaded in Silence is a collection rooted in cultural taboos and personal identity — a story of a young Hui girl navigating the tensions between tradition and modernity, silence and rebellion, self-preservation and transformation. This is a journey of remembering, resisting, and redefining. She looks back at the quiet discipline of her upbringing, bound by inherited norms — and then chooses to break the rules. In leaving behind a part of herself to embrace the chaos of a new urban reality, she finds that the traits she tried to escape — softness, restraint, fragility — are etched into her being like invisible threads under the skin.
Image: LOOK 1. THE FADING PAST
FABRIC: COTTON, LINEN, TULLE, SYNTHETIC FILLING
Image: LOOK 3.DECONSTRUCTED SLEEVELESS TOP, LINEN SKIRT
Image: LOOK 2. SOFT COTTON CORSET, BAGGY PANTSLOOK3. JERSEY SHIRT, PLEATED SKIRT
LOOK 4. JERSEY SHIRT, PLEATED SKIRT
Image: Traditional Japanese kimono sleeves are reimagined as a gesture of quiet strength — not submission, but serenity after conflict.The wide, flowing sleeves evoke stillness and restraint, contrasting with the earlier silhouettes that wrestled with tension and duality.This final silhouette, loose from top to bottom, marks a departure from the inner conflict seen in earlier looks. It does not erase the past, but holds it gently. The kimono sleeve, rooted in ritual and grace, becomes a vessel for carrying the unspoken — a thread woven in silence, yet impossible to ignore.This look emphasizes comfort and wearability in an urban context.
Image: LINE-UP
The collection exists in a layered time-space, where the past and present coexist. The past appears in the use of soft, worn cotton and linen fabrics, and in the constriction of corset-like tailoring. Resistance takes form in wide-legged trousers and oversized jackets. The first three looks embody this internal conflict: one side fitted, the other loose — duality in silhouette. The final look transitions into a fully relaxed form, signaling that she is trying to farewell to blind conformity under societal and cultural expectations. She attempts to discard the past through struggle and seeks rebirth through rebellion — only to realize that while a place can change a person, it also shapes them. That original place carved a foundational tone into her identity — a hue that will never fade.

Bio

Yolanda (Yijia) Zhou's fascination with clothing began in childhood, sitting beside her grandmother as she sewed at the old humming machine. Shifting tastes and evolving thoughts constantly makes she crave the new and unfamiliar. Fashion, to her, is the external manifestation of this inner fluidity — a visual, tactile way of expressing an ever-shifting self. She believes that If nothing in this world is eternal, then we can choose to experience — fully and freely — before it all slips away. Designing and making clothes is a kind of joyful collage of her many selves: the traditional and the modern; the quiet and the loud. In her works, these identities clash, negotiate, and finally reconcile — wrapping around immature kids like her, young and still becoming, reminding them that wholeness includes every part of who they are. Focusing on materials that feel kind to the skin and easy to wear, she often use cotton, linen, and jersey knit that invite comfort and effortlessness. Her goal is to create garments that offer a sense of ease and coherence, allowing the wearer to experience fashion as both liberation and self-acceptance.

IG @zhou_zhouyolandaTelEmail
VisitorsClose