Remmy Yin is graduating from our very first cohort of MA Fashion Textiles Technology and will be a part of our LCF24 exhibition celebrating this course, which is now open at LCF until 10 October. We caught up with Remmy to find out more about her work.
Remmy had an unconventional start to her journey in fashion. She first studied graphic design, but there was always a pull towards seeing her designs in a three-dimensional space so, she changed her major to womenswear. Remmy then wanted to narrow her focus and chose to apply to the textiles course at London College of Fashion. The MA course opened up her world, where earlier she wasn’t aware of machine embroidery and today her final project relies heavily on that technique. During her course, she took part in the LCF x Knitup Design and Marketing competition where she received an honorable mention. That led to a collaboration with them on her final collection which will be exhibited at the LCF24 MA Textiles Technology exhibition.
Remmy’s background in graphic design and her interest in street culture led her to graffiti art. “Street culture gives the opportunity to show your creativity or innovations freely because there are no limitations,” she said about her attraction toward the art form. She was particularly interested in the WOM Collective, a group of London based female street artists. From there, she started researching various graffiti artists and street art communities and started building her collection, taking inspiration from the style and the bold and light colour palette commonly found in street arts. With that, Thief Cat was born, a streetwear collection featuring a cat that lives on the street. It was also inspired by Remmy’s own bicolour cat whose fur pattern resembles a thief's mask. “He’s a stray. I found him in the garden and he’s a very independent cat. He sometimes secretly opens the door and runs off. I know he will come back later when he feels hungry. But I wonder what he’s up to. I like observing stray animals and cats on the street. It feels like they are the owners of the street,” she said about how she developed the character of Thief Cat.
The aim of the collection is to bring humour and cuteness into a world, what Remmy calls, “isn’t so cute.” The illustrations are hand drawn and there are uncontrolled lines to give it a childlike feature. She developed different scenarios for Thief Cat, drew it in them and decided to use embroidery or knitting based on the illustration style. Remmy loves reading comics and watching anime and from the she realised the importance of storytelling to attract people’s attention. Which why she has put a heavy emphasis on Thief Cat’s backstory and creating different scenarios for it. “If you want people to remember your character, it should have some unique story and be special,” she explained.
For her designs, she has used a combination of techniques including print, embroidery and knit and the garments are being produced by Knitup.
Remmy hopes to develop the character further and adapt it into other media as well. This what she had to say about her plans for Thief Cat:
“I will continue drawing patterns for this character and maybe also collaborate with other brands. I am not only a textile designer but also a graphic designer and I think this character need not be limited to clothes.”
You can checkout Thief Cat on UAL Showcase.
The exhibition is open to the public till 10 October - book your free ticket on Eventbrite.