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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND EDUCATIONAL 
TECHNOLOGIES (ONLINE) - ISSN: 2717-7130 

Vol:1,  Issue: 4 pp: 716-722

JEL Codes: Z1, Z10 
JUN M. (2020) “Contemporary Art Characteristics of Original Costume 

Design” Vol:1, Issue: 4 pp: 716-722
Keywords: original costume design; characteristics of contemporary art; design ideas; 

the new generation of designers 

Article Type Review Article 
Contemporary Art Characteristics of Original Costume Design 

Arrived Date Accepted Date Published Date 
25.10.2020 27.10.2020 31.10.2020 

  Meng Jun 
Abstract 

Like artistic creativity, original costume, as a microcosm of culture, embodies the cutting-edge 
thoughts of the times. The new generation of original costume designers becomes more and more like 
artists, and costume design has become a tool for designers to explain their personal ideas. Instead of 
collective consciousness, they focus more on their own position and experience in daily life. Collection 
of original costume design shows the characteristics of contemporary art that are anti-rational, 
anti-centered, and experimental, and focus on local traditional culture. 

The Basic Characteristics of Contemporary Art 

Having been influenced by modernism and postmodernism since the 1990s, thoughts in art finally fall 
into contemporary art. Contemporary art① has integrated various art forms including modernism, 
structuralism, cubism, Dadaism, and surrealism, as well as traditional Chinese culture. Croce, an Italian 
philosopher who has profoundly influenced contemporary art, denied that art was form of practical 
activity and pointed out that art was purely intuition. Croce once said, “Art was not a physical fact, or a 
utilitarian, moral, conceptual, logical activity...Art focuses on the human spirit and soul. [1] This account 
has relieved the cultural burden and shadow of traditions on art, and driven contemporary art towards 
highly free and personal expression. American scholar Fredric Jameson, who has a great impact on 
postmodernism, also believes that contemporary art is a state of decentralization and fragmentation of 
the subject and focuses more on self-entertainment and free release of feelings. [2] Contemporary art has 
shifted from focusing on collective consciousness to on artists’ personal position and experience in daily 
life, and then entered into the public eye with a comprehensive characteristic of being close to life, 
pleasing mind, and enjoying a high degree of freedom. 

As the epitome of the culture, art, and thoughts of the times, costume design bears a close relation to 
artistic trends and social development. Especially the new generation of original costume designers②, 
the most forefront representatives of social thoughts of art, is sensitive to art just like contemporary 
artists, and their works represent the sensitivity of the times. Such group of designers roughly emerged 
in China in the early 1990s, and was also impacted by the storms of modernism, postmodernism and 
varied artistic styles with a time gap with Western clothing development③. The 21st century has seen a 
new generation of original fashion designers whose works oppose rationality, centrality, and secular 
aesthetic experience, pay attention to local traditional culture and art, and choose materials and ways to 
express through experiments, all of which are distinctive features of contemporary art. 

Anti-rational and anti-central Inclination of Original Costume Design 

No cultural burden and shadow of traditions1 

Contemporary art does not have explicit artistic propositions or distinctive forms of art, as its very 

Sichuan University of Arts and Science/CHINA 

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8522-3702


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open concepts have led to its diversified forms. Contemporary art creations completely break the 
boundaries of cultures and discard the burden of traditions. Any former artistic style could be seen as 
the elements of contemporary art. For new original fashion designers, holding on dreams of creativity 
by sticking to a certain art form or reviving a certain culture may not be the focus of their design 
activities. They often place themselves in an ambiguous state between the past and the future, 
aggressiveness and convention, centrality and marginality, and rationality and irrationality, and tap 
into greater artistic possibilities by dissolving artistic styles and themes. [3] All forms of art at all times 
and in all over the world are elements for their creativity. Compared with collective dream for 
creativity, they more value their own ideas. 

Figure 1 Shangguan Zhe’s collection of spring/summer 2015 men’s brand 
show at London Fashion Week④ 

Figure 2 Zhou Xiangyu’s collection in the London Fashion Week autumn/winter 2015⑤

As a new domestic fashion designer and founder of SANKUANZ, Shangguan Zhe's works have their own 
special traits. His design highlights his subtle feelings of life, and the capture of momentary emotions, 
and is full of a strong sense of mixed styles. “Bohemian” is often used to describe Shangguan's design, 
and his intrinsic love for “ego” is reflected in the ample visual and language elements he employs. 
Elements such as Indian braids, blazing patterns of popular art, sports, dolls, aliens, and Chinese 
characters could be mixed up and appear. Any cultural icons and design elements can be designed in 
his works in a relaxing and harmonious way. Zhou Xiangyu is another typical designer who perfectly 
knows that he uses clothes as a medium of values and self-expression. He associates design with the 
lifestyle of today’s young people, so what they like and what they think is cool are very important to 
Zhou. Zhou excels at taking the all kinds of elements in culture and life that he has encountered as 
design elements in his works. He states, “Design is international, and designers should not be 
constrained by their nationality.” ⑥ 

For the new generation of original fashion designers, culture or tradition is part of what they concern, 
but is definitely not a design guide. Besides, cultural boundaries do not exist, and cultural elements of 
different styles are often found in the work of the same designer. A wide range of elements are 
combined at random, and the design activity itself has also become a means for designers to 
materialize their own concepts of art and express their experience. 

Oppose secular aesthetic experience and emphasize innovation 

Compared with a certain noble meaning and content, creativity is so important to the new generation 
of fashion designers, and ability to create has gained great attention and recognition from them. Croce 
said that “Art is a liberator.” As a state or a mindset of the new designers, creativity is more significant 



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than anything for them. Design activities gradually change from serious and rational activities to a 
relaxing game which is just aimed at creating a new style. The materials for creativity can be diverse. 
Styles, cultures, and even any symbols in life at any time and in any nation can be put into the design of 
garment. Having left behind former serious culture, philosophy and logics, original design activities put 
more emphasis on free expression and self-entertainment. It is a game of chance to determine 
decorative elements and styles. The decorative elements, forms, and structures of clothing are 
constantly changing during creation, and the materials, techniques, and shapes are also full of 
uncertainties. 

Figure 3 Wan Yifang’s collection of Industrial Revolution and Fashion⑦ 

In 2010, in the graduation collection at the Central Saint Martins, the cradle of modern fashion 
designers, the rising star Wan Yifang won the attention of worldwide fashion media with a set of 
design works called Industrial Revolution and Fashion. Her design works dismiss traditional standards 
of fashion aesthetics, and look neither elegant nor exquisite. Oversized and simple, her clothes are 
made from plain fabrics. Stereoscopic huge wooden decorations are her design’s impressive part. Later 
in an interview, Wan said, “The problem I will meet is innovation. The so-called innovation is 
unprecedented.” ⑧ 

Focus on personal position, experience in life, and high degree of freedom 

In general, contemporary original costume design features great personality and liberty, which is 
consistent with the frontier of contemporary art. Li Xianting pointed out, “Contemporary art is above 
all an artistic attitude and cultural standpoint. The priority of contemporary art is to really face current 
experience and feelings of life and living environment. [4] The new designers put a high value on their 
own position and life situation, and their design activities on the combination of culture and 
experience, instead of previous collective consciousness of aesthetics. From initial design concept to 
selection of materials and color combinations, from structure and overall shape to selection of patterns 
and processing methods, his expression methods and designs always keep emerging, revealing the 
highly free creative state of contemporary original costume design. 

For designer Wang Yiyang (one of China's most prestigious designers and the founder of women's 
fashion brand Zuczug), his inspiration comes directly from daily life. Wang is a designer with novel 
ideas. He once led his design team to visit vegetable markets in Shanghai where they collected common 
symbols such as fish, kitchen knives, carrots, cabbage, various fruits and vegetables as well as pig 
trotters and hanging ducks which have presented as design elements in his collection of Vegetable 
Market 1 and Vegetable Market 2. In addition, Wang published the Tea Mug collection based on life in 
the 1970s, and the Barbershop collection inspired by street barber shops. In an interview, Wang said, “I 
observe daily life in China and then think about how to apply it to fashion design.” ⑨ 



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Figure 4 Collection of Vegetable Market 2⑩ 

Figure 5 Barbershop collection11 

Focus on Local Traditional Culture and Art 

A feature of contemporary art is that traditional art elements [5] get attention, presented in the focus on 
expression of traditional Chinese art and of “Chinese style” in Western art forms. This is the same as 
the new original clothing design. Recreating China’s local cultural elements in a Western design style 
has become a hot spot. Ji Cheng, a representative designer of the group, is the founder of JICHENG, and 
a China’s local designer rooted in Shanghai. Her designs often upend the traditional Chinese style and 
mix Chinese elements with elegance and hippie. In 2014, Ji released a fashion item Crane Shadow 
which adopted the traditional pattern of crane’s wings together with embroidery and 
three-dimensional feather-like decorations in the hoodie design. Ji said, “I think perhaps only those in a 
quiet world can feel the frequency of vibrations at the moment crane's wings spread out gently.” 12 The 
oriental mythological animals, such as suanni, bi’an, kylin, and qiuniu, were displayed through 
traditional embroidery and three-dimensional tailoring in her 2016 collection called Mythological 
Animals on Mountains. In October 2017, her collection Dancing Phoenix in Garden adopted a 
three-dimensionally embroidered phoenix totem with metallic color. Ji incorporates obvious 
traditional cultural elements and likes to reinterpret the traditional culture in a destructive way. For 
example, the decoration of phoenix tail, facial makeup in Beijing opera, and the shape of goldfish tail in 
traditional paintings all present in clothes in an innovative way. Her design deconstructs traditional 
Chinese symbols, and at the same time features a clear style of Western design. Western tailoring 
coupled with Ji’s unique understanding of Chinese elements is typical Chinese style, but not traditional 
one. 

Hu Sheguang is another representative who focuses on local traditional culture. In March 2015, he 
released the autumn/winter collection with the theme of cotton-padded jackets of Northeast China. 
The wonderful contrast between red and green prints has strong local features, and is highly 
recognizable. His innovation and mash-up can also be seen in the models’ look and makeup on the 
scene. With the expression of fashion, he infused cotton-padded jackets, the soul of Northeast China, 
with a new life of fashion. Hu said, “I use a fairly grounded inspiration to show people’s emotions. This 
is also a release of my own feudal thinking as a child. The fabrics, colors, and patterns are all very 
traditional but displayed in a very different way.” 13 



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Figure 6 Hoodie in Crane Shadow14 

Figure 7 Hu Sheguang’s collection in 2015 autumn/winter show15 

Experiments in Materials and Ways to Express 

Another important feature of contemporary art is experimental, which is in tune with that of original 
clothing design. Experiment guarantees innovation. More and more like artists, the new designers 
spend more time in the laboratory to tirelessly do various experiments on fabric effects, printing 
patterns, structure, and appearance. 

A very important factor of the quality of contemporary fashion designs is materials that decide the 
success of a design work. Therefore, designers have a keen interest in trying different materials and 
doing innovative experiments. Many designers are committed to experimenting with various materials, 
which involves not only quality, texture, and patterns but basic constituents, approaches to decoration, 
effect of expression of materials. The continuous experiments of materials provide designers with a 
constant stream of design elements, and fresh inspirations that in turn will propel designers to 
continue their experiments on materials to seek new materials. [6] Liu Qingyang, the founder of an 
original clothing brand Chictopia, is a representative in clothing material innovation. She is very bold in 
the use of colors. The patterns and color combination in her design works are featured by art deco. 
Chictopia 2014 spring/summer collection was inspired by the pioneering art style of the 1920s, and 
combined geometric abstraction, cubism, and art deco. Liu’s designs are filled with big eye patterns, 
huge abstract half a face patterns, as well as asymmetric tailoring and simple geometric shapes. 
Besides, the breakthroughs of structure and abstract patterns combine with a deviant visual effect, 
emanating a strong experimental sense. 

As high-tech technology is constantly updated and applied, clothing materials can produce more novel 
visual effects to present more diversified features, and make materials more artistic. The use of new 
materials can reflect various changes of design in details, so using novel materials means that a good 
design is half done. In order to create fashionable designs and keep them cutting-edge, contemporary 
designers are interested in pursuing visual effects and attributes of new materials. In recent years, the 



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application designers have drawn inspiration from a collection of many innovations, such as composite 
scuba knitting fabric and its updating, application of 3D printing technology, three-dimensional texture 
fabrics, avant-garde luster, and fashionable sense of straightness. Masha Ma, a new original fashion 
designer, uses obvious fashionable fabrics in her designs, and is not limited in any form or material. 
She hopes to find a new way to express “modernity” ─ a sense of texture but not luxury. 

Figure 8 2013 autumn/winter collection of Masha Ma16

Figure 9 Qiu Hao’s collection in 2013 autumn/winter show17

The experimental feature of original clothing is also prominently manifested in shapes and structure 
which are the most crucial factors apart from novel materials and pattern designs. Creating a 
seemingly casual and stylish structure is also important in the experiments by original clothing 
designers. Practical and creative shapes can bring sense of fashion. Asymmetric design, misplaced 
structure, exaggerated sections or decorative details are common tactics that original designers 
employ. They always make various attempts to seek new forms to break former aesthetic concept. Qiu 
Hao, the founder of Qiu Hao, is good at design and tailoring of oversized clothes. His effort in structure 
can be seen all over his works, such as jointed cloth scraps, hyperbolic sleeves, details of binding, and 
huge collars. Qiu has always been designing fashionable clothes in experimental methods in hope of 
finding something different. 

Conclusion 

Original costume design is facing the collapse of the traditional aesthetic order.  As with 
contemporary art, all the old experience in aesthetics in clothing design is broken up, and the criterion 
for collective aesthetics of clothing are deliberatively cast away by the new generation of original 
clothing designers. Designers regard fashion design as a means of expressing design ideas. And original 
designers use it to express an individualized attitude about fashion that focuses on personal growth 
experience and details in daily life. Anti-centrality, anti-rationality, and the use of experimental 
methods are the characteristics of the new fashion designers’ creation. Elements of different cultures 
are employed as they please, and new forms and technologies are constantly springing up. For original 
clothing designers, new and more personalized aesthetic standards are taking shape. More like artists, 
the new generation of original costume designers interprets costume design with contemporary 
artistic creation, and costume trends in modern times in a more free and personalized way. 



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About the author:, Meng Jun, associate professor, Sichuan University of Arts and Science 
Acknowledgment: This paper is the teaching reform project of Sichuan University of Arts and 
Sciences in 2020: A study on the classroom teaching mode of art creation and its teaching effect 
evaluation system, subject Number: 2020JY017 research results. 

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