It’s very hard for me to describe how I design with precise vocabulary. I decided to design a collection inspired by Impressionism because I was listening to Claire De Lune by Debussy one night. I could see different dresses and attire in my mind, or my brain, I would say, then I simply drew what I saw in my head onto the paper.
– Yun Qu
Sustainable fashion never looked so good. New York-based, Chinese born, Yun Qu, designer for the brand Videmus Omnia, works against the big industry of fast-fashion and society’s throw away culture. Driven by concept and storytelling, and always inspired by the arts, Clair De Lune is a seasonless, handmade collection made from deadstock materials—luxe biodegradable fabrics of tapestry, cotton, and silk—designed for little impact on the planet.
Classical music is her calling card, her go-to for inspiration, and she relies heavily on her sense of hearing to provide inspiration, instead of her sense of sight, when constructing her own body of work. At a very young age, Qu studied classical music, with particular interest in the old masters’ composition works such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn, and was intrigued by how music was composed. “I especially liked how the composers in the classical period wrote the pieces. Each piece composes a story in a way people can hear through music. I wanted to do the same with my brand. Each piece that I designed was inspired by certain music pieces, and I want to use design to express myself and to tell different stories, too.”
Clair De Lune was inspired by French composer Claude Debussy, French Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Japanese painter and printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai, with a particular fabric reference to Hokusai. “When I was designing the collection, I found some particular fabric that was inspired by Katsushika Hokusai. To be honest, I just wanted to use those beautiful fabrics in this collection!” From her research, the Impressionist period proved to be a big influence. She said, ” … after I finished all my designs, I started to do more research about the Impressionist painters and used Renoir as my inspiration for the textiles. I also did a lot of research on garment construction during the Impressionism period and readjusted some of my designs.”
Qu, a Fashion Institute of Technology alumna, who also studied at Polimoda in Florence and Politecnico di Milano, has an affinity for haute couture techniques and specialty constructs like sleeves and handbags. She blends fine dressmaking, haute couture techniques, with artistic practicality, offering a hybrid of quality custom-made construction and accessibility – coined Ready-Couture. Her ‘crazy, exaggerated sleeves’ are a statement in every collection. For this collection, she studied sleeve construction from the Baroque period. Handbags made from tapestry, brocade, and silk complement the collection—another dimension of design creativity influenced by the music of Debussy and paintings by Renoir.
Feature image: Clair De Lune 2023 Editorial, courtesy of Yun Qu | Photographer @rchau.photo MUA/Hair @zully.nyc Models: @kendallkiland @kamilagareeva
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