Tingyu Hu

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Tingyu Hu ("TH") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

TH : Before focusing on 2D and 3D art, I was more into stage art like playing the piano and dancing ballet. I was deeply influenced by classical music and aesthetics, Tchaikovsky, 'Little Women', 'Little Princess', you name it. Later on, during my teenage era, I explored Japanese street fashion and historical gowns and it was the beginning of everything. I learned to draw anime figures and then moved on to draw fashion illustrations when I got enough skills. Fashion design is one of my dreams in my childhood but in my early teen era, I considered that an unrealistic wish. After I got accepted by Pratt Institute in 2016, I finally realized my childhood dream is come true.

DL: What motivates you to design in general, why did you become a designer?

TH : The urge to present my aesthetical world to reality and the visions looping in my brain. I need to find a way to express it or it would be an unborn child stuck in my mind.

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

TH : Everything beautiful. Ready-to-wear pieces, historical remakes, or more-conceptual garments and accessories, but most of the styles are inspired by historical fashion and movies. In the future, I want to focus more on making wearable art pieces, by using the techniques of making installations so that I could try more heavy materials.

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

TH : To have a strong personal style so that people could point out the designer's name when they see that design piece.

DL: What is the value of good design? Why should everyone invest in good design?

TH : Like some designs with innovative technology, if the goal of the design is to change the world and bring people happiness and better living condition, then it would be something I am interested in investing in the future.

DL: What would you design and who would you design for if you had the time?

TH : Design stage costumes for my favorite artists like Arika Takarano of Ali Project is my ultimate dream.

DL: What is the dream project you haven’t yet had time to realize?

TH : Construct historical gowns of every era from ancient times till the 1950s with hand-sewn embellishments, accessories, underwear, and shoes, sadly I do not have time for all of them.

DL: Who are some other design masters and legends you get inspired from?

TH : Personally, I prefer designers who create the work with deep research behind it. Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo are two examples. As for McQueen the rich historical information behind every collection and the idea of presenting it through performance, every time I watched the video of his past shows it still haunts my mind, I just can not get it off my mind. For Kawakubo, she breaks the boundary that most of her runway pieces do not look like an 'ordinary' garment, her interpretation of every technique that we are used to seeing is like an earthquake to the audiences. I respect every designer who brings the strong visual impact but also balances it with beauty.

DL: If you hadn’t become a designer, what would you have done?

TH : I might dive into comparative literature or social science like anthropology. Literature is one of my major inspiration resources, and it is always my hobby to write, while I am keen on researching histories and cultures of every corner of the world.

DL: How do you define design, what is design for you?

TH : Design needs to find out some real issues and solves them. It is more to think of the 'aim', unlike art has more freedom without concerning too much about the customers. Except for these points, for me, design is an alternative way of expressing myself and my outlook and exploring the possibilities of originality.

DL: What helped you to become a great designer?

TH : The curiosity about the world and the desire to express my feelings.

DL: How do you think designers should present their work?

TH : To present it as an art piece, including the beginning and developments, and the final product would be better if be presented with different mediums, like videos, physical product, and texts for explaining the concept behind it.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

TH : To create something that perfectly combine my abstract thoughts that are relatively hard to transfer to visual languages and let people feel deeply empathized.

DL: What would you like to see changed in design industry in the coming years?

TH : For the fashion industry is the relatively low salary compares to other design industries like interior and product designers. It is a common issue for industries that are not on the hot topic or it is just too many supplies over the demand, which also means, people in the fashion industry are not treated with the same respect.

DL: Do you think design sets the trends or trends set the designs?

TH : They influence each other. Trends, like the outfits people wear on the street, designers could analyze it and take it as inspiration for next season, or some famous designers and fashion brands would express the signals of the 'trend' of next season so that people would be influenced by that as well.

DL: What is the role of the color, materials and ambient in design?

TH : They need to create a resonation and reflect the ambiance of the design. If we say characters, description and narrative are the scaffoldings of a novel, then color, materials, and the silhouette are three major elements of a garment. With them all together, the design is a kind of storytelling.

DL: Which books you read had the most effect on your design?

TH : Usually are the collection books about my favorite artists and designers as mentioned above, literature and poems of 20th century modernism, Virginia Woolf, Jean Cocteau, Paul Celan, and books that stimulates my brain with vivid visions, and books about art history.

DL: How do you feel about all the awards and recognition you had, is it hard to be famous?

TH : It is hard and unpredictable.

DL: What is your favorite color, place, food, season, thing and brand?

TH : Colors: crimson, off-white, baby blue, golden, ballet pink. Place: Waterside, libraries, museums, theatres. Season: spring. Things: the smell of humid air, my book and cd collections, my vintage dresses, receipts and tickets of places I have been to.

DL: What makes your day great as a designer, how do you motivate yourself?

TH : To keep it as a habit, do some little practice like writings and doodling in journals, and research art every day to keep me in the atmosphere of creating art and absorbing things. And whenever I have time, I need to sit in front of my desk to create it out without rest, or my mind would lose its track.