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In the past, I have always been amazed by the great number of Eastern Asian students that came to England to study fashion with little spoken English but who thrived on the dream of one day becoming a successful fashion designer. Tokyo in particular, encourages their young stars that are known as “U-turners” to train abroad and return to their home country in order to build their own brands. However, after seeing Vega’s collection I became interested to find out what a Chinese designer can offer to the fashion industry in comparison to her fellow classmates?

At first, I questioned whether Vega was inspired by Hussein Chalayan, who for his spring/summer 2008 collection collaborated with photographer Nick Knight and produced a live broadcast of which he exhibited crystal embellished dresses with inbuilt rotating lasers that were displayed as a video in Paris Fashion Week. Of course, this is the first question I asked her. Nevertheless, much to my surprise Vega’s concept was sourced far deeper that by another designer and the idea is simply: wonderful, so let me explain…

Being the only child of parents who are engineers, Vega’s vision to one day become a fashion designer was not encouraged by her family. With nil experience in art or fashion and despite her parent’s opinion on the industry, Vega moved to England and fruitfully completed GCSE in Chichester College, which was then followed by a foundation in LCF( London College of Fashion), which eventually helped secure her a place in a Fashion Design class at the prestigious CSM.

Having been brought up in an environment where both parents are engineers, as a child Vega has always experimented with electronics and connecting wires together to produce light is now nothing new to her. Subsequently, when deciding what to base her final collection on, it was only natural to incorporate the engineering skills that she was taught as a child and base her project on Bioluminescence which is interestingly, the light produced by a chemical reaction within a living organism.
Vega was inspired by particular deep sea creatures, the Ray Fish and the Comb Jelly after watching BBC’s Deep Blue documentary early in the year, which has notably been revealed surprising clues about Earth’s first animal.

These stunning patterns of deep sea creature were lit up by a natural white fabric and can last as long as an hour and a half. Vega used E.L lamps (elumin 8) otherwise known as Electroluminescent Light, which are thin, flexible and energy efficient lights in which she embedded in the inside of her fabrics. Explaining the process of how this operates was the most difficult part to understand, nonetheless this particular light is difficult to source due to its high value and was conversely the hardest challenge Vega experienced. The result is magnificent. And as Vega went on to explain how engineers were helping her backstage to connect the wires together; I became conscious of the great amount of effort it took to verify that each outfit would light up in accordance with the lighting sequence on the catwalk.

The next step for Vega will be to return to China and to explore opportunities in her home country and help build their fashion industry. Despite Vega’s challenge to source the light and connect them in a way that it facilitates the lighting of the garments, her motivation to deliver an innovative and creative performance will for certain secure her place as a rising designer that will no doughty be forgotten amongst CSM’s pride and joy.
With still little experience in the fashion industry but a great understanding of technology, Vega hasn’t just designed a collection; she has used her skills in engineering and has cleverly perfected the ability to engage two familiar areas (fashion and technology) by complimenting each other with the understanding that technology will soon give a new dynamism to fashion. Vega has shown our fascination with the ever changing technology, by taking advantage of its ever lasting capabilities and adapting it to fashion and illustrates its many possibilities.
Bearing in mind that technology is integrating more into our lifestyle; Vega is consequently in the right frame of mind to hopefully become increasingly involved in revolutionizing our way of dress.

VEGA'S LOOK BOOK ON NJAL