Youyun Shang
PORTFOLIO
Youyun Shang is a fashion and digitaldesigner born in Shanghai. She describes herself as a
storyteller, enjoying presenting her personal experiences through artistic works, drawing
reflections from her own experiences, and formulating reflections through observing
society and the environment.
Consequently, her works collectively construct a rich and
profound narrative about individuals, emotions, sensory experiences, and ecological
relationships. Youyun Shang's works have always focused on fabric development,
particularly knit fabrics. She likes to showcase the emotions in her work through fabric
textures. Therefore, most of her works are designed to showcase her emotional values
through the details and textures of the fabrics.
Projects
Undergraduate Thesis Collection, Fashion Design，2024
“Fill and Full” originates from my experience of constant relocation, reimagining “home” as a fluid, ambiguous, and emotionally complex condition. The project centers on knitting and yarn as a language of memory and embodied perception. My allergic reaction to yarn creates a paradoxical relationship with the material—both intimate and resistant—mirroring my conflicted sense of home. The knitted textures are informed by bodily experience, tracing the shifting relationship between material, memory, and identity.
Brand Design，2026
Ruibuilt, as a fashion brand, continuously explores the relationships between skin and textile, body and garment, materiality and boundaries. The brand seeks to move clothing beyond mere external covering, transforming it into an extension of the inner self—an existence that stays close to the body and responds to emotion.
“Sexiness is not pornography.”
It does not serve the gaze of others, but emerges from the perception and recognition of one’s own body. Centered on the idea of “the strength of softness,” the brand emphasizes body awareness and the notion of clothing as a “second skin,” positioning garments as a medium through which individuals connect with themselves.
Graduate Thesis，Textile Installation，2026
This project investigates the relationship between heat, textiles, and human emotion through material experimentation and installation design. Using thermal imaging as a research tool, I documented the residual warmth left by the body and translated these invisible traces into knitted structures, wearable forms, and spatial experiences.
The project combines scientific observation, textile innovation, and speculative design to explore how materials can communicate memory, intimacy, and identity beyond traditional visual language. It reflects my interest in transforming abstract concepts into tangible design experiences through research-driven making.
Fashion Design，3D Printing，Knitwear，2023
“Inhibit Bone”s inspiration comes from a childhood marked by parental absence and irregular eating habits leading to early puberty. To boost my height, my parents used suppressive injections, leaving a lasting impact on our relationship. In this project, I explored early puberty causes, its effects, risks of suppressive injections, and bone changes in adolescence. Drawing on personal experiences, I reimagined the recipient’s role, reflecting on its impact and reassessing my connection with my parents. I created 3D-printed wearable devices for hands and hips, symbolizing parental control over my bone growth. The transition from tight to lose restricts hand and hip movement. Using a knitted design, inspired by childhood comfort, elastic structures represent emotions during this process.
Collaboration Project，Virtual Fashion，VR Experience，2025
A VR interactive theatre play project, blends traditional Chinese theatre aesthetics with modern machinery design,
showcasing the mix of modern peroformance and advanced mocap technology and experimental VR interactive methods, to
explore themes of individualism and collectivism.
Textile Installation，2024
Re for Build is a textile installation project centered on the reconstruction of “home.” Drawing inspiration from oracle bone script, the work translates everyday bodily movements into an unreadable, oracle-like personal writing system, transforming body language into traces of memory. Through the use of Chinese medicinal plant dyeing, laser cutting, and knitted structures, the project embeds root-like, intertwining, and growing textures into the textile, allowing the material itself to become a carrier of sensory memory.
The work stems from my experience of memories of “home” being overwritten, forgotten, and reassembled across time and space. For me, memory is not a stable archive, but an ongoing process of remembering, forgetting, and reconstructing. By weaving together bodily gestures, the scent of plants, the tactile quality of fabric, and script-like traces, the project attempts to reconstruct “home” as an intimate archive—one that cannot be fully read, yet can still be sensed and touched.