Fashion designer Xiong Ying presented her autumn/winter 2023 collection at the awards ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Fashion Week at the Longfu Cultural Center on March 18. Based on the theme of "Beyond Heaven," the collection consisted of 10 series, featuring 110 sets of outfits combining traditional Chinese elements with modern design.

The designer is known for integrating Chinese aesthetics with modern fashion design. Like her previous collections, Xiong takes cues from the country's rich cultural heritage, including its lacquerware and ancient ink-and-water paintings.

She also draws inspiration from an ancient method of repairing porcelain known as Juci (焗瓷), as well as the famous Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu, one of China's biggest treasure troves of Buddhist art.

"From Juci, the ancient porcelain-repairing method, to the relics of Dunhuang, traditional Chinese culture keeps inspiring me. It's a wonderful experience to bring these traditional elements to life in my designs," she said.

The theme "Beyond Heaven" is a continuation of the designer's previous nature-themed collections.

With bold colors, exquisite embroidery, and diverse textiles, the collection expresses the elegant and restrained features of Chinese culture through creative fashion design.

It also features techniques such as dip-dyeing and lacquer work.

"I used lacquered fabric in some designs of the collection. The basic colors are black and white, while the patterns are chrysanthemum silhouettes. The lacquered fabric makes the design quite cool. It represents both the inheritance and innovation of ancient lacquer work," said Xiong.

Since she launched her own fashion label "Heaven Gaia" in 2013, Xiong has devoted herself to presenting traditional Chinese culture to the world through the medium of fashion design.

To honor her contributions to the promotion of China’s intangible cultural heritage, she was named an ambassador of this during the 2023 Beijing Fashion Week at its awards ceremony.

"Fashion is rooted in our own culture. As a designer, Chinese culture has been an endless source of inspiration for my imagination and creativity. I take my designs and contemporary aesthetics as a way to showcase Chinese culture. My exploration of this will never stop," said Xiong.

Since its inauguration in 2016, Beijing Fashion Week has been committed to digging deep into Chinese culture, helping local fashion designers inherit and innovate intangible cultural heritage items, and present traditional Chinese culture to a younger generation.