The history of fashion, in some respects, mirrors the history of women’s ongoing struggle for space. From the loosening of the corset to the emergence of professional women’s wear, and from women’s entry into the public sphere to contemporary discussions on gender and identity, clothing has consistently played a part in the evolution of social attitudes towards women.
Compared with garments, accessories are often accorded less significance as carriers of social commentary. However, in ‘She Builds’, the London College of Fashion handbag designer Ruwei Yu weaves the female experience, urban transformation within China’s modernisation process, and issues of identity into the fabric of her handbag designs, transforming everyday objects into vessels that convey narratives of identity and social observations.
Yu regards family, career, and social expectations as a structural system that shapes women’s lived experiences on an ongoing basis. The design project ‘She Builds’ originates from her observations of the life patterns of women of her mother’s generation, as well as her long-standing reflections on the situation of women in contemporary Chinese society.
Yu focuses on the traces hidden within everyday life, the personal aspirations that are repeatedly compressed, the emotional efforts that are typically overlooked, and the complex states women experience as they shift between different social roles. These observations are further situated within the historical context of China’s modernisation. Ruwei Yu has set the 1930s in Shanghai as the research backdrop for the entire project.
This period coincided with a crucial phase of rapid transformation in China’s social structure. As women began entering public fields such as banking, education, and commerce, they acquired new social identities beyond the family. They were also engaged in a constant search for their own place amidst the tension between tradition and modernity. ‘She Builds’ focuses on how women establish, adjust and affirm their social identities amidst societal change, and attempts to translate this ongoing process into a tangible design language.
Yu regards architecture as a way of thinking about ‘construction’. In her view, what matters most is how architecture, through structure, order, and spatial relationships, supports the continuous formation of a whole. This line of thinking also forms the basis for the design of the entire collection. She has re-examined the structural logic of layering, proportion, connection, and support found in 1930s Shanghai Art Deco and Shikumen architecture and transformed it into the compositional principles of her handbags.
The bags thus resemble miniature buildings that move with the body. Through the processes of opening, closing, supporting and carrying, they serve as a metaphor for female identity—not as a fixed entity, but as something that is established, revised and sustained amidst social change and personal experience.
This design philosophy centred on ‘construction’ extends further to the materials and production methods of the pieces. Yu focuses on how architecture responds to the ever-changing relationship between people and their environment through structure, materials, and spatial organisation. This understanding is translated into the product language of the bags, endowing the pieces with both the rational structure of product design and the openness of fashion design regarding bodily experience and emotional expression. Lambskin and wood enhance the pieces’ sense of structure and retain the temporal texture inherent in traditional materials.
Digital manufacturing techniques such as laser engraving, 3D printing, and CNC machining further imbue the works with distinctively contemporary manufacturing characteristics. The coexistence of traditional craftsmanship and modern manufacturing technologies echoes, at the level of production, China’s transition from tradition to modernity in the 1930s. This historical transition is embodied in the interplay of materials, craftsmanship, and manufacturing logic, allowing the entire collection to form a design expression that transcends the dimension of time.
This series of works showcases Ruwei Yu’s critical thinking, honed at the London College of Fashion, coupled with her mature approach to product design and mastery of structural control. She possesses a talent for identifying subtle and authentic connections between social change and individual experience, transforming these observations into meticulously conceived and flawlessly executed designs. ‘She Builds’ engages with the intertwined relationships between architecture, the city and history to rethink how identity is constructed and how it is perpetuated through design.
This creative approach, which bridges fashion design, architectural thinking and social research, also reflects Ruwei Yu’s research capabilities and depth of thinking that set her apart from her peers. For Ruwei Yu, design is far broader than the creation of new objects; it is a method for reinterpreting society, organising experiences, and responding to the changing times.
