Play with color

Zhi Chen, the founder of a brand that focuses exclusively on knitting, tells her story and talks of what inspires her.

While many fashion designers insist on injecting complex concepts into their works, Zhi Chen keeps her designs simple and delights customers without imposing philosophical burdens on them.

"If fashion is superficial, why should I pretend it isn't?" says Zhi, 27, the founder of a brand called i-am-chen, which focuses exclusively on knitting.

She is deeply influenced by the delicate designs of American sculptor Alexander Calder, especially his signature mobiles.

She thinks Calder's work has blurred the boundary between the world of toys and art.

"In his artworks there are no obscure and intricate parts - it is all simple and happy."

Last year, Zhi produced knitwear pieces that ranged from large bucket-shaped hats to skirts and jumpers for her graduation collection, Playground, at the London College of Fashion.

To design the collection, she first projected images onto the models' bodies.

Then, the lines and shapes generated from the projections were used as the inspiration for the structure and details of the designs.

At the university, she developed a technique which enables the seamless merging of color blocks and knitwear patterns. And using the technique, she produced knitwear underpinned by highly intricate and sophisticated fabric structures that render a smooth surface and present the intricacy as a harmonious whole.