Weaving heritage into future fashion

Chinese designer Zhao Huizhou's brand HUI unveiled its Fall/Winter 2025 collection Aurora, which draws inspiration from the stunning Miao embroidery.

Miao embroidery is a national intangible cultural heritage in China. And the Miao ethnic group, mainly from Southwest China's Guizhou province, is well-known for the exquisite embroidery on their costumes.

The designs for the collection drew from this cultural heritage and looked back to when humans were far from knowing the science of cosmology when deities were seen as the rulers of the universe. Imagining how and why the sun rises and sets was deeply rooted in many cultures.

In Roman mythology, Apollo was the sun god while the solar deity in ancient Chinese mythology was Xihe, who drove the carriage that transported the sun.

Whether in the East or the West, people shared a reverence for the source of light, which inspired Zhao's Aurora collection, that was unveiled in early March during the Milan Fashion Week.

Sunlight is a universal symbol of hope, mending the broken, and cleaning the mist, Zhao says.

Embodying an image that resonates across cultural boundaries in its chic design is just one hallmark of her brand HUI.

Something that has remained refreshingly consistent throughout Zhao's 10 years of appearances at the "Big Four" (Paris, Milan, London and New York) global fashion weeks is her ongoing interest in China's time-honored cultural legacy. This time, her work features Miao embroidery.

Working with needles and thread, embroiderers adorn clothes with designs of natural phenomena, mythical creatures and ethnic history, which all reflect the world-views, values and aesthetics of the Miao people. Miao embroidery is often considered "the Miao epic worn on the body".