Walking into Louise Xin Couture’s spring/summer 2023 show, the optic-white canvas of a gallery space was filled with mingling show-goers decked out in head-to-toe white. Slowly filing into the dimmed runway space, the dress code had a distinctly ethereal effect, soon to be matched by Xins’ all-white ten-piece collection.
“I have a dream’ was illuminated across a screen, opening a presentation of films – both new and archival – which set a clear tone for the show: acknowledging the harsh reality of modern slavery in the fashion industry, yet with an optimism for the turning point that could be. Xin, who was born in China and raised in Sweden, is a self-taught, award-winning fashion designer and founder of the brand - which is Scandinavia's first rental-only couture offering. She handcrafted all of the ten dresses of the collection herself from a mixture of new fabrics to a larger portion of up-cycled, dead-stock, and second-hand fabrics. One dress in the collection is made from a traditional Uyghur atlas pattern and fabric gifted by an Uyghur forced labour survivor, while another is made by Sara Lafi, a German-Palestinian fashion graduate who won last year’s Sustainable Future Fashion competition.
As before, the show truly merged fashion with activism as Xin closed the show wearing a hand-painted dress, emblazoned with the names of the 300 Uyghur victims from the Xinjiang police file. The exquisite art pieces at the show space will later be exhibited at the Way Gallery, whie the dresses will be displayed at the luxury destination NK in Stockholm.
Discover all the looks below:
Louise Xin Couture - SS23
