Yu-Mei Huang Spins a Cotton Candy Yarn

LONDON FASHION WEEK | FJU TALENTS | SS20 SHOW REVIEW

For a lifelong colour lover and pastel junkie like me, visually, this collection evoked deep joy in my heart! Perhaps it’s my inner child striving for precedence, but there’s something about these gloriously sunny, optimistic, pretty colour combinations that I find exceptionally compelling and attractive - on this LFW FROW, I was the proverbial kid in a candy store!

Sugar-Coated Layering

Clearly this bright, funky, androgynous aesthetic isn’t for everyone. I’m not even saying I would wear every piece, or style them as they were on the runway, but the splashes of pink, purple, blue and yellow, set against whites and candy stripes were for me reminiscent of the Dolly Mixture sweeties I would eat as a kid [see below!], a nostalgic and fun memory of innocent times, when you wore what you were told and sweets were a rare treat indeed!

But I’m in danger of running away with this childish nostalgia! And as such, I’m at risk of doing a grave disservice to this highly talented young designer, who graduated from the Royal College of Art Womenswear Knitwear Master program in 2019, after completing her BA in Knitwear Design at Taiwan’s Fu Jen University. The skill and craftsmanship in each of these pieces is undeniable. Not to mention the sheer ingenuity of design, silhouette, structure and texture. Huang manipulates yarn in beautifully fluid shapes, adorning pieces in bubbly textures, or simply exploiting the knit itself to describe the body’s contours.