BEAUTY ON FIRE — FOR ZAHA

RUI XU'S FASHION POP-UP AT ZAHA HADID DESIGN GALLERY
8 June – 14 June 2016, 1 – 6 pm (closed Sat + Sun)
Press Day: 9 June 2016, 3 – 6 pm

London, May 2016 – In memory of the late, great Dame Zaha Hadid, artist and couture fashion designer Rui Xu, one of China’s foremost designers, will be presenting BEAUTY ON FIRE — FOR ZAHA, an exhibition showcasing her unique and remarkable fashion designs. This exhibition will be set against the backdrop of Zaha Hadid’s innovative and inspiring furniture collection and installations.

“The transformable shapes and artful silhouettes of Rui Xu’s design give a feeling of freedom and being myself” — Zaha Hadid.

This will be Rui Xu’s official launch in London of her high-end fashion brand “XIANGWANGYI” and her ready-to-wear fashion brand “ruixu.”

As the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize for her innovative, rule-breaking architectural projects, Zaha Hadid’s avant-garde and ultra-modern style was as inspiring as it was influential.

Hadid traversed the borders of architecture and fashion by expanding her creative scope through collaborations with design houses such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Swarovski, and curated her own astonishing, personal sense of style epitomized by her dramatic jewelry and daring outerwear.
Hadid therefore recognized a corresponding synergy with the design ethos of Rui Xu, and became a friend, client and muse to the designer. The last additions to her wardrobe were two of Xu’s exclusively designed pieces – one of them called Black Tears Dress, and the other called Triumph Cloak. “Zaha liked the non-structural shapes and exquisite details of my designs,” Rui Xu reveals. “To my surprise and delight, she opened a window for my ideas.”

To pay tribute to Hadid, Rui Xu’s exhibition is named Beauty On Fire — For Zaha. “Zaha’s heroic life was as gorgeous as a flame,” Xu says. Rui Xu has spent eight years collaborating with Dr. Kinor Jiang (a textile specialist at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University), to develop a technique of applying metal plating onto delicate natural textiles, which in turn creates the iridescent visual effect of burning flame. This pioneering fabric-making technique enables Xu to inject innovation and creativity into her pieces.

Xu’s collaboration with fashion and portrait photographer Raymond Tan is further testament to her unique designs. “When I first saw Rui's garments, I saw the Chinese landscape together with an endless story-telling potential, driven by heritage and the desire to recreate a new way of clothing,” Tan says. Tan intends to create images that relate the subject with shaped landscape through the abstraction of the body, that are aesthetically strong and yet silent.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Rui Xu is an award winning Chinese fashion designer and contemporary artist whose works bridge fashion, painting, music and performance, blurring the boundaries of culture and aesthetics. Xu was the Director of Fashion at China Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing (CAFA), and now lectures at the university as an Associate Professor. After a year of academic research at Royal College of Art in 2015, Rui Xu set up her studio in South Kensington, London.

Her professional experiences include being Culture Director of “Rhyme of Chu Culture” for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Chief Costume Designer for the 60th Miss World Final in 2010; and acting as a Culture Director and Designer for many top fashion brands in China. Her fashion-art treatise Xiang Wang Yi won the Red Dot Design Award in Germany and the Gold Award at the Design of Asia Awards in 2013, and her Si Liang Shi series is a part of the permanent collection at the China Silk Museum.

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