MEIXI HE

"The lost Relics" is a meditation on cultural displacement, historical memory, and the fluid dialogue between past and present. Designed by Meixi He, the collection is deeply rooted in her dual experiences of Beijing and Europe, reflecting on the journey of Chinese cultural relics—objects that have traversed continents through looting, trade, and diplomatic exchange. This collection challenges the notion of loss, questioning whether these movements signify cultural erosion or the evolution of heritage through new narratives.

Meixi He distills this exploration into a harmonious convergence of Eastern artistry and Western precision. Traditional Chinese garment construction shapes the silhouettes, while the discipline of European tailoring imbues them with structure and poise. Fabrication remains sacrosanct—only the finest natural fibres, including silk, wool, linen, and cotton, are meticulously chosen to evoke the rich tactility of nineteenth-century Chinese textiles, honouring the past while redefining its presence in the contemporary world.

A palette of oxidised bronze, aged gold, and deep patina green evokes the weathered beauty of ancient artefacts, while layered textures mimic the worn surfaces of relics that have withstood time. Intricate oracle bone script prints, exquisite embroidery, and sequinned embellishments transform each piece into a living artefact, rich with cultural resonance.

The collection is an intimate meditation on Meixi He’s upbringing—rooted in the labyrinthine Hutong alleys of Beijing, where scattered roof tiles stand as quiet relics of a vanishing past, and shaped by her education in the UK, where encounters with displaced Chinese antiquities in institutions like the British Museum ignited a profound contemplation of cultural identity. Cinematic influences, from the elegiac grandeur of The Last Emperor to the atmospheric nostalgia of The Hidden Man, further weave themselves into the collection’s narrative, lending depth and poignancy to its vision.  

In "The lost Relics" two-thousand twenty-five AW, history is not lost, but gently reawakened, one stitch at a time.