Meng Xin Xu

Sputnik Reverie- by Cindy Xu is a romantic.

Reimagining of her family’s Chinese ancestry from the late 1850s through their cross-country diaspora through winter filled wildland and finally back into humid cityscapes in the 1980s. The collection draws an abstract image, like Joan Miro, of what they found beautiful in their surroundings and experiences they shared with their travelling partners; the juxtaposition between the sheerness and the thickness of winter.

Sputnik comes from the word literally “fellow traveller”), from (s-, “with, together”) + (putnik, “traveller”), and (put, “way, journey”). Reverie comes from the fictional nature of combining Cindy’s personal trip with her close friend Ingrid in Sweden with the historical “ChuangGuanDong” diaspora of the Han people into the testing winters of North China .

The collection captures the feeling of relishing in the beauty of mist, frost and snow with the joie de vivre of a small child. Every look is an homage to the arctic expeditions of idealistic heroes, loving adventurers who named glaciers after a lover, and the tender embellishments of good luck charms from Chinese culture.

The 1one figures are dressed with snow crystal formation motifs, loosely drawing connection on the “bouquet” sacs to the optimistic, migrating Northern Chinese diaspora of the past. Inspired by cold air calisthenics practiced in Northern China, the collection features a number of thin, air-contained pieces that are strategically subtractively cut to allow the body to fully submerge in cold air therapy. While the rest of the collection is drawn from the utilitary functions of the arctic expeditions but with styles of 1980’s Shanghainese menswear.

1one’s designer Cindy Xu recalls memories from her upbringing in Canada and her love for northern landscapes through her trip to Sweden. The pastel blues of the night sky and bright baby yellows of streetlamps reflecting against an icy road inspired the colour palette of the collection. She is also drawn to sensory inspirations such as the calm she feels standing in an empty field of snow. She adores the simplicity of a winter landscape covered in white and leaving houses and trees standing out like negative space art or Joan Miró’s paintings.