Over-Fashion

Ming Wei

Summary
Final work

Over the past three years, I have continuously explored different forms of visual storytelling. In my first year, I experimented with fashion illustration but soon realized that the medium didn't resonate with how I wanted to express ideas. In my second year, I focused on animation and created a fully developed short film. Although the project didn’t receive high marks, I remained proud of it, knowing it required time, precision, and a deep understanding of motion.

After that experience, I took time to reflect and gradually shifted toward 3D modeling. It was a completely new skill for me, and I taught myself everything from the ground up. Despite the challenges, I found myself more engaged and fulfilled in this process than in any previous work. I’ve come to realize that my strengths lie in animation, world-building, and visual experimentation—areas that may fall outside the traditional fashion illustration framework, but are just as valid in the larger field of image-making.

I believe creative growth is not always linear. My journey has been about discovering where I work best, embracing what inspires me, and building the skills that align with my long-term creative direction.

Over the past three years, I have continuously explored different forms of visual storytelling. I...

CollegeLondon College of Fashion
CourseBA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration
Graduation year2025

This project critiques the logic of over-fashion—why people accept discomfort, impracticality, or even absurdity in clothing, as long as it carries symbolic value. The idea began with a personal experience of wearing a pair of luxury boots that were visually striking but painfully unwearable. This contradiction led me to question how fashion constructs belief, turning stories and branding into value systems. The final outcome features a colossal, walking fashion structure. Its upper section presents a curated miniature world—clean, seductive, and dreamlike—symbolizing how fashion authorities construct narratives to assign meaning to products. Below, people are gradually drawn in, not by force, but by fascination, eventually becoming part of the display themselves. The installation reflects how fashion seduces, absorbs, and normalizes conformity through aesthetic illusion. While inspired by “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the goal is not to expose a lie, but to examine how belief is collectively shaped and silently maintained. The work combines references to designer toys, 1980s Japanese consumer aesthetics, and fashion branding strategies, inviting viewers to ask: Are our choices truly our own, or are they scripted by the system we admire?

Final work

A towering machine with a glass dome presents a fairy-tale world above, symbolizing how fashion authority shapes and change people's choices.

Research and process

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Over-Fashion