Tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to pursue the world of fashion. 

I am Weijing Xiao, a fashion designer and creative technologist based in New York. I focus on post-human narratives and material research to investigate the relationships between the body, gender, technology, and politics. I see fashion as a visceral visual medium, and I’m obsessed with the anatomy of clothes, one of immense surgical beauty. I’m drawn to fabrics with the duality of natural and artificial, such as liquid metallic georgette, mirror-finished vinyl, and matte lycra. For me, to create is to study the materiality of others, thus understanding the physicality of myself.

Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum is hosting your work in its permanent collection. How do you feel about this achievement? Can you share another defining moment or experience in your life that has shaped who you are as a designer today?

Ms. Miren Vivez Almandoz and Ms. Jone de Felipe at Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum are true visionaries dedicated to preserving and promoting Mr. Balenciaga’s legacy and cultivating modern reinterpretations of his techniques. This acquisition is an immense honor for me. However, it wouldn’t be possible had the museum not opened its archive for designers like me to research in such depth. I’m very grateful that the board was moved by the post-human and utopian story I told through couture. And I would be beyond willing to advocate for their ongoing mission.
In November 2022, I was selected as an artist finalist for Fashion for All Foundation’s Bridge to Basel Competition and joined their first year-long activation cohort including the trip to Art Basel Miami, weekly journal reflection, career coaching, and invaluable advice sessions on personal growth. It is a recent event, yet it has shaped me so much. It has allowed me a safe space to expose my vulnerability, create provoking, intimate works, and the most significant theme is love, care, and giving back.

Many creatives state that technology is limiting their creativity (A. I systems etc). How do you identify the relationship between creativity and technology?

Somewhere in my head is a permanent space for McLuhan’s words, “the medium is the message.” How can the technology and its application reflect critical commentaries we, as designers or artists, attempt to make? Few other mediums, like technology, have the autonomy of self, except for nature. Over the years, I have created audio-visuals, generative arts, and quantum computing projects, and there is no doubt that technology brings forward possibilities previously unthinkable. However, we must go the extra mile and search deeply into philosophical and social landscapes to make truly meaningful and creative works with technology. For my collection MOTHER, I used TouchDesigner to create an interactive pseudo-AI operative system as part of the composition. In this simulated system, every layer of reality is controlled and monitored by a higher dimension in the hierarchy, from the physical experience to a meta energy exchange. In this case, technology serves as a tool to create a larger vision in which my fashion narrative resides.

Socrates believed that as long as a man’s soul is confined to their body, they will never be able to acquire the truth. Do you consider the human body as a physical limitation of human existence? and if yes, do you think that technology and digital fashion can “detach this physical aspect” from human existence?

It’s quite a utopian and hopeful thought to transform humans through our current digital lens. I think that, at the moment, we are very detached from our physicality. This concept of duality has been much discussed over the past decades, where, in plain words, our minds/souls are no longer in sync with our bodies. And this very detachment blocks us from getting to Socrates’ query in the first place. Digital fashion and technology at large is an intriguing narrative as it transformed the meaning of fashion into something else, which surged us further off from our bodies. I won’t say necessarily in a positive way.

How do you approach collaborating with other artists or designers, and what do you think are the key factors for a successful collaboration?

I have learned much from collaborating with Yo-Yo Lin and her team for their multi-sensory Channels performance at The Shed. I have experienced tremendous love and care in a non-binary and inclusive surrounding, where we would check in on each other’s states and proceed mindfully in each stage. This practice of empathy applied to the audience as well. It’s also vital to recognize dynamics and identify the technique sets and personalities to bring on board.