Meet the 2025 Semi-finalists

Tian Ruyin

2024 Redress Design Award 2024 Runner-Up

Meet The Designer

“My goal is to show that sustainable fashion is not only possible, but necessary to protect our planet and resources.”
Tian Ruyin
“My goal is to show that sustainable fashion is not only possible, but necessary to protect our planet and resources.”
Tian Ruyin

Bio

Tian Ruyin was the Runner-up of the Redress Design Award 2024. She established her label, SUNDAY SQUARE in 2022 which uses natural fabrics and eco-friendly, recycled materials. Combining clothing structure with oriental origami art, items can be disassembled and transformed into other styles, achieving free size adjustment and multiple wears of one piece of clothing. Redress presented Sunday Square in a Chinese emerging designer showcase for the Shanghai Fashion Week SS25 edition.

Ruyin holds a master’s degree in Fashion Design and Technology (Menswear) from the London College of Fashion, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, China

Region

  • Mainland China

Collection

  • Gender neutral

Design Techniques

  • Upcycling, Zero Waste

Brand

Redress Design Award Collection

Ruyin’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘STRIP STRAP STRIPE’, is inspired by her grandmother and the chaos of memory loss through Alzheimer’s disease. The collection explores aiding memory through cutting patterns and folding strips of fabric, forming zero-waste garments. Ruyin designs for low impact by selecting materials such as organic cotton and recycled fibres from end-of-rolls and cut-and-sew waste. The garments are durable and versatile, with multiple ways of being worn via removable parts. Secondhand cotton ribbons are spliced into the garments to elevate their style, including a zero-waste vest made from a single piece of ribbon.
STRIP STRAP STRIPE

Redress Design Award Collection 2024

Ruyin’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘STRIP STRAP STRIPE’, is inspired by her grandmother and the chaos of memory loss through Alzheimer’s disease. The collection explores aiding memory through cutting patterns and folding strips of fabric, forming zero-waste garments. Ruyin designs for low impact by selecting materials such as organic cotton and recycled fibres from end-of-rolls and cut-and-sew waste. The garments are durable and versatile, with multiple ways of being worn via removable parts. Secondhand cotton ribbons are spliced into the garments to elevate their style, including a zero-waste vest made from a single piece of ribbon.

Q&A with the designer

During my first internship in the industry, I was involved in merchandising and quality inspection work. It was my first close contact with clothing production. I found that a lot of fabric scraps would be discarded after the pattern was cut. Even the last one or two metres of the end-of-roll could not be used. This made me feel very regretful. At that time, I was determined to pursue fashion design. I hoped to make better use of those wasted fabrics by designing a zero-waste cutting method to reduce production waste.

In this collection, I designed a pattern-cutting method of mainly strips and straight lines, folding the strips to form a wearable structure of clothing. I also applied zero-waste cutting and upcycled factory end-of-roll fabrics to create my garments.

I hope to build a sustainable clothing and lifestyle brand, establish sustainable operations for the brand, and practise sustainable fashion in every aspect from fabrics to pattern designs, production, sales, and recycling. At the same time, I also want to organise more workshops to get more people involved in creating sustainable fashion.

I like to carry a small pair of scissors with me. When I see interesting materials while I’m on the road, I will pick them up and cut a small sample to save. I’ll then record it in my sketchbook, accumulating inspiration for sustainable design. Even roadside garbage randomly discarded by passersby can sometimes bring surprises.

While browsing the secondhand market, I came across someone processing unused ribbons. These ribbons did not need finishing. To avoid waste, only what was needed was cut. Patterns could form naturally when splicing. To enrich my design materials, I started collecting unused ribbons from others and used them in my collection.

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