Yaxuan Xu

Yaxuan Xu

Collection

Bio

BFA AWARD: Knitwear Designer of the Year

Yaxuan Xu is a fashion designer based in New York and Beijing, currently focused on knitwear. Deeply influenced by traditional culture, her work explores the tension between restraint and expression. Her design is driven by strong visual expression and a rich, diverse approach to form. She is drawn to handcraft and the tactile process of making, using knitting as a medium to investigate structure, distortion, and the body. Through material contrasts and constructed tension, her practice reflects on control, identity, and ways of seeing.

@yaxuan_xu_
Image: This project examines the tension between internal repression in China’s feudal society and the external gaze of Western Orientalism. Working from an Eastern female perspective, I actively deconstruct both feudal traditions and the Western gaze, challenging the authority that defines and confines the female body.

Through tension-driven knitwear, the collection positions the body as a site of conflict, where control and projection collide, ultimately subverting dominant ways of seeing and reclaiming authorship over representation.