Selina Kwong

Selina Kwong, a Chinese Malaysian womenswear designer currently based in London reflects on her richly multicultural home.

Familial roots have always retold the origins of the Chinese being brought into Malaysia as labour during the British colonization. In a country fused together with different cultures and backgrounds, each unique to her own, she especially notes her exposure to different types of dressing: the Chinese, the Malays, the Indians and through globalization and the post colony influences, western dressing. Her culture, not only its meaning, but also the story behind the gender struggles within it, has inspired her throughout her work, and has also been the core that drives her depth of research.

She also has a keen interest deconstructing masculine tailoring, but also romantic silhouettes that embraces modern femininity, combining a range of traditional techniques with modern technology in her practice.

My work also explores the dichotomy between the female surrealists versus the loudly male-led surrealism in tandem with an implementation of 3D technology within sustainability initiatives, and functional design. Pulling notice and contention to how women surrealists portray themselves in self-portraits, a stark contrast to the male artists. Where women artists incorporate nature and inner beauty into their portraits the men often portray lust and their own desire.

My peaks of interest also have settled between Eileen Agar's work with fossils, natural surrealism, the idea of embedded beauty, Meret Oppenheim’s humorous critiques when critiquing gender oppression, Claude Cahun, Dorothea Tanning’s soft sculptures.

Male artists depict women’s bodies, by cutting up the parts of them, reducing them to mere objects in their work, hence, my moving objects creates a sense of choice for the wearer as they are able to control them, while also deconstructing male gaze by upcycling defected male tailoring garments.

With that said, in a world of hyperrealism, where AI can generate something that feels and looks more real than a photoshoot, surrealism provides a fun escape from our current state of the world. Incorporating the stories and works of female surrealists into my practice feels like overlapping art and fashion while distilling important essences from the movement.

-Working line up-

-Blinking jacket, work in progress-

'An absolute rejection, a radical refusal, of the male gaze; they undermine and deny traditional representations by male artists of breasts as desirable objects. Instead the breast is, literally, served up and fed back to the male gaze as diseased, dead meat..’ Allmer, P., 2009.