ZUO-YI UONG

“Sometimes, all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage.”

Although certain situations require us to remain calm, the moments that truly change our lives are rarely those five minutes of silence. Instead, they are the twenty seconds of almost uncontrollable, irrational decisions. Different emotions are like different colors; rational garment structures become vessels for irrational emotional outbursts. When you choose to cross the line and stop being obedient, fate finally begins to deviate from its predetermined path—a confession, quitting your job, running through the rain in a suit. We are not lacking opportunities; we are lacking those twenty seconds of madness.

The collection primarily uses suiting fabric and tulle. Suiting fabric represents rationality and the frameworks constructed by society. Through structured garment forms, it expresses the ways in which people are regulated, restrained, and enclosed.
Tulle serves as a carrier for emotional expression. Gradient floral patterns are printed onto the fabric, which is then heat-pressed to create wrinkles before being gathered, transforming flat colors into three-dimensional forms with movement and volume. The gradients symbolize the different emotions and sensations experienced by each individual—vibrant, fluid, and impossible to define—representing five minutes of silence and twenty seconds of madness.

The collection centers on the conflict and entanglement between rationality and emotion: rationality is the enclosure; emotion is the wound. When stable structures and uncontrollable emotions pull against each other, consciousness gradually blossoms through the cracks in the framework. Those brief twenty seconds become the moment when emotion breaks through rationality and social conventions—the moment of personal rebellion.