Here and Now Fashion Festival

Living is a, performance – I dedicate much time and energy to heightening my physical perfection. I aim to project the best parts of me whilst burying and blurring my fragility. My ambition for my Collection was to control the viewer, offering an expression of unapologetic beauty with the impenetrable barrier of confusion and farce.

Yet as my work progressed and it began to expose itself - it became all the more important for me to share the dynamics between self and the spectator, the roles we play. Totally biographical the collection is now a depository of my experiences that document the vulnerable, hilarious, and most personal of moments, allowing for both a metaphorical and literal embodiment of self and drawing from my own experiences and thoughts.

In recent months, I was forced to face painful realities. My family home of Wuhan was awash with tragedy and fear. My immediate family damaged and lost to unforgiving darkness. Now more than ever, the physical aspects of my work in relation to connection and isolation began to reflect our enforced modes of living and the separation I was facing from my loved ones.

The importance of the need to understand and to make contact when facing unknown forms is achingly natural. I hope my work can be read as a genuine expression of invitation – where we feel compelled to consider the other, begin to drop barriers, and remind ourselves of the importance of being human.

The accessory is in collaboration with the designer: Hau Yin Andree Kong

Terrence Zhou is an artist and multidisciplinary designer based in New York City. He studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design with a year exchange study at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Prior to fashion design, he was pursuing a B.S. degree in Mathematics and Engineering. When he majored in Mathematics, he worked with tech companies like Profusa Inc, a Bioengineering leading company in the development of real-time biosensors that provide unprecedented insights into humans’ overall health status. This early exposure in tech startups and design education at Parsons led him to many creative projects and clients including Helloava, inc, a skincare platform powered by AI, and Cle de Peau Beaute, the ultra-luxury cosmetic line of Shiseido.