Surreal and striking: designer Lulu Liu’s Dalian-inspired collection

Lulu Liu is a new London-based designer whose use of imaginative prints and daring use of fabrics has led to some inventive and surreal yet still wearable garments. After graduating from London College of Fashion in 2011 Lulu was able to develop her creative and unique style whilst working for Giles, and she is now focusing on her own brand.

Her latest collection uses curving shapes and tactile fabrics that create volume and amplify parts of the body. The twists, turns and contortions that are made by the fabric clearly mirror the sweeping landscapes that are seen in much of Salvador Dalí’s work.  Details such as large, folding pleats which jut out from the hips and waist distort and exaggerate the female figure – much like the figures in Dalí’s paintings – and Lulu cites the surrealist artist as an inspiration for her designs, as she focuses on transferring the sense of disjointed reality into wearable garments.

With designs inspired by surrealism, the designer is able to create strange, hallucinogenic prints, and silhouettes to reflect them. Lulu’s prints are bold and dreamlike: the merging colours entwine for a whirling effect that is wonderfully striking. The collection also takes inspirations from clowns, linking in with the surrealist influence by using the classic image of a clown in her prints to add the unreal feeling that the collection exudes.

The structure of her garments is confident and self-assured, producing a collection that is both tight and neat, but also mysterious and creative. By linking interesting distortions of the body through pleating and the mesmerising prints, Lulu has created a brilliantly inspired and yet wearable and feminine collection – you can see more of her designs here.

Rebecca Saunders