The island we live on is free, open, and filled with possibilities. If one reads it with care, the vibrant scenes woven together by diverse cultures become an ideal field for nourishing creativity. Founded by designer Wei Tzu Yuan, the namesake brand WEITZUYUAN has taken root and grown within this environment, presenting fashion design that integrates local cultural characteristics. Its latest AW26 collection at Taipei Fashion Week, “默默水潺潺”, is once again a conceptual work that combines local faith culture with environmental advocacy.
“We cannot experience every piece of history, but we can try to understand and learn to respect them. I attempt to extract their essence and key points, allowing these things to become elements that can be brought into clothing.”
— Designer Wei Tzu Yuan
When speaking about his design philosophy, Wei Tzu Yuan, who often draws inspiration from local life experiences, says that the more deeply he understands the cultural context of each community, the more he realizes the importance of recording history and preserving culture. Clothing, for him, becomes the most direct medium of expression.
Wei further explains: “I like to design with inspiration from Taiwan’s endemic animals and plants, or the weaving techniques and totems of different ethnic groups. Even important issues currently happening in Taiwan are also key focuses for me, such as gender equality, marriage equality, or international wars. These things need to be recorded and preserved, and I simply choose to store them in a nonverbal form.”
Wei Tzu Yuan, designer of the brand WEITZUYUAN.
Local Life as an Endless Source of Inspiration
Wei Tzu Yuan says that “daily life” is his most practical source of nourishment. His initial reason for entering fashion design was simply to make clothes for his mother, who loved dressing up. The women around him and the scenes of their everyday activities became his earliest muses.
“Those feminine smocked details, as well as the use of fabrics and lace, all came from my mother’s influence. One season was even inspired by my grandmother’s embroidered quilt and objects on the dining table. These female figures I encountered from childhood gave me important inspiration. Later, as more different people began to like my designs, I was also influenced by them.”
After graduating from university, he began styling for hair shows, makeup shows, and artists. These wearers needed to present a sense of visual interest from every angle on stage, so his designs also tended to build up more layers of detail.
“The ready-to-wear market only needs one visual focus, but I often make clothing for performers. On stage, having only one focal point is not enough.”
— Designer Wei Tzu Yuan
Wei Tzu Yuan’s path in fashion design began with making clothes by hand for his beauty-loving mother. His designs are deeply influenced by everyday life and the women around him, and therefore carry delicate emotions as well as observations of local issues.
WEITZUYUAN’s works are also known for their highly saturated, bright colors, forming a distinctive visual style. Surprisingly, Wei says that his early creations often centered on dark imagery and social critique, and the colors he used at the time were also relatively subdued. Gradually, however, he realized that overly heavy expression could create distance from the viewer. “Who would want to keep looking at unhappy things?”
This reflection pushed him toward brighter colors. His “Quantum Flower Truck” collection, extended from the idea of Taiwan’s “electric flower trucks,” became a turning point in which he intertwined local culture with futuristic imagination and introduced vivid colors. This shift in application has given his works a more visually dynamic expression.
WEITZUYUAN’s clothing is beloved by many artists and performers, with numerous custom-made requests. The brand’s use of highly saturated, bright colors forms a striking style, while its rich details make the garments visually engaging from every angle.
Kindness in Design, Flowing Like a Gentle Stream
Drawing from life naturally makes his work diverse and ever-changing. Wei Tzu Yuan often describes his namesake brand as a “Ditto,” the shape-shifting Pokémon. His AW26 collection “默默水潺潺”, presented at Taipei Fashion Week, begins with the Mazu faith widely practiced across Taiwan’s island culture and connects it with the abundant imagery of water and the ocean. Through this design, he hopes to awaken public awareness of environmental protection.
He believes that social responsibility cannot remain merely a slogan. It must rely on actions accumulated over time, forming real influence through quiet, daily practice. The image of “water flowing gently” precisely expresses the deeper meaning he wants to convey. “When I bring out a theme like this, a few people may begin to follow and do the same, and their friends may then be influenced as well. This is a kind of permeating effect like flowing water — its influence can be far-reaching,” he says.
“I use Mazu’s name, ‘Mo Niang,’ to bring out the concept of ‘mo,’ or quietness. I hope people will not forget the virtue of quietly doing good. Through this kind of everyday practice, doing good naturally becomes a habit.”
— Designer Wei Tzu Yuan
Wei Tzu Yuan shares that “默默水潺潺” begins with Mazu, the well-known water deity in Taiwan. Through the extraction, deconstruction, and recomposition of cultural elements, he hopes to inspire reflection on marine conservation and soil and water preservation, allowing kind intentions to flow gently and continuously, like Mo Niang’s benevolence.
Wei emphasizes that good religions encourage people to do good. Therefore, although the original starting point of this collection comes from Taiwanese folk belief, it is not limited to it. He further develops the theme through different images, such as Poseidon from ancient Greek mythology and amphibious marine soldiers.
“I don’t think everyone necessarily has to believe in religion. Religion is related to freedom, equality, peace, and love. So-called ‘faith’ does not necessarily have to be a deity. It could be your mother or mine, a good deed done by someone we admire, or even an idol group… all of these could become a person’s pillar of belief.”
He believes that design should not stop at aesthetic expression, but should also introduce attention to and reflection on contemporary issues. Through this creative demonstration, Wei hopes to extend viewers’ perspectives toward issues such as soil and water conservation and marine preservation, creating a ripple effect in the world.
This season’s garments also deliberately incorporate blank space to enhance their potential for daily wear, allowing the influence of the clothing to flow quietly into life like gentle kindness.
Sustainable Fashion Flowing into Everyday Practice
Beyond concept, “religious” elements also extend into the design expression. Under the theme of “默默水潺潺,” Wei Tzu Yuan uses tassels to imitate the beaded curtains in front of a shrine, while colors reminiscent of religious architecture establish the collection’s basic atmosphere. Across different looks, he also incorporates flowing-water prints, as well as details borrowed from military imagery such as transformed camouflage and knots, combining them in various ways to create an impressive new AW26 look.
From patterns to design details, “默默水潺潺” echoes oceanic and religious concepts. In particular, the tassels that imitate shrine beaded curtains attracted attention on the runway with their beautiful swaying movement.
In terms of materials, the brand uses styrofoam fiber fabric, carbon-neutral buttons, ocean-recycled yarn, leftover fabric scraps, and deadstock textiles. Through practical demonstrations, the collection shows audiences the diverse possibilities that environmentally friendly materials can present.
This collection was unveiled at Taipei Fashion Week AW26 through a classic runway show format. Unexpected yet entirely fitting upon closer thought, the show was set to dynamic, strongly rhythmic electronic music, paired with vivid yet grand moving images on screen. Together, they evoked the lively yet solemn and divine atmosphere of traditional Taiwanese temple celebrations.
As each look appeared in sequence, the audience could sense the concept the designer wanted to convey. Flowing soft fabrics, dynamic tassels, glossy metallic threads, and water-ripple prints all achieved their best effect through this moving presentation, blending into a fashionable vision of spiritual, naval-inspired uniformity.
WEITZUYUAN’s runway presentation at Taipei Fashion Week AW26. With strongly rhythmic electronic music and vivid moving images, the show emphasized the religious elements within the clothing design, allowing audiences to understand the designer’s intended concept and fashionable impression through movement. Photography by Mai Hsien-Yun.
“This time, I deliberately left blank spaces and designed through subtraction. I no longer wanted to tell the entire story all at once, so that each garment could be recombined with other pieces.”
— Designer Wei Tzu Yuan
To strengthen the possibility of free styling in everyday life, Wei, who in the past often loved using addition to increase visual richness, emphasizes that this time he deliberately reduced the layered details. He hopes to return part of the creative agency to the wearer.
Ultimately, this design thinking points directly to the “water flowing gently” spirit he emphasizes: fashion does not exist only on the runway, but can truly flow into daily life, quietly influencing people’s lives.
▐ Interview & Text / Vivienne Lin
▐ Editor & Coordination / Irene Lin
▐ Interview Photography / Seeyu Chen
About the Brand WEITZUYUAN
As a namesake fashion studio, WEITZUYUAN experiments with different media, textures, and pattern structures, proposing alternative perspectives on the wearing of clothing.
About the Designer Wei Tzu Yuan
Wei Tzu Yuan’s fashion collections have been presented at Taipei Fashion Week, as well as in New York, Prague, Moscow, Wellington, Bangkok, Minjiang, and other locations. His design scope includes the development, production, and rental of works for advertisements, music videos, ceremonies, stage productions, makeup and hair shows, gowns, uniforms, hats, accessories, bags, and related products.
▐ Brand Website: https://www.instagram.com/wei_tzuyuan/?hl=zh-tw
▐ Contact: weitzuyuanart@gmail.com