CALAIS.- From June 14th 2025 to January 4th 2026, the Calais Museum of Lace and Fashion presents Yiqing Yin. D’air et de songes.

This exhibition highlights the hybridization of Yiqing Yin's artistic disciplines, where dreams intertwine with sensory exploration. By showcasing the work of this internationally acclaimed young designer, the museum offers a unique immersion into a body of work marked by remarkable depth and delicacy.

Yiqing Yin, the first designer of Chinese origin to receive the French Haute Couture label, is a multi-disciplinary artist. At the crossroads of different art forms, her sculptural and ethereal creations weave a dialogue between human fragility and the transformative forces of nature. A grand couturier, artistic director, costume designer and muse, Yiqing Yin embodies multiple roles.

The exhibition invites visitors to step into the soul of creation, where the spark of an idea takes shape long before it blossoms into a gown. Chance, the unexpected and the undefined are the keys to this sensory journey where the work gradually reveals itself. Drawing inspiration from the mineral, vegetal, and animal worlds, the artist crafts a living poetry that forms the narrative thread of the exhibition. Each creation unfolds as a dreamscape, where reverie and the awakening of the senses intertwine in an aesthetic of metamorphosis.

Haute couture gowns, visual artworks—photographs, films, drawings—sonic textures of whispered words and rustling air, and delicate olfactory trails punctuate this immersive journey, inviting visitors to embark on an intimate exploration of their own imagination.

Yiqing Yin, born in Beijing in 1985, left China at the age of four for France, then Australia, before returning to France. From one country to another, her clothes often served as an anchor: “By slipping back into my clothes, I would once again inhabit my body and emotions; I was home.”

A graduate of ENSAD Paris (Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) and armed with her innovative vision of couture, Yiqing Yin was awarded the Grand Prix de la Création de Paris in 2009. The following year, her work was unveiled at the International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères, and exhibited in the windows of the Ministry of Culture, the Chaillot National Theatre and the prestigious Joyce Gallery. In 2011, she won the ANDAM (National Association for the Development of Fashion Arts) First Collection prize and presented her debut show at Paris Haute Couture Week.

That same year, she was featured on Vogue Paris list of the “Eight Young Designers to Watch”. Other awards soon followed: ELLE Style Award Shanghai, the Globe de Cristal Award for Best Designer of the Year and a documentary made by Vogue TV China.

A “Guest member” of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture since 2012, Maison Yiqing Yin was honored with the official “Haute Couture” label in 2015. She became the youngest and the very first member of Chinese origin to receive such a distinction.

Bolstered by early and international recognition, Yiqing Yin has transformed her haute couture into a polymorphic laboratory of experimentations, both within her own brand and as Artistic Director of French fashion houses Léonard and Poiret.

Collaborating with renowned brands and artists from jeweler Cartier to watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, from perfumer Dominique Ropion to filmmaker Bruno Aveillan, Yiqing Yin explores new creative avenues where dance, film, fragrance and fashion converge with art. She has created original works for the Venice Biennale (2013) and the French Pavilion at the Dubai World Expo (2020). Yiqing Yin dressed Audrey Tautou, master of ceremonies, for the opening of the Cannes Film Festival (2013), and Marion Cotillard for Leos Carax’s musical film Annette (2021). Deeply attuned to the art of dance, she also designed the stage costumes for étoile dancers Dorothée Gilbert and Mathieu Ganio in the ballet Tristan and Isolde, directed by Giorgio Mancini (2016) and performed at the Florence Opera.