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Jing Yu

Jing Yu

Hämeenlinna, Finland
UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE Royal College of Art
Title of Work Be Broken. Be Brave. Be Real.
SPECIALISMS Womenswear

Contact Tutor
flora.mclean@rca.ac.uk

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Jing Yu is a footwear designer and artist whose practice explores storytelling through reconstructed footwear, transforming broken shoes, discarded materials, and found objects into expressive pieces with personality, memory, and emotional presence. Working under the name JJ World, Jing embraces playfulness, experimentation, and spontaneity as core design methods. Rather than beginning with sketches, she starts by collecting materials from RCA workshops, classmates' leftover materials, unwanted footwear, leather offcuts, and everyday found objects. Each material carries traces of a previous life, becoming the starting point for new narratives through reconstruction and craft. Her practice developed through 30 Shoes in 30 Days, a self-directed project in which she created one shoe every day using only existing materials. The project challenged conventional design processes and encouraged her to trust intuition, embrace mistakes, and discover unexpected creative possibilities through making. It became the foundation of her material-led approach to footwear design. Drawing inspiration from personal experience, craft, and emotional storytelling, Jing combines traditional shoemaking techniques with welding, metalwork, and sculptural construction. Following a serious snowboarding injury that left her with a metal plate in her arm, she began exploring the relationship between the body, movement, resilience, and metal. This experience continues to influence her work through handmade metal heels and reconstructed forms that celebrate imperfection and transformation. Through her recent collection, Be Broken. Be Brave. Be Real., Jing questions ideas of perfection, consumption, and waste while encouraging emotional connections between people and the objects they wear. Rather than designing for mass production, she creates footwear for expressive individuals who see fashion as a form of identity, confidence, and freedom.

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