Authors: Fu Yuqi, Wu Jiaxi

The annual costume competition of Wuhan University was once again held in the golden autumn. On November 5, the Zhuo’er Gymnasium was crowded with a passionate audience eager to enjoy the visual feast prepared by students from 23 different schools of Wuhan University. Stressing on extraordinary topics respectively, our creative and innovative students displayed their opinions by crafting peculiar costumes, which deeply impressed all of us.

Inspired by imperishable classic novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Book of Songs, students from the School of Foreign Languages and Literature created dresses intended to personify the classics by bringing the main characters from the books alive. Literature offers not only a connection between nations and cultures but also exists beyond time and space. As the last lights shone on the last performer, with the final steps of the books’ journeys having been taken, all those dresses and decorations seemed like dreams.

Adopting flashback as a tool, students from the School of Arts came up with the idea of expressing girls' power through clothes. Girls’ growth was presented as emerging from the dim light in the thick dark, with the eventual blossoming of flowers, emphasizing a pain-staking struggle. The dresses’ dramatic hemlines conveyed the beauty and rich inner world of the girls. This group’s costumes revealed to us a strong sense of the strength of girls and the awakening power of independent women.

“A few occasional flaps of wings may cause a tornado in Texas in two weeks.” Inspired by the renowned phenomenon called ‘Butterfly Effect’, the designers of this particular costume integrated butterflies into their creation, together with the Chinese traditional imagery “Zhu” (竹, bamboo), making it an exquisitely conceived mixture of Chinese and foreign culture. Besides its visual impact, the garment also implied Chinese culture’s growing influence on the world.

With a huge flower on her face, this model turned around, exposing a mysterious figure to the audience. Resembling a vibrant flower, the delicate garment perfectly matched the designers’ distinctive conception with the core theme of the competition, showcasing how our civilization is standing on the stage of the world with a new posture.

This costume visualizes a red jellyfish entangled with shiny pearls, symbolizing her reluctance to leave the mother ocean. Under the hazy, dreamlike blue light, they expressed their tribute to the ocean, profoundly touching the hearts of the audience.

Abandoning rational thinking and echoing the views of others, human beings may one day become empty shells, just like puppets with lost autonomy. This unique garment cautioned us to be careful about what we say online.

In contrast to the pouring rain and low temperature outside, the atmosphere inside the stadium was extremely hot. With all the screams and cheers from the audience, the distinguished performances presented by the models, and the thoughtful preparations made by all the staff behind the scenes, the competition came to an end.

Photo by: Fang Changrui, Chen Hui

Edited by: Peng Mengke