XIAO XU
SCHOOL
INSTAGRAM_Parsons_Paris_fashion
INSTAGRAM PROFILE
ABOUT Xiao Xu
Xiao Xu (b. 2000) is a Chinese-born, Paris-based fashion designer and a 2025 graduate of Parsons Paris. Her work sits at the intersection of elegance and unease—an exploration of unconventional masculinity and the quiet provocations embedded within clothing. With a background rooted in cultural observation and conceptual experimentation, Xiao approaches fashion as both a medium of expression and a philosophical inquiry into the tension between refinement and distortion.
Her graduate collection, “UNCANNY,” serves as a meticulous experiment in unconventional elegance. It draws inspiration from Dressing for Pleasure, a 1970s fetish archive that captured women in domestic spaces—kitchens, bedrooms, curtains—dressed in ruffled latex gowns. Within these images, Xiao found a paradoxical aesthetic she terms Domestic Fetish: an intersection of intimacy, performance, and control. Transposing this dialogue into menswear, she reimagines the boundaries of gendered dress codes by embedding the erotic and the domestic within the same silhouette.
Drawing from artist Rachel Whiteread’s material methodology, Xiao deconstructs and reconstitutes latex—traditionally associated with sensuality and power—into sculptural latex knitwear. Through this transformation, she captures what she calls “engineered unease”: garments that seduce through restraint, distort through precision, and reveal vulnerability beneath polish. The result is a collection that oscillates between fetishism and familiarity, artifice and authenticity.
Each piece embodies Xiao’s fascination with the dualities that define contemporary identity. The structured tailoring contrasts with fluid, skin-like materials; domestic forms are reinterpreted into armor-like shapes; and minimal color palettes evoke both sterility and sensuality. The work resists spectacle, instead inviting the viewer into a quiet confrontation with the uncanny—where the beautiful and the unsettling coexist.
Beyond this collection, Xiao’s broader practice continues to challenge cultural and aesthetic hierarchies in fashion. Her process is deeply research-driven, informed by literature, film, and archival study. She often describes her garments as “perfected accidents,” born from moments of tension between control and release.
For Xiao, dressing is not about adornment—it is a form of quiet rebellion. Through her exploration of masculinity, material, and memory, she constructs a visual language of subtle provocation—one that celebrates imperfection, ambiguity, and the strange poetry found in restraint.
