About
Wang Yuwen is a fashion media practitioner and image-maker based in Singapore and China. Her work explores the intersection of fashion, identity and social power, with a focus on how contemporary visual culture shapes self-perception and belonging.
Through research-led image-making, she examines the subtle mechanisms that govern appearance, questioning the pressures embedded within fashion systems and the boundaries between self-expression and conformity.
Misguided
Misguided is a provocative fashion publication that reframes 'embarrassment' as a form of resistance. It exposes how shame is manufactured through social power, consumerism and conformity, helping young women in China challenge mainstream aesthetics by transforming shame into a confident means of self-definition.
Fashion consumes and expresses; it sells dreams while also creating them. It is consumerism wrapped in self-expression, carrying the use and meaning of art into everyday life. Yet for many young Chinese women, beauty feels conditional—they dress to belong rather than to be themselves.
The true opposite of fashion is not ugliness, but awkwardness. It is in moments of awkwardness that the power to define oneself begins to slip, exposing the fragile balance between trend and identity. At its core, awkwardness reveals a subtle structure of power. To be dressed out of place is to feel that power quietly dissolve, leaving the individual open to scrutiny and, at times, pity. The fear of embarrassment runs deeper than appearance alone. It reflects an underlying anxiety about losing one’s position within social relations and the authority to define oneself. Through the visualisation of these moments, this project examines the social forces and cultural pressures embedded in fashion, questioning how the pursuit of trends so often demands a compromise of personal identity and social belonging.
Yuvika Taneja
Nadiah Norzain
Kwon Min Kyoung
Amanda Koh Shaopin
Yang Chaiwon
Megan Gabrielle Ong Jia Juan
