Doyeon Yu

United States of America | Total Awards: 1 | Total Score: 4

Womenswear designer Doyeon Yoni Yu was born and raised in South Korea before moving to New York. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, she launched her first brand C’EST D. The brand has gone on to achieve the Parsons Social innovation award and H&M Social Impact Award in 2018. Doyeon is a forward thinking designer who channels her passion for social inclusivity into her collections for C’EST D. In a society where women are pressured to submit to an idealistic dress size, Doyeon unapologetically creates garments for all body types. As a strong supporter of body positivity and size inclusivity, her creations truly celebrate body equality and liberate us all from our current ‘fat phobic society’. Doyeon Yoni Yu’s ultimate goal is to empower women to love their bodies and eradicate size discrimination. Her postmodernist outlook highlights C’EST D as a pivotal brand in reshaping the industry’s perspective on standard body ideals. Doyeon is celebrating inclusivity and body positivity. There are 2.1 billion people in this world and 30% of world’s population are overweight. In this country itself, 67% are beyond size 14, however, our society is fat phobic and discriminates people by their size. C’EST D is redefining the word fat. This powerfully connoted lexeme is not an insult, it’s simply an adjective meaning you have more tissues in your body. However, where our society attaches so much hatred and discrimination to the word ‘fat’, we need to work collectively work to remove the stigma of this word and accept it as it is. To create the innovative and flattering shaping of the collection, Doyeon brought together a group of women who felt discriminated by fat stigma to explore the different shapes of their figure. The abstract line collages upon the garments were inspired by the body lines of the women during the exploration of their figures. The concept of ‘Body on the Body’ was developed; the connection of these lines create powerful and celebratory silhouettes. The collection itself primarily plays with red, coral and pink hues. Organza detailing and bow embellishments evoke a spirited femininity within the collection, where the rooted empowering and ameliorative messages are being showcased. C’EST D is actively working to liberate us all from this fat phobic world, Doyeon’s empowering designs continue to showcase how we should love the flesh we have whilst celebrating our beautiful and worthy bodies. ‘This society is too fat phobic that it discriminates people by their sizes. Everybody is worth it and Everybody is equal. It’s time to change.’ -Doyeon Yoni Yu