Xin Wen graduated from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and went on to study in the UK. She is very versatile as she has mastered a variety of talents, which include painting, sculpting, art design, handicrafts, designing window displays and wedding displays. It all kicked off for her in 2015 when she started her own hat brand, Espiegle and now her main work involves designing hats and wedding accessories.

Espiegle is the French word for ‘Playful”, which is the perfect description for her designs. She uses a lot of different colours and interesting design elements to create a childlike happy feel to her pieces.

Spring/Summer 15 Fruit Series
“This is my S/S15 fruit series. The inspiration for this collection comes from my studies in the UK. I learnt a range of new techniques and wanted to try them out. I loved being in the UK but I don’t want to focus on the past, which is why I chose to design this collection to commemorate my time there and cherish my memories of British life. I created all the shapes and colours for this series from the moulds, to the needle line sewing in order to enhance the fun of the headdresses. The colours of each of the fruits are all different. I couldn’t find the right fabric suppliers for card colour samples so I decided to make my own. Interestingly I found out the length of time to dye the colours are different to the colour references.”

Spring / Summer Embroidery Mushroom Hat Series / Snooker Gift “I saw a book about mushroom when I was in Barcelona and really like the concept. Inside was a fairytale about a wizard who sends gifts to everyone at midnight. Each of her gifts revolve around nature and her favourite one to send is mushrooms. So through this I decided to create a hat about mushrooms. I started by screen printing the mushrooms onto the hat and then embroidering them all individually. To shape the whole hat, I first needed to make it in a smaller model. Then I was able to work out the measurements when it came to laser cutting the wood for the final product. The whole process is completely handmade and took me nearly three weeks to complete.”