Esme Yu
Design and Technology MFA
Parsons Paris
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Womenswear / Textiles / Apparel
My location: Paris, France
Esme Yu
First Name: Esme
Last Name: Yu
University / College: Parsons Paris
Course / Program: Design and Technology MFA
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Womenswear / Textiles / Apparel
My Location: Paris, France
About
Esme Yu is a womenswear designer and recent MFA Fashion Design graduate from Parsons Paris, with a First Class BA in Fashion from Edinburgh College of Art. Before completing her MFA, she worked as a designer at KWK by KAY KWOK, contributing to runway collections across ready-to-wear, accessories, leather and experimental fabrication.
Her practice combines historical research with a strong focus on construction, materiality and textile experimentation. Moving between tailoring and more fluid approaches to dress, she is interested in reinterpreting familiar clothing archetypes through subtle shifts in structure, surface and detail.Her work explores memory, absence and the traces left within garments, balancing conceptual research with clothes that remain grounded in the act of wearing.
THE LAST DECADENCE Inspired by Dürrüşehvar Sultan, the last Ottoman princess, Decadence imagines her entering London’s Blitz Club dressed with the rebellious spirit of Adam Ant. The collection brings Ottoman tailoring into dialogue with dandyism and New Romanticism, contrasting imperial structure with fluid draping and distressed, layered surfaces. Moving between opulence and decay, it reinterprets historical dress through a contemporary, gender-neutral perspective.
Competitions
