Fresh Faces: Xin Lee
On the value of creative communities
F&M’s Fresh Faces is a series featuring young Southeast Asian fashion practitioners, where we speak with them about how they embarked on their careers and what propels them as creatives.
Xin Lee with The Arctic Fox Bonnet, commissioned in 2024. Photo by Xin Lee.
Working experimentally with textiles, Singaporean fashion designer Xin Lee is a stylist and founder of the brand Public Meltdown which is stocked at Fashion for Future. At Public Meltdown, her eclectic creations typically consist of statement headgear wrought through a variety of textile art techniques including hand-knitting, crocheting, weaving, and sewing. Her work has been featured in collection shoots, magazines, as well as artist performances.
Xin Lee is formally trained in design and art. She graduated with a Bachelor of Honours in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London, followed by a Masters of Art in Situated Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her practice brings together inspiration from film, music, and art, and she draws constantly from her community of peers. In this conversation, she tells us more about her influences, and how they fuel her artistic and fashion journey.
Felted top hat for Caitlyn Lim’s Parsons BFA Runway Show 2025. Photo by Yixiao Zhao.
Could you tell us more about your background? Who or what has inspired you in your pursuit of fashion?
I was trained in fine art and design for most of my life, but the medium of textiles was formally introduced to me in primary school by a family friend who used to teach me how to knit after school. There is something very alluring about being able to hold, bend, pull, and play with fibres and fabrics, especially when you are forced to be physically synonymous with yarn tensions and fabric properties. The tactile experience of working with textiles is what keeps me fixated on this art form.
Dressing myself is also a core experience of getting to know my body and identity in the world. Thus, I see fashion as an everyday way to enact my textile explorations to embody different identities and personalities.
You completed a Masters of Art in Situated Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London after your graduation from Goldsmiths, University of London. How has your education informed your fashion practice?
These educational experiences showed me that most creative practices do not exist in silos, and I believe that artists thrive the most when they use their practice to draw in different modes of making. I am eager to learn from the creative processes of artists outside of fashion as it allows me to better understand how other creative minds work. This ensures that my practice is evolving and growing alongside my community. These experiences have also influenced my belief that craft can be used as a tool for individuals to disrupt, inhabit, and reimagine the everyday. The diversity of both my tertiary education experiences have helped me discover the multiple contexts and forms that my practice can adopt.
An Earthly Departure featuring the Swan Hat and Ram Balaclava. Photo by Jivan West.
What influenced your decision to start Public Meltdown, and what is the story behind the name?
I began sharing my crochet work in 2020 on Instagram as a personal visual diary. Crochet was something I was getting into very deeply during this period, and I began crocheting without patterns to allow myself to learn the medium in a very free, no frills way. I think it was important for me at the time to make work under a different name and title as it acted as a sort of “buffer” between my personal identity and the work I was making. That gave me a lot of confidence to introduce elements of play and experimentation into my work.
The name Public Meltdown captures what the brand is: a public showcase of my creative catharsis, which may take the form of a hat, bag, dress, textile mural, postcard, and the list goes on… I feel an intense sense of urgency when I am inspired to make something, and that process can feel like a collapse or destruction of my own self-control. Thus, Public Meltdown!
Most of your designs are for headgear. What draws you to this specific fashion accessory?
I started making headgear for a very practical reason, which is that I have a gigantic head that does not fit the hats sold in most shops. I also find that hats tend to be a forgotten piece in people’s wardrobes, and many people, including myself, believe that they do not look good in hats. As such, I decided to challenge myself to create hats that I would want to wear. A statement hat really adds an extra level of consideration to your look, which encourages me to take on a more sculptural and surreal angle with some of my pieces.
The Chain Balaclava for Lazy Oaf’s Once Upon a Time collection 2024. Photo by Katie Silvester.
You tend to juxtapose crochet, a medium often associated with softer, more feminine undertones, with subculture and sculptural designs. How did you arrive at this approach, and what do you wish to communicate with your works?
There are elements of my personality that lean into qualities of “softness”, and at other times take on aspects that are more firm and rigid. I think that many people experience this same duality within themselves, and my desire is to create pieces that capture these two worlds. This duality exists even within the practicality of my hats, where some are more “wearable” than others. I enjoy existing in this in-between space because it reflects my core belief in art as an opportunity to imagine and visualise the “what ifs”, to show that there is not always a need to contain yourself within one state or the other.
“I enjoy existing in this in-between space because it reflects my core belief in art as an opportunity to imagine and visualise the “what ifs”, to show that there is not always a need to contain yourself within one state or the other.”
Sketches of custom hat orders by Xin. Photo by Xin Lee.
Could you walk us through your creative and technical process when coming up with new designs?
Some works take on a more structured approach, particularly when I am working on custom orders where I begin with a drawing and attempt to recreate them in different segments through crochet or sewing. But most of the time when an idea pops in my head, I will rush to realise it as soon as I can before the visual disappears. Many ideas look much better on paper or in my mind, but this experimental approach is core to my creative process as it allows me to understand what works and what does not.
I am inspired by surrealist imagery from movies and music to help set the scene or universe that a potential piece could exist in. A lot of surrealist and dystopian movies contain props and sets that have a kitschy over-the-top style that I am drawn to. This world building really helps me to visualise an alternate universe that I would love to exist in, which naturally leads me to think about what people would be wearing in this world.
stray gods by weish for Singapore International Festival of the Arts 2025. Photo by Leonard Soosay.
Your works have been featured by other creatives like weish in her Singapore International Festival of the Arts 2025 performance stray gods, artist Mella Jaarsma in her performance at ART SG 2025, to collection shoots with brands and editorials such as Lazy Oaf and Aether Magazine. Could you tell us more about how these collaborations came about?
While I was based in London, I participated in art fairs and local pop-up events which helped to get my work out to a bigger audience. Eventually, these brands connected with me through social media and my work was featured in more styling pulls. With a closer-knit art scene in Singapore, I have been very blessed with supportive friends and mentors who saw my practice within and outside fashion, giving me the opportunity to explore them in different contexts of costume design, styling, and performance art. Learning from other artists leads me to new projects, and it is this amazing quality of community and sharing that fuels creative collaboration in Singapore.
As a young designer navigating the fashion scene, what are some key challenges that you have faced?
Learning to set my own boundaries and understanding the administrative realities of protecting myself as an emerging artist was a significant challenge I faced. It can be very difficult as a young artist or designer to assign a numerical value to my own work, which is why I think it is important to always learn from fellow artists who will give you the confidence and wisdom to value your work the way it deserves to be celebrated.
Xin’s most recent garment, a hand-painted chiffon butterfly dress. Photo by Xin Lee.
Xin’s upcoming hat release. Photo by Velda Phua.
There has been a renewed interest in handcrafts like crocheting amongst the Gen-Z population. How do you see yourself going against the grain or pushing the envelope within this medium?
I believe in the value of a multidisciplinary practice, and I find that my experiences in various creative fields, industries, and roles inform my personal relationship with crochet. I try to absorb as much information as I can about new art forms and adjacent textile crafts, while constantly playing, experimenting and searching for ways to visualise the creative fantasies in my head. Staying curious and constantly asking questions help me move forward in crochet to challenge the norms of the art form and approach the medium in more unorthodox ways.
“I believe in the value of a multidisciplinary practice, and I find that my experiences in various creative fields, industries, and roles inform my personal relationship with crochet.”
Finally, what upcoming projects do you have in store for the future?
I am currently working on another costume design project for a performance show, and will be participating in a group art show early next year. I am also currently exploring silk painting and playing with different textile combinations to release a series of hats I have been working on!
Follow Xin Lee’s work on Instagram at @publicmeltdown__.