How CSM student Ming Lim finds her inspiration between dreams and reality
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Courtesy of @ming__lim
NAME MING LIM
AGE 19
LOCATION Between London and Canada.
STAR SIGN Taurus
BIGGEST PET PEEVE Hypocrites, people who are late, and overcooked pasta.
Did that really happen? Or did I just dream it? Did I have that conversation? Or do I just think I did? These are questions that many of us have asked over the past year. Lockdown has brought with it a warped sense of time that blends our dreams and reality, making us question the line between our conscious and subconscious. But for Ming Lim, the 19-year-old first year student at CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS, these are questions that she has been asking for most of her life. The designer, who is currently working her way through the London-based fashion course whilst living in Vancouver, has had an almost life-long relationship with Dream-Reality Confusion Disorder (DRC), spending her childhood and some of her adult life within the space between reality and dreams. “Looking back at it, I think it helped me become more of a creative and open person,” she says. “I’ve never had a foundation of what should be or what has to be. It all felt very fluid.”
It was within the intricacies of this semi-lucid, surreal state that Ming Lim was able to find harmony in the confusion; opening up a world of possibility that she transformed into inspiration for her craft. Lim’s 2021 White Show look was both a nod to the 1910s and an exploration of the surreal. She says the hat that she designed (think Jacquemus’ SS18 giant hat on steroids) “was inspired by the idea that your head is in the clouds. You’re dreaming, and there are no limitations.” Lim’s artistic probes into the cracks of our perceived reality are what place her on a trajectory of joining some of the greatest creatives who also draw their inspiration from the spaces in between. Virgil Abloh’s Off-White was built on “defining the grey area between black and white as the colour Off-White.” Homo Irrealis, the recent book by Call Me By Your Name author, Andre Aciman, shows life as an existence caught between reality and a longing for a life that will never be. And now, Ming Lim is showing the space between dreams and reality as a “possibility for growth”, an opportunity to turn her own lived experiences into art - a process, by the way, that saw her present her work at Vancouver Fashion Week at the age of 16…two years in a row.
Ry Gavin: What inspires your work?
Ming Lim: Everything inspires me. Fashion is universal, genderless, and ageless. As Alessandro Michele stated, “Beauty has no boundaries, no rules, no colours. Beauty is like a religion. You can include everything inside it.”
RG: You presented your work at Vancouver Fashion Week, right? How did that come about?
ML: Yeah, I did that when I was 16. It was a small, fun project. Now that I look back at it, it’s not the best work but it was a great experience. I started in fine arts - I was a painter first. One of my tutors saw my painting and put it up for a scholarship and through that somebody contacted me and said they really liked my work. And this person was friends with the director of Vancouver Fashion Week.
RG: How has your creative process developed over the past year?
ML: I research more, I reflect more, and I challenge my expression more. Now, I love to fully indulge in my theme; I like to live it and dive deeper into it.
RG: How can a designer stay original nowadays?
ML: The idea of needing to be original should leave your mind before you even start thinking about anything. It really does hinder your creative process because you edit before you even get something onto the page. The idea of needing to be original puts a lot of ego into it, and ego is the worst possible thing you can have as an artist.
RG: The biggest misconception about fashion?
ML: That it’s easy.
RG: Emma Stone as Cruella de Vil - yes or no?
ML: No, sorry. Glenn Close will forever be Cruella.
RG: We all had a dress up box as a kid, what was your number one outfit?
ML: I didn’t, I went straight to the source: my mum’s closet. So, it was oversized animal print dresses, gold clip-on hoops, and 8-inch heels. Sometimes it was a little black dress. I felt like a little ‘90s baby.
RG: From a fashion point of view, who should win Drag Race UK season 2?
ML: BIMINI. Period.
RG: If you could bring three fashion icons to a dinner party (dead or alive), who would you bring?
ML: John Galliano, Bowie, and Alessandro Michele.
RG: What is your go-to lockdown outfit?
ML: White t-shirt, knickers, and 30 rings on my 10 fingers.
RG: One thing that fashion school doesn’t teach you?
ML: Self-care.
RG: If you could revive one fashion trend, which would it be?
ML: I would revive it all. The more the merrier.
RG: What is the first thing you’re going to do after lockdown 3.0?
ML: Mingle.
RG: One thing that grosses you out?
ML: Pigeons.
RG: Best thing you’ve overheard at CSM?
ML: That there is a bar. I might be late to the party but it's the best thing I’ve heard.
RG: One thing you want to change about the fashion world?
ML: One thing? That’s impossible. The first thing that comes to mind is understanding and awareness; further understanding culture, labour, gender, race and sustainability.