It all started when she was an NUS undergraduate student…
Grace Ciao is an NUS Business Administration graduate who turned her hand to fashion illustration with a twist and isn’t looking back! Her stunning designs are created using real flower petals, watercolours and ink to conceptualise the most ethereal of fairytale dresses. Fashion brands and designers are as infatuated with this Singapore artist’s work as we are, in just the last month she has worked with Chanel, Elie Saab and Saks Fifth Avenue, quite the impressive resume.
By combining the 3-D effect of various flowers (roses and carnations being favourites) with other 2-D media on watercolour paper and then photographing the final result, she achieves unique and one-of-a-kind designs, much like the dresses she hopes will one day be a part of her own haute couture label.
And a boy gave her a rose…
It all began when she saw a rose wilting on her desk and wanted a way to preserve its beauty. In this moment of inspiration she combined her long term love affair of fashion design with flowers! From the age of 7, she began drawing and designing dresses for her Barbie dolls from scraps of fabric her grandmother had given to her.
She hopes her designs will one day be walking down the runway…
The different shades that some flowers possess have inspired Grace to incorporate prints and different textures into her work. She hopes to one day transpose her elegant designs from paper to real life and aspires to found her own private haute couture label. The flower petals’ fabric-like quality allows her to think about how the design would work as a wearable dress, so each piece has an element of realism as well as fantasy.
We have fallen irrevocably in love with Grace Ciao’s work – definitely a name to watch in the coming years. She has singlehandedly brought the essence of flower power to life in 2015!
See more of Grace’s work here and read up on another Singapore fashion illustrator who stumbled upon her craft here.
Follow Grace Ciao on Instagram @grace_ciao
See her website here.