For Candice Tianyu, design begins with movement. She is fascinated by the motion of garments—how clothing responds to the body, moves through space, and develops a visual language of its own. At Parsons Paris, she explored that interest in the MFA Fashion Design and the Arts program, which offered an environment she found both rigorous and artistically freeing. “I wanted to be pushed beyond my comfort zone,” she says. “What truly set Parsons Paris apart for me was its close relationship with fine arts and critical thinking.”

Born in Beijing, raised in Tokyo, and educated in the United States and France, Tianyu was drawn to the program’s global, interdisciplinary perspective. “Courses grounded in a broad array theory, research, and studio practices challenged me,” she says. “They allowed me to see fashion as not only garments but also as a broader cultural and artistic language.” Living in Paris—surrounded by craft traditions, history, and contemporary experimentation—Tianyu was able to build a methodology rooted equally in artisanship and precise tailoring.

Faculty mentorship was central to Tianyu’s evolution. Program director Tuomas Laitinen encouraged her to research fashion archetypes and historical references to sharpen her conceptual abilities. Miki Omori helped her develop her approach to construction and draping by means of experimentation through making. Janette Laakso guided her in building the technical rigor necessary to realize her thesis collection. Courses with Chris Vidal Tenomaa expanded Tianyu’s understanding of fashion imagery and visual narrative. And Mads Dinesen shaped her approach to color and expression through performance art. Under the guidance of these faculty members, she broadened her understanding of fashion as both object and experience.

While developing her thesis collection, Elysian Echoes: Heartstrings in Verse, Tianyu realized that her work was less about garments as isolated pieces and more about the interplay of tension, emotion, and movement. Inspired by both modern dance—particularly the work of Martha Graham—and fashion, she decided to merge the two. Tianyu was drawn to Graham’s ability to convey emotion through physicality. “Her movement language feels raw and deeply human, yet controlled,” she explains. “Clothing complements that form of dance, so dance offered me a great foundation to center the body as both expressive and architectural.”

“Throughout the MFA, I navigated these art forms,” she says. “And my design language evolved through experimentation and feedback. I became more precise in translating my intentions into form, construction, and movement.” Guidance from Laitinen and Omori enabled her to sharpen her focus and, just as important, trust her own intuition as she defined and developed her work. Her thesis collection earned international recognition in 2025 when she was selected as a finalist at Mittel Moda, where she presented her work alongside emerging designers on a global stage.

Underlying her development and success is a solid grounding in menswear, her area of specialty in her undergraduate studies. Focusing on archetypal forms such as tailored jackets, trench coats, and trousers, she developed a sense of proportion and discipline. She sees her shift during the MFA toward flou, a flowing, feminine clothing style, not as a departure but as a natural evolution. “Menswear taught me structure and restraint,” she explains. “Flou allowed me to explore softness and movement more freely.” Even her most fluid silhouettes are underpinned by defined structure.

A turning point for Tianyu was a collaborative project between Parsons Paris and the celebrated fashion maison Mugler, founded by Thierry Mugler. The brand’s sculptural approach to the body stood in contrast to Tianyu’s preference for fluidity and movement. “Mugler’s design language differs greatly from my own, and I initially found that tension challenging,” she says. Omori encouraged Tianyu to trust her instincts. “That feedback shifted my mindset from adapting myself to an external framework to asserting my voice within a collaboration,” Tianyu says. By selectively engaging with the brand’s signature attributes—strong shoulders, cinched belts worn over outerwear, loosely structured trench silhouettes—she honored Mugler’s heritage while preserving her own design language.

Navigating between different influences has long been central to her practice. Tianyu’s cross-cultural upbringing continues to shape her design perspective. “Being born in Beijing and raised in Tokyo exposed me early on to restraint, symbolism, and an awareness of how meaning can be carried subtly through form rather than excess,” she says. “Studying in the United States encouraged openness and confidence in personal narrative, while France deepened my understanding of craft, tradition, and the discipline behind fashion as a language.” These experiences taught her that fashion is read differently in different contexts—a realization that informs the way she approaches identity, the body, and expression.

Tianyu aims to further explore movement through inventive pattern making and draping, treating construction as a means of emotional expression. Collaborating with choreographers—most recently Laëtitia Daché at the Théâtre National de Chaillot—and seeing her garments come alive through dance and film have reinforced Tinayu’s belief that clothing reaches its fullest potential in motion. “I see my practice in the next few years at the intersection of fashion, performance, and interdisciplinary art spaces,” she says. Guided by Laitinen’s emphasis on rigor and authorship, she envisions her future within a fashion framework that remains open to interdisciplinary exchange.

For Tianyu, innovation in fashion lies in using construction and process to propose what she calls “new ways of inhabiting clothing.” Fashion, she argues, is often misunderstood as purely visual or trend driven; in reality, it is something we inhabit.

“Garments are not only seen,” she says. “They are felt.”