Presented during Milan Fashion Week, Yilin Na’s Worldly Hearth collection brings artistic references and everyday rituals into contemporary fashion.
For QIFEI designer Yilin Na, a familiar flavour offers a starting point for fashion. His Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Worldly Hearth, draws on Chinese ink painting and the spicy snack MALAKING to examine how cultural experiences translate into clothing.
Presented at Galleria Meravigli on 25 September during Milan Fashion Week, the show formed part of Afro Fashion Association’s “A Rising Voice” event. It also marked a return for Na, known as Abel Na, who studied at Istituto Marangoni in Milan before developing his professional practice in China.
The collection opened with a black-and-white palette informed by the fluidity and restraint of Chinese ink painting. The art form’s tonal variation, softness and texture influenced the garment patterns, while layers of silk, linen, cotton, acetate and cupro established an understated mood. Sharper tailoring, expressive prints and saturated colour followed, tracing a shift from quiet reflection towards the intensity of urban life.
Alongside these artistic references, Na introduced an element of contemporary Chinese food culture. MALAKING inspired a six-look capsule created for the Milan presentation, with the snack’s associations with heat, childhood and growing up providing a basis for experimentation.
This is the collection’s strongest proposition: an understanding of heritage that accommodates both established art forms and everyday habits.
Ink painting and snack culture occupy different positions within Chinese life, yet each offers Na a way to explore how identity is formed and expressed. Their presence in the same collection places tradition within an evolving contemporary context.
The capsule also brought craftsmanship into focus. According to the brand, one red ensemble required approximately 800 hours of handwork. The figure underscores the labour involved in translating an accessible, everyday reference into an elaborate garment.
That process raises the central design question behind Worldly Hearth: how can clothing convey a sensation? Na approached heat and familiarity through colour, texture and silhouette, using the associations of the source material to guide its transformation. The interest lies in how those ideas inform the construction and character of the clothes.
The collection was developed through Afro Fashion Association’s mentorship programme, with guidance from Michelle Francine Ngonmo and the AFA team. For Na, the presentation brought his current work back to the city where he trained, connecting his Milan education with a practice rooted in Chinese cultural experience.
Worldly Hearth finds its clearest expression in specific references: the tonal qualities of ink painting, the familiarity of a spicy snack and the time invested in handwork. Together, they position QIFEI’s SS27 collection as an exploration of how everyday culture can shape a contemporary fashion vocabulary.
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* Source material and images supplied by N.7 Studio on behalf of QIFEI.
