Who Kills My Freedom? — Isaac Yu Turns Constraint into Streetwear Expression

Winning the Gold Award in the 2025 MUSE Design Awards means a great deal to me. I’ve always struggled with self-confidence and often experienced self-doubt when facing difficult situations. Receiving this award helped me realize that my designs truly succeed as a form of communication — and that they are recognized and appreciated by professional juries from around the world.

This achievement has helped me rebuild my confidence and strengthened my belief in my creative vision. I am deeply grateful to the MUSE Design Awards and truly appreciate the organization’s recognition and encouragement.

This achievement has increased my visibility and brought more opportunities within my professional field. It has allowed more people in the fashion community to understand who I am as a designer and what my creative vision represents. This recognition will play an important role in shaping and supporting my future career.

Experimentation plays one of the most important — and most challenging — roles in my creative process. My experimentation often involves camouflage print design, silhouette construction, and textile development.

However, these experiments didn’t always go smoothly at the beginning. For example, the colors didn’t appear as expected during the first fabric test of the camouflage print, and the complex construction made it difficult to achieve the bold silhouette I had envisioned.

Despite these challenges, I spent a great deal of time refining my ideas, finding better solutions, and rebuilding each part of the design. The entire process took about a year to complete, ultimately evolving into the final vision I am proud to present today.

I would say there are two of the most unusual sources of inspiration for this project, both rooted in my childhood memories. The first came from the shape and texture of Oreo ice cream, something I loved as a kid. The soft, puffy, and playful appearance of the designs was inspired by that idea.

The second source was children’s collage and drawing artwork. I transformed the concept of collage into a sustainable denim patchwork technique, treating each garment as a large canvas that allowed me to “draw” and “collage” freely using fabric and color. The process felt like creating a crayon drawing on top of the clothing — turning fashion into a space for both artistic expression and nostalgia.

I hope people understand that we shouldn’t focus too much on perfection during the design process of creating a fashion collection. Sometimes, at the beginning, we need to let go of our usual ideas of what clothing is supposed to look like. It’s okay to be imperfect and to make mistakes — in fact, those mistakes often lead to ideas that are even better than the original concept.

Design should be fun, experimental, and playful, because that’s where true creativity comes from. The spirit of being open, curious, and unafraid to explore is what truly defines the creative process.

As a fashion designer, I believe it’s essential to understand the target customer from the very beginning of the design process. It’s not only about knowing their age, but also their personality, lifestyle, and interests. These details play a key role in shaping meaningful design decisions.

To balance customer expectations with my personal creative vision, I start by researching upcoming streetwear trends and analyzing how the culture is evolving. Through this research, I learn how to integrate my own ideas into new directions for streetwear, creating something unique while remaining relevant to the future of fashion.

In this process, studying market trends, customer behavior, and style development is always crucial. Fashion is constantly changing, and as designers, we must stay prepared for what’s coming next in the ever-evolving fashion cycle.

There were many challenges I faced while working on my award-winning design. As I mentioned before, experimentation was one of the biggest challenges in my creative process. Another major challenge was selecting the right color palette for the collection. The concept required expressing an emotion that balanced the feeling of deep loss of freedom with a sense of creative joy. The colors couldn’t be too dark and depressing, yet they also couldn’t be overly bright or playful.

To find this balance, I developed multiple colorway variations for each look, allowing me to explore how different tones could express contrasting emotions. Through this process, I learned how to successfully combine two opposing feelings into a cohesive collection. I would say my way of overcoming challenges is by continuously developing and testing ideas — whether they succeed or not — because every step in the process helps me discover what truly works best.

I’m a very sensitive person, and when I face a creative block, I often become nervous and insecure. During those times, I need to take a short break — to be alone, quiet, and give myself space to reset.

Most of the time, I also rely on the encouragement and support of my family, friends, and mentors. Their positivity helps me regain confidence and energy, which eventually becomes the motivation and spirit that lead me to new creative solutions.

I would say that my award-winning design project is a deeply personal collection. It tells my own story — a journey through a period of depression and the process of redefining my self-worth.

Through this collection, I want to share a message: no matter what challenges you face or who tries to stop you from pursuing what you believe in, don’t listen to them. Stay true to yourself, be the person you want to be, and keep chasing your dreams.

I would say it’s important to always stay positive toward yourself. Even when you’re going through difficult or discouraging moments, you must continue to believe in yourself. Being positive means giving yourself the chance to have faith in your own potential. After all, if you don’t appreciate your own work or believe in yourself, how can you expect others to believe in you or love your designs?

I would say Jonathan Anderson is the fashion designer I’ve always wanted to collaborate with — both in the past and still today. Jonathan is truly an inspiration to many designers. His work consistently reflects a strong sense of history and cultural context, which I believe is something every thoughtful designer should understand.

I’ve always been deeply impressed by his design knowledge and creative vision, and collaborating with him would be an incredible opportunity to learn and grow as a designer.

I wish people would ask me, “How do you turn a strong design idea into reality?”
My answer would be simple: you have to take action — not just talk about it.

So many people today spend time discussing their ideas but never bring them to life because they’re afraid of making mistakes or facing challenges. This fear creates a cycle where ideas never reach completion. I believe mistakes are an essential part of the design process — they help you find new solutions, improve your skills, and grow as a creator.

To me, that’s what fashion design truly is. It’s not only about the final outcome, but about how the mistakes, challenges, and creative process together shape something strong, meaningful, and powerful in the end.