QIFEI's Worldly Hearth Brings Everyday China to Milan

On 25 September, Yilin Na presented QIFEI's Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Worldly Hearth · 人间烟火, at Galleria Meravigli in Milan, as part of the official Milano Fashion Week calendar. Across 44 looks, the collection moved through three distinct states: solitude, life in the city, and a return to the self.

The opening was deliberately restrained. Black and white dominated, with references to Chinese ink painting worked into layers of silk, linen, cotton, acetate and cupro. As the show progressed, tailoring became sharper, prints more pronounced and colour more insistent, reflecting the acceleration of urban life. The final chapter brought the pace down again.

Na describes the structure simply: a person alone, a person moving through society, and eventually a return to oneself.

The title Worldly Hearth carries a similarly everyday meaning, the warmth, noise and texture of ordinary human life. For Na, that world could be found as much in the streets and routines of contemporary China as in any traditional cultural reference.

MALAKING and a generation's memory

One of the collection's most distinctive references was MALAKING, the Chinese snack brand whose spicy products are deeply familiar to a generation in China.

For a European audience, MALAKING is likely to be an unfamiliar name. In China, however, it belongs to a recognisable landscape of everyday life: school days, convenience stores, adolescence and informal moments shared with friends. Na's interest was not in reproducing the product itself, but in what it carries: heat, taste, familiarity and memory.

Those qualities were translated into colour, texture, construction and movement rather than literal imagery. A series of looks developed the reference through the vivid red associated with the brand, allowing it to sit within the wider rhythm of the collection rather than becoming a separate theme.

One red look required approximately 800 hours of entirely hand-crafted work.

The contrast is central to Na's approach: a reference rooted in an ordinary, immediate experience is transformed through an extraordinary amount of time and labour. The result does not erase the familiarity of the source; it changes its scale.

From Milan student to Milan runway

The presentation was developed through the mentorship of the Afro Fashion Association, led by its founder and President, Michelle Francine Ngonmo. The relationship placed Na's work within a broader international fashion context while giving Worldly Hearth the space to retain its distinctly personal and cultural references.

That relationship was visible around the show itself. At the press conference preceding the runway, moderated by N.7 Studio, Na appeared alongside Michelle Francine Ngonmo and MALAKING's Communications Strategy Manager, Zhao Hai Xia, who attended as special guest. On one panel sat the designer, the association that made the Milan presentation possible, and the cultural reference at the centre of the collection.

Milan also has a particular significance in Na's trajectory. He studied Fashion & Design at Istituto Marangoni, where he was named one of its Top 10 Outstanding Students of the Year in 2018. In 2020, his Butterfly Effect was presented on the Casa Marangoni platform. He was subsequently recognised among the Top 10 Fashion Designers of Shenzhen in 2022 and 2024, and received the Golden Roc Award for Fashion Design and the Best Fashion Design Narrative Award.

Nearly a decade after studying in the city, Na returned to Milan not as a student, but with his own collection on the official fashion week calendar.

Beyond the runway

The 44 looks were the visible part of the project. Around them was a wider production and communications operation, with N.7 Studio handling PR and communications for QIFEI's Milan debut.

Its role included developing editorial outreach, coordinating with international fashion and culture media, facilitating photography and documentation, and building the media infrastructure around the presentation so that the collection could travel beyond the runway itself.

The result was a debut rooted in a specific place and a specific set of memories, but presented within the international language of Milan Fashion Week.

For QIFEI, Worldly Hearth was not an attempt to translate China for Milan. It was a collection about everyday life, carrying its own references into the city and allowing them to be read on their own terms.

SHOW CREDITS

Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana
Mentorship: Michelle Francine Ngonmo, Afro Fashion Association
Creative Direction: Yilin Na (Abel Na) and the QIFEI team, with Xu Xiao Zhe
Styling: Yilin Na (Abel Na) and the QIFEI team
Show Creative Direction: Sun Jian
Set Design: Sun Jian and the ELITE Fashion Group team
Executive Producer: Patty Wong
Interpreter: Elio Pan
PR and Communications: N.7 Studio
Media Partner: D.WONDER

Words Angelita Franco & Patty Wong
Editing Jonah Liu