Rui Zhou Unveils A Sultry New Vision at Paris Fashion Week

Chinese designer Rui Zhou, sits down with us to discuss RUIbuilt’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection, presented at Paris Fashion Week.

With the tagline “Love what makes you, you,” RUIbuilt’s brand mission has always been self-love. “From my first show until now, I always want the client to receive self-healing,” she told us. To bring this healing to life, Zhou often focuses on the interaction between garments and the body.

During her FW23 presentation, Zhou explored silhouettes using sexy, three-dimensional lumps and bumps (we love a Rei Kawakubo reference) and soft textures. This season, RUIbuilt unveils “Lingering On,” a collection exploring the concept of “liminal space” and the feelings it evokes.

Revisiting the concept of sculpted shapes and silhouettes, “Lingering On,” encourages healing, while maintaining the essence of past collections. Known for delivering major sex appeal, the brand’s goal this season was more nostalgic and referenced feelings of dislocation or being in transition. For Zhou, the “hardest detail” was merging fabrics to create her “second skin” signature. This time, exploring woven fabrics with jersey and denim materials for the first time. Drawn to these materials, she struggled to move past one question: “How can I mix these two together in an interesting way?”

However, the answer to this discovery blew the boundaries of her signature, and in her opinion, was an essential transition for RUIbuilt’s next collection. On the runway, this manifests as everyday wear like denim jeans and collared shirts featuring stamps and prints, where cutouts would usually rest. Now, RUIbuilt’s clientele can take self-healing outside of the boudoir with day-to-night looks.

“For this new collection, I want people to see more possibilities from our pieces. So it’s not always lingerie, but it’s more daily, wearable and casual in a way — but it still keeps the DNA.”

Zhou shared that although the concept was liminal space, that wasn’t the first intention behind this collection. When building out this season’s moodboard, she compiled each element she felt drawn to include — first, wind, then the texture of trees and a closeup of eyes. The result was an “intense” feeling of “dislocation” and “nostalgia,” she said. That moment drew her to the concept of liminal space and the sense of nostalgia and romance it evoked. From here, “Lingering On” was born.

As for what she hopes the viewer will feel after RUIbuilt’s SS25 showcase: “Healing. It’s always about self-healing every season from my first show until now. Maybe they will feel a feeling inside of their heart, maybe they’ll suddenly fall in love with their body, or feel nostalgic.”

Browse the SS25 lookbook above.

@hypebae Rui Zhou of #ruibuilt invites us to her world of liminal space for her SS25 collection “Lingering On” 🤍 Check out our interview and all-access look at the show above. Video: Hypebae #pfw #emergingdesigner #tiktokfashion #paris ♬ original sound – HYPEBAE

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

In other news, explore SS25’s spiciest moments.