It Is Not Spring, Until All Flowers Blossom (2023)

It Is Not Spring, Until All Flowers Blossom is the début collection from design label YA YI. The collection is a response to the designer’s personal experience working alongside the Chinese immigrants that make up the garment factories in New York, whose names are scarcely mentioned by the industry nor celebrated designers. The title comes from Shui Mak Ka, a factory worker who initialized the 1982 Garment Strike in New York Chinatown, attended by over 20,000 garment workers — almost entirely women. They donned union hats and raised picket signs to press for the renewal of their union contracts. United, immigrant Chinese American women called for workers’ rights that would forever impact U.S. labor history.