“Virtue, speech, appearance, and domestic skills.”
“Women hold up half the sky.”
“Women left over, waiting to be married.”

Across history, women have been surrounded by countless expectations of how they should live, behave, and belong. Yet if I can decide my own path, why should anyone else decide where I belong?

For its Fall/Winter collection, MUKZIN looks to the history of Peking Opera, particularly the dan—female roles traditionally performed by men—to explore gender, identity, and the construction of femininity.

Rather than simply borrowing traditional motifs, MUKZIN deconstructs the language of Peking Opera through contemporary silhouettes, structures, and details. Vintage opera costumes are cut apart and reconstructed, while traditional fastenings such as knots and snap buttons replace zippers. Broad shoulders inspired by the daoma dan are supported by the framework of old folding fans, transforming theatrical structures into modern forms.

One of the collection’s key symbols is the heart-shaped armor marked “INFANTRY GIRL,” inspired by the shield from Mu Guiying Takes Command. Once a symbol of the female warrior, it becomes MUKZIN’s metaphor for another kind of strength: the self as a woman’s armor.

MUKZIN also revisits the dragon and phoenix, long associated with male and female, yang and yin. By tracing how these symbols became gendered through history, the collection questions the assumptions that have shaped femininity for centuries.

From clothing and accessories to hair and makeup, traditional techniques once used by male performers to create the illusion of femininity are reinterpreted with a contemporary, sometimes ironic edge.

At the heart of the collection is Mao’er Xi, an all-female theatrical tradition that emerged in Shanghai in the late Qing dynasty. Once existing on the margins of a male-dominated stage, it becomes the starting point for MUKZIN’s vision of a new stage—one where women are no longer defined by someone else’s script.

This is not about playing a role.
It is about writing your own.

FOR ALL THE INFANTRY GIRLS.