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Melissa Xie

@mazzymeixie

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@polimodafirenze FD 1BA
anais nin disciple

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[ silenced past, spirit ablaze ]

This project reflects the way in which historical trauma leaves indelible traces on the present. Haunted by terrible family stories told by my grandfather, and thus fascinated by Chinese history, I wanted to honor women from the Republican era (1912-1949) who fought for their freedom and dignity despite miserable livelihoods marked by poverty, European concessions, and widespread opium consumption.

The movie Les Fruits de la Passion by Shuji Terayama (1981) was my starting point. It tackles a “maison de fleurs” in 1929 French-occupied Shanghai. There, the women are beautiful but broken inside, walls are decorated but wallpapers are torn, decay is present everywhere, hardly masked by the glamour.

Plexiglass cloak made of layered laser-cut panels —the cut motif alluding to traditional Chinese door patterns— resulting in different transparency levels, evoking eroding cultural heritage as the patterns seem to be fading away. Drawing inspiration from Bahaus lamp shape --the artistic movement trending in Europe at the time and thus exporting to asian concessions.

Rippings are cut on “my own version” of the 1930s qipao dress — a symbol of women’s emancipation— as if it were wallpaper, revealing beige and grey linen, reminiscent of the walls of traditional chinese Hui-style architecture. The intention was showing “the miserable truth lurking behind the luscious façade”, alluding to that movie: we may romanticize history because of superficial understanding.

A linen plain weave is draped from these rippings, fixed using rusty safety pins. Covers of the newspaper The Pictual Shanghai are paper-transferred on it as well as stamps that bear witness to the country's history of colonization, in an aim to place the garment as an artifact belonging to this specific historical context, bearing the faces of the women who lived through it all. On the same fabric, Chinese calligraphy is screen-printed in black and blue, evoking symbolic words (“梦想”(”dream”) “看”( “look”) “故乡”(“home")...) but barely readable as the calligraphy is "falling apart" in calligraphic scars, almost violent.

February 2026.

photo: Lan Cheng
model: @ilaria_xy by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago

[ silenced past, spirit ablaze ]

plexiglass, silk taffeta, linen.

photo: Lan Cheng
model: @ilaria_xy

February 2026.

This project reflects the way in which historical trauma leaves indelible traces on the present. Haunted by terrible family stories told by my grandfather, and thus fascinated by Chinese history, I wanted to honor women from the Republican era (1912-1949) who fought for their freedom and dignity despite miserable livelihoods marked by poverty, European concessions, and widespread opium consumption.

The movie Les Fruits de la Passion by Shuji Terayama (1981) was my starting point. It tackles a “maison de fleurs” in 1929 French-occupied Shanghai. There, the women are beautiful but broken inside, walls are decorated but wallpapers are torn, decay is present everywhere, hardly masked by the glamour.

Plexiglass cloak made of layered laser-cut panels —the cut motif alluding to traditional Chinese door patterns— resulting in different transparency levels, evoking eroding cultural heritage as the patterns seem to be fading away. Drawing inspiration from Bahaus lamp shape --the artistic movement trending in Europe at the time and thus exporting to asian concessions.

Rippings are cut on “my own version” of the 1930s qipao dress — a symbol of women’s emancipation— as if it were wallpaper, revealing beige and grey linen, reminiscent of the walls of traditional chinese Hui-style architecture. The intention was showing “the miserable truth lurking behind the luscious façade”, alluding to that movie: we may romanticize history because of superficial understanding.

A linen plain weave is draped from these rippings, fixed using rusty safety pins. Covers of the newspaper The Pictual Shanghai are paper-transferred on it as well as stamps that bear witness to the country's history of colonization, in an aim to place the garment as an artifact belonging to this specific historical context, bearing the faces of the women who lived through it all. On the same fabric, Chinese calligraphy is screen-printed in black and blue, evoking symbolic words ("dreams", "home"...) but barely readable as the calligraphy is falling apart in calligraphic scars, almost violent. by @mazzymeixie

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1

5 months ago

[ silenced past, spirit ablaze ]

plexiglass, silk taffeta, linen.

photo: Lan Cheng
model: @ilaria_xy

February 2026.

This project reflects the way in which historical trauma leaves indelible traces on the present. Haunted by terrible family stories told by my grandfather, and thus fascinated by Chinese history, I wanted to honor women from the Republican era (1912-1949) who fought for their freedom and dignity despite miserable livelihoods marked by poverty, European concessions, and widespread opium consumption.

The movie Les Fruits de la Passion by Shuji Terayama (1981) was my starting point. It tackles a “maison de fleurs” in 1929 French-occupied Shanghai. There, the women are beautiful but broken inside, walls are decorated but wallpapers are torn, decay is present everywhere, hardly masked by the glamour.

Plexiglass cloak made of layered laser-cut panels —the cut motif alluding to traditional Chinese door patterns— resulting in different transparency levels, evoking eroding cultural heritage as the patterns seem to be fading away. Drawing inspiration from Bahaus lamp shape --the artistic movement trending in Europe at the time and thus exporting to asian concessions.

Rippings are cut on “my own version” of the 1930s qipao dress — a symbol of women’s emancipation— as if it were wallpaper, revealing beige and grey linen, reminiscent of the walls of traditional chinese Hui-style architecture. The intention was showing “the miserable truth lurking behind the luscious façade”, alluding to that movie: we may romanticize history because of superficial understanding.

A linen plain weave is draped from these rippings, fixed using rusty safety pins. Covers of the newspaper The Pictual Shanghai are paper-transferred on it as well as stamps that bear witness to the country's history of colonization, in an aim to place the garment as an artifact belonging to this specific historical context, bearing the faces of the women who lived through it all. On the same fabric, Chinese calligraphy is screen-printed in black and blue, evoking symbolic words ("dreams", "home"...) but barely readable as the calligraphy is falling apart in calligraphic scars, almost violent. taken in Paris 13e by @mazzymeixie

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6 months ago

The high priestess up high in her palace of glass, overlooking your subconscious. by @mazzymeixie

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3 months ago

Link is in my bio to read 📍
I have enjoyed connecting back to my first passion that started it all: writing. I started by compiling journal entries from my time in Cagliari to write this, and as I started connecting the dots I daydreamed about those imaginary landscapes I have always been obsessed with. It is about thematics that I care most about: self-seduction, eroticism, reclusiveness and introspection that may lead to severe imbalance (getting trapped in the "house of incest").
JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK it's fun by @mazzymeixie

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3 months ago

self-seduction : to lead oneself astray into an unknown inner territory

Check out my new piece on Substack 🤍 taken in Cagliari, Italy by @mazzymeixie

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3 months ago

[ fossile of sentiments ] experimentation on leather

May 2026. by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago

Drifting my gaze away, I scoped the too-heavy touches of worn-out fingers on a piano. Drafting the end of the world on my bruised papers, sinking in the blue of my lagoon, I thought maybe liquor, love, and death are synonyms.

Then, I wouldn’t need your compassion anymore, for my home changes place every hour: it dies in my reflection I see in the glass of extra drink, just to be reborn in the next hour in my reflection I see in the dead of your eyes.

Constantly wavering on a frequency unknown, I sought freedom in warehouses of lust, stifled, coughing, striving to tame my chameleon soul. Bad idea I realized so I slammed the door open and let myself out.

I caught up on the meaning of love, on the odor of chaos, on the taste of wonder on the touch of care. I saw me through your eyes both infant and mother, both fleshy and liquid; womanhood became genderless.

I think I might dissolve in your arms, into something a little greater than just you and me.
Liquor, love, and death: one catalyst I wield.
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"Blue is the color of alchemy through art and its ingredients" - May 2026 taken in Paris by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago

[ the atlantide ] research illustration

watercolor, calligraphy pen, soft and oil pastels on paper

January 2026. by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago

[ anatomy of a sinner ]

envy and wrath

collage, embroidery.

I noticed a common experience to my female friends and me that happens in times of introspection: a frequent feeling of lack, not necessarily born from self-doubt but also from intuition (often both): what we see that we lack points to our deepest desires.

In these collages I wanted to express the omnipresence of lack through the prism of the female body.

As the object of this lack, I chose the seven deadly sins from Catholic dogma: lust, pride, sloth, greed, gluttony, envy and wrath. Lust is the lack of intimacy and emotional connection, pride is the lack of compassion and self-awareness, sloth is the lack of discipline, etc.

Instead of moralizing the sinners I depict in my collages, I want them to be compassionate with themselves about their mental turmoil, almost empowered by their desires.

January 2026. by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago

[ anatomy of a sinner ]

greed and gluttony

collage, embroidery.

I noticed a common experience to my female friends and me that happens in times of introspection: a frequent feeling of lack, not necessarily born from self-doubt but also from intuition (often both): what we see that we lack points to our deepest desires.
In these collages I wanted to express the omnipresence of lack through the prism of the female body.

As the object of this lack, I chose the seven deadly sins from Catholic dogma: lust, pride, sloth, greed, gluttony, envy and wrath. Lust is the lack of intimacy and emotional connection, pride is the lack of compassion and self-awareness, sloth is the lack of discipline, etc.

Instead of moralizing the sinners I depict in my collages, I want them to be compassionate with themselves about their mental turmoil, almost empowered by their desires.

January 2026. by @mazzymeixie

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1

5 months ago

[ anatomy of a sinner ]

1. lust 2. pride and sloth

collage, white marker, embroidery

I noticed a common experience to my female friends and me that happens in times of introspection: a frequent feeling of lack, not necessarily born from self-doubt but also from intuition (often both): what we see that we lack points to our deepest desires.
In these collages I wanted to express the omnipresence of lack through the prism of the female body.

As the object of this lack, I chose the seven deadly sins from Catholic dogma: lust, pride, sloth, greed, gluttony, envy and wrath. Lust is the lack of intimacy and emotional connection, pride is the lack of compassion and self-awareness, sloth is the lack of discipline, etc.

Instead of moralizing the sinners I depict in my collages, I want them to be compassionate with themselves about their mental turmoil, almost empowered by their desires.

January 2026. by @mazzymeixie

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5 months ago