Volver
Recently, the production of a multi-generational female vision Volver premiered in Los Angeles, it captured the attention of the creative team and the live audience with its visual language and character development centered on women and family memory. For this production, Chinese costume designer Kaiqi Zhang led the complete costume design as the project’s Costume Designer, translating themes such as “matrilineal inheritance” and “combined memory” into visual, traceable expressions through the choice of materials and structure. Work continues on the international stage he has developed across the UK and North America.
It is set up by the creative team as a story about family ties, dissolution, and reunion, Volver builds its narrative around images of kitchens, cornfields, food preparation, and domestic chores, encompassing the lifestyles of women across generations. To give these themes tangible form, costume design is considered a central narrative device. Zhang selected fabrics taken from everyday domestic life—cotton, linen, old sheets, kitchen towels, scraps of embroidery—and processed them by smoking, over-dyeing, acid washing, and mending to create garments that appeared “time-worn,” as if they had been passed down through generations within a household. According to the production team, this approach clarified the intergenerational relationships and emotional bonds between the characters, allowing the audience to see the family history through layers and dressings.
Dolly Rocket’s costume design
In contrast to the family-oriented narrative of VolverZhang’s previous UK project Dolly Rocket Costume Design it appeared in a different operating context. Inspired by Brighton-based cabaret artist Dolly Rocket, the project explored how female performers find a balance between being seen and maintaining personal agency both on stage and in everyday identity. Brighton, a UK coastal city, is known for its open and diverse cabaret culture, with venues such as Proud Cabaret and Stanmer House serving as independent sites within this ecosystem. Zhang’s Dolly Rocket costume series has been used in performances at these venues and has received positive responses from both creative participants and audiences.
With Dolly Rocket’s designs, Zhang deliberately broke away from the usual reliance on “sexy imagery” in cabaret wear. Instead, he rethought the relationship between decorum and power through the lens of body mass, stage presence, and visual ethics. He replaced real feathers with hand-woven strips of fabric that replicated a feather-like texture, giving the garments movement under the stage lighting while ensuring structural clarity and durability. This key strategy supported the players’ physical needs and broader sustainability concerns, while symbolizing “reconstruction” and “repair”—a symbol that the creative team saw as deeply in tune with work ethics.
Throughout both the cabaret performance and the multi-generational narrative work as VolverZhang’s design approach shows a consistent focus: clothing serves not only as a visual style, but as an integral part of a narrative structure. In Dolly Rocket’s works, costume design helped the artist maintain agency under the spotlight and close audience scrutiny. In Volverclothing records the passage of time and change of ownership through the reuse, repurposing, and displacement of objects. Although different in form and genre, both works revolve around the central question of how women are seen and remembered within certain social and structural contexts.
Designer Kaiqi Zhang
Industry observers note that Zhang’s performance spans Europe and North America, including cabaret, theater, and thematic collaborations. In the finished products to date, he has always been involved as a Costume Designer or Lead Designer in the main creative process—rather than providing separate pieces or an incomplete style. According to the collaborators, he often begins with an analysis of theme and character relationships, establishing an internal sequence of materials and structures before working with directors, lighting designers, and scenery teams to align costume systems with the broader stage language. This approach positions him not only as a visible executor but as a participant in the entire narrative strategy.
In recent years, the growing international attention to sustainable materials, diverse narratives, and representation of the body has reshaped the role of clothing designers in the creative chain. Within this context, Zhang’s practice—based on critical research and feminist issues—established a unique professional orientation. He explores the fabric’s origins, uses, and social meanings, integrating these elements systematically into the conceptual structure of each work rather than relying solely on the aesthetics of style. Participants note that this research-driven approach improves the citation value of their projects in academic discourse, industry exchanges, and future exhibitions.
I Volver production marks a new milestone in Zhang’s international creative trajectory. In this project, she expanded the critical vocabulary developed for Dolly Rocket into a theatrical text focused on family, world, and matrilineal memory. As documents and archival materials continue to be compiled, these works are expected to appear in future exhibitions, shows, and research, providing practical lessons to explore how contemporary costume design interacts with themes such as women’s narratives and cross-cultural stage practices. Through these projects, Zhang establishes a traceable portfolio of expertise that supports his long-term development of contemporary stage costume design.
