Marina Yee

Marina Yee studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. After graduating in 1981, she designed collections for two Belgian manufacturers, Bassetti and Gruno & Chardin. She launched the commercial line Marie in 1986, together with a Japanese business partner. In 1990, Yee turned her back on the fashion industry and opened a café in Brussels that doubled as a creative studio. In the late 1990s, she created collections for Lena Lena and designed womenswear for Dirk Bikkembergs for several seasons. In 1999, she was appointed the artistic coordinator for the fashion component of the Van Dyck Year. Yee also explored other artistic disciplines throughout her career, including theatre costumes, graphic design, collages, interior design and painting.

In 2005, she began teaching fashion at colleges in Tournai, Ghent, and The Hague. She returned to fashion in 2018 with the launch of individual pieces for the Asian market under the label M.Y. In 2021, she founded the label M.Y. Collection with Rafael Adriaensens. Three years later, she received the Jury Prize at the Belgian Fashion Awards. Her death on 1 November 2025 brought her unconventional career to an abrupt end.

Marina Yee’s artistic nature was ill suited to the hectic, commercial pace of the fashion industry, from which she chose to distance herself in 1990. True to her own principles, she created an oeuvre that transcends the confines of fashion. Her collections of objects often formed the starting point for her work across a wide variety of disciplines, such as collage, graphic design, furniture design, textile design and painting. By cutting, painting, sewing, gluing or piecing elements together, she rearranged and repurposed texture, colour and form. In this way, she breathed new life into ‘discarded’ materials. Yee’s spontaneous, Dadaist design ethos is also evident in the invitations she created for the M.Y. Collection presentations.

During her career, Marina Yee paved the way for ‘slow fashion’ through her subtle yet steadfast activism. Ever since her student days, she would cut, shape and reassemble discarded garments, fabrics and trimmings – which she salvaged – much like a sculptor. Yee complemented her creations with delicate handwork, such as origami-like folds or embroidery. The ensuing garments showcased ‘used materials’, which the designer cherished. After a decades-long hiatus, Yee returned to the fashion stage in 2018 with five unique pieces under the name M.Y. Project. This was followed in 2021 by M.Y. Collection, her first commercial collection in thirty years, in which she was able to reconcile her creative principles with market realities: sustainable collections produced in limited editions.

Yee was fascinated by garment construction, particularly classic pieces such as parkas, blazers and trench coats. Her extensive archive of vintage menswear served as inspiration during her design process. Drawing on her deep professional knowledge, she dissected the construction of her source material, reshaping it into new silhouettes. Yee intervened with unerring precision, adding origami-like details or playing with finishes such as zips (Spring-Summer 2024). Her working method resembled the Japanese design tradition, in which a single, refined yet masterfully executed idea determines the design.

Author: Anaïs Huyghe
Photo above: Ronald Stoops