In an era increasingly shaped by dynamic digital experiences, the luxury fashion and beauty sectors are undergoing a profound aesthetic evolution. Motion design is becoming an increasingly important part of brand storytelling.

Zilan Lin, a distinguished Motion Designer and CG Artist, is a key player in this change. She is part of a new wave of creatives helping heritage brands embrace the dynamic potential of motion design, transforming static traditions into vibrant, immersive narratives.

Lin sheds light on why motion design, despite its prevalence in other industries, remains a relatively “new” frontier for high-end brands. “Luxury was historically built on the stillness of a photograph—the frozen moment of a couture gown or a high-jewelry piece,” Lin explains. 

“Motion introduces another dimension—time, rhythm, and movement—which requires a new visual language. Motion design is ‘new’ because it represents a fundamental shift: heritage houses are now learning to breathe in the dimension of time.”

This adaptation is crucial as audience engagement gravitates towards video formats on digital platforms. “For many luxury houses, the challenge is maintaining the sense of refinement and restraint while adapting to digital platforms where audiences experience brands through video content,” Lin notes. “Because of this shift toward social-first storytelling, motion design is becoming increasingly important. It allows brands to translate their visual identity into movement while preserving the elegance and precision that define luxury aesthetics.”

Lin’s expertise has been sought by global powerhouses such as Chantecaille (Beiersdorf), La Mer (The Estée Lauder Companies), and Guerlain (LVMH). For Guerlain’s 2025 Lunar New Year campaign, she served as Lead CG Artist and On-set VFX Supervisor, “bridging live-action with CGI to bring a refined cinematic dimension to their seasonal marketing.” 

At Chantecaille, a French beauty brand, Lin works as Lead Motion Designer, where she has “developed a cohesive motion language that translated the brand’s botanical-driven luxury into a new chapter of animation storytelling,” she notes.

Lin’s work on La Mer’s 2025 Lunar New Year “SHUI” campaign involved guiding the CG visual pipeline to ensure the concept was realized with the precision and elegance expected of a top-tier skincare brand. Lin explains that by “ensuring every pixel serves the story, I transform commercial deliverables into elevated brand assets that resonate globally, reinforcing prestige above the digital noise.”

The true potency of motion design, according to Lin, lies in its capacity for profound brand storytelling. “Video is the most impactful medium for brand storytelling because it is inherently dynamic, eye-catching, and versatile.” 

By “introducing the temporal dimension, motion design expands the narrative beyond the frozen moment of a static image,” orchestrating “rhythm, pacing, and atmosphere” to significantly heighten audience engagement. Crucially, “the true power of motion is to communicate craftsmanship and materiality in ways static imagery cannot.” 

Lin explains how subtle kinesthetic cues, like how the specific cadence of a reveal or the fluid grace of a transition, can suggest the physical weight of a luxury bottle, the softness of a texture, or the inherent elegance of a brand’s philosophy. 

“It transforms a passive viewer into a participant in a sensory journey, ensuring the brand’s story isn’t just seen, but deeply felt,” she said.

Beyond aesthetic enhancement, motion design is a powerful driver of commercial success. Lin explains, “Motion design is inherently explanatory—moving images communicate ideas more clearly and persuasively than text alone, encouraging audiences to keep watching.” 

It enables products to feel “more tangible,” translating features into “an emotional experience” and building crucial consumer trust by highlighting “texture, material, and form through movement.” 

In the fast-paced digital landscape, attention is the currency of modern marketing. “In my opinion, a well-crafted motion piece is one of the most effective ways to earn it,” she said, able to capture audience interest within mere seconds.

A prime example of Lin’s innovative approach is the 2025 Chantecaille Lip Crème Campaign, where she served as lead motion designer. Her strategy was to “create a story that reflected both the product and Chantecaille’s deeper brand values,” particularly the brand’s long-standing commitment to elephant protection. 

Challenged to integrate the Lip Crème launch with wildlife conservation, Lin pioneered a “sophisticated collage and origami animation style.” This handcrafted, poetic approach allowed her to juxtapose rich beauty textures with natural elements in a meaningful way, all while maintaining “L’élégance du silence,” ensuring graceful, unhurried pacing. 

As Lead Motion Designer, she managed the “campaign video end-to-end, shaping the visual direction, animation language, and storytelling” for a distinctive and emotionally resonant digital experience.

Currently, Zilan Lin applies her diverse talents at Chantecaille, where she crafts impactful videos for product launches and brand campaigns, including developing design toolkits for APAC markets and introducing AI-driven workflows. Her extensive career includes pivotal roles at PETERARNELL, freelance projects for high-profile clients such as Salesforce and T-Mobile, and internships at DreamWorks Animation (contributing to “Kung Fu Panda 4”) and Dress Code Studio. 

Lin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts, having previously studied 2D and Experimental Animation at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her proficiency spans Adobe Creative Suite, C4D, and Blender, underpinning her multifaceted capabilities as an animator, art director, and AI visual storyteller.

As luxury brands increasingly seek to captivate discerning digital audiences, Zilan Lin’s work exemplifies how motion design is not merely an enhancement, but a vital new dimension, weaving richer narratives and forging deeper connections in the evolving landscape of high-end aesthetics.

Fashion has its very own Fantastic Four. They’re quite fantastic, just not four. Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and the late Marina Yee are basically forever stuck with the name “the Antwerp Six”. They may lack fire-breathing or body-stretching powers, but they wield enough influence to make a trip to Belgium’s MoMu (Mode Museum) feel absolutely necessary.

How Antwerp Got Its Six

The world got interesting during the 1980s. The fashion scene was still glued to Paris, Milan, maybe even New York, but underground culture and places like Antwerp’s own little London Blitz, Café D’Anvers, gave creatives a playground to dress like maniacs and meet their future co-workers. This new generation slowly launched an era of more daring designers like Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and the list goes on. Geert Bruloot, guest curator of the exhibition and something like a fashion godfather to the six, still remembers driving to Paris to see the then-new Comme des Garçons stores with some of them in the passenger seat. Bruloot met the six in 1983, at his shoe shop Coccodrillo, the shop that got its hands on Margiela’s Tabi first, conveniently in the same mall as Van Saene’s boutique, Beauties & Heroes.

Most of them, Martin Margiela included, graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts’ fashion department in 1981. Just as Belgium decided to throw a lifeline to its dying textile industry with government campaigns, the Golden Spindle competition (judged by Jean Paul Gaultier, who would later scoop up Margiela for Paris), and enough funding to send young designers to Japan. Lucky timing, really. They’d already scored a bit of recognition, but it wasn’t this little getaway that made things happen, London would do that.

1986 came and they all took a van tour across London (only Demeulemeester sat this one out, pregnancy being a perfectly understandable excuse), showing up at what sounded more like the British Designers Show than the Fashion Week we think of now. They found themselves on the not-so-hot second floor of London’s Olympia, largely ignored. Naturally, they went with the classic college-kid thing to do and printed flyers that promoted six designers from Antwerp, whose names killed your tongue a little. They were quickly dubbed “The Antwerp Six,” and Barneys New York (the store every designer wanted on their CV) was already clearing space back in the US, and journalists from WWD, i-D, and anyone with a pulse for fresh fashion noticed.

Why We’re Still Talking About Them

The Antwerp Six were never a collective, and they never operated as one. And thank God for that, they were entirely too different. Bikkembergs made sportswear feel like something you’d actually want to wear on a runway. Van Saene treated clothing like art and sculpture, leaving you wondering if you were supposed to admire it or accidentally sit on it. Demeulemeester walked in layers that felt dark, but oddly alive. Van Noten had an instinct the rest of us missed, he saw prints and colours the way we see air, everywhere, shaping everything. While Van Beirendonck forced playful humour and politics to hold each other’s hands inside his seams.

Yet they shared some common ground. “The Antwerp Six are often described as a myth or a label, but rarely analyzed in their full complexity. […] They were not only six extraordinary talents, they were also the product of an environment. It is a dimension we risk forgetting today, as contemporary fashion tends to personalize everything, turning every story into an individual biography,” Kaat Debo, director of MoMu told NSS. They widened the map of fashion, giving new cities a place in the conversation while staying independent. Back then, fashion education still meant tradition. Paris taught rules, Antwerp, under Linda Loppa, taught freedom, an approach that gladly didn’t stay local. Just look at Demna Gvasalia and Raf Simons (mentored by Van Beirendonck) who ended up with near-identical diplomas.

What Sharing Rooms at MoMu Looks Like

Celebrating 40 years since that London trip, the exhibition starts with their early years, then breaks into six very specific rooms. Bikkembergs kicks things off with a space built around image rather than product. Van Beirendonck follows louder, with an almost aggressive burst of colour and a video-built robot in conversation with himself. Van Saene leans into the surreal, recreating his ’97-’98 show with a front row that feels more like artworks than guests, while Van Noten shifts the focus to the finale, where everything lands. Marina Yee’s room feels like stepping into her workspace, as if she never really left it, while Demeulemeester’s goes entirely back to black, where feathers and ropes rest in the dark.

“They opened their archives, selected key pieces, and provided context,” Debo says to W Magazine. “Our focus was not on presenting ‘greatest hits’, but on processes, beginnings, and moments of transition. We were particularly interested in materials that could reveal how ideas developed over time and how different aspects of the designers’ practices were interconnected… What continues to resonate is not a recognizable style, but a mind-set. Creative autonomy, intellectual ambition, and the courage to operate independently. Their legacy is proof that it was possible to invent your own rules and succeed internationally.”

Fashion has no shortage of seats, just an endless game of switching them. Courrèges has been sitting comfortably inside Artémis, the Pinault family’s ever-expanding portfolio, the same force behind Kering, since 2018. A few days after officially confirming Nicolas Di Felize’s exit, who left to “focus on personal projects” (Alaia could count as one, just saying), Drew Henry takes the creative reins, starting May.

Where did that 38-year-old man come from? South Africa, for starters, but let’s fast-forward to Central Saint Martins. From there, Henry quickly landed a Celine internship, back when it was still Céline, accent and Phoebe Philo included. He made the internship full-time after graduation, had a quick detour at JW Anderson, and later reunited with Philo as head of design for the launch of her eponymous label. Where’s he coming from now? Burberry, Daniel Lee’s senior design director since 2023.

Henry put it simply. “André Courrèges believed in clothes that make sense for how people live. That matters to me. I have always been drawn to work that feels modern, useful, and direct. Joining this iconic French house, I feel a strong responsibility to honor its history while bringing my own perspective. I am grateful to François-Henri Pinault and Marie Leblanc for their trust, and I am excited to shape a vision for the house that is optimistic, clear, and grounded.” The only thing left to do now is wait for September’s Paris fashion week.