NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 04: Prabal Gurung attends the CFDA / Vogue Fashion Fund 2019 Awards at Cipriani South Street on November 04, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Designer Prabal Gurung responded to accusations that his namesake brand photoshopped an Indigenous land recognition sign from two images in its Resort 2022 lookbook, which was released earlier this week.
On Tuesday afternoon, Prabal Gurung released the new collection which was inspired by Chinatown’s culture and the wave of social movements sparked over the past year. As Gurung explained in the collection notes: “[Chinatown] is a whole community that shows the great character of New York City, full of true New Yorkers, often overlooked.”
Following the release, ethnographer Diane Wong took to Twitter to compare an image showing a model in a design by Prabal Gurung against a red brick wall in Chinatown’s Mosco street with a photo of the area in real life. While a sign recognizing New York City as Indigenous land appears on the brick wall in the latter image, the signage is missing from the image used in Gurung’s lookbook.
As if it wasn’t bad enough fashion designers use Chinatown as a backdrop and people as photoshoot props, designers like @prabalgurung are now erasing our bilingual land acknowledgements that pay respect to the Lenape people and their enduring relationship with lenapehoking pic.twitter.com/olnEoegEgk
“We acknowledge with respect the Lenape peoples’ historic and enduring relationship with Lenapehoking, where New York City sits,” reads the sign. “Our vision of safety for Chinatown communities is interconnected with Indigenous flourishing and self-determination.”
The sign is part of a larger mural by W.O.W Project, a women-, queer-, and trans-led community initiative that aims to grow and protect Chinatown’s culture and history. In a statement to Refinery29, the W.O.W Project said: “‘In the Future Our Asian Community is Safe’ is a mural on Mosco St. in Manhattan’s Chinatown by non-binary Asian artist, Jess X. Snow, imagining a future where we transcend white supremacy and anti-Asian violence.” (Refinery29 reached out to Snow and they declined to comment.)
The statement continued: “After celebrating the unveiling of this beautiful portal with our Pan Asian and Indigenous community two weeks ago, it feels especially harmful that designer Prabal Gurung intentionally erased our Indigenous land acknowledgment — the first bilingual one of its kind in the neighborhood — from his recent photos of his new collection. Indigenous land cannot be erased and Chinatown is not a backdrop for capital gain. It is unfortunate that this act of erasure has distracted us from the intention of this mural. We simply want to recenter the conversation back to this intention: creating a healing space for our community.”
On Friday, Prabal Gurung provided Refinery29 with the following statement that he asked to be published in full:
“This week, we released our Resort 2022 Collection: An Ode to Mulberry and Bayard, a tribute to Chinatown, a place that holds some of my fondest memories of New York City, as the years I spent living in Chinatown truly shaped who I am today.
“Over the past year, I have constantly been brought back to Chinatown — through my work with Anti-Asian Hate in the face of record-high attacks against our AAPI community — both physically and against our community’s small businesses that continue to be the hardest hit during the pandemic.
“With this collection, I wanted to pay homage to and honor the wonderful poignance of Chinatown, a place that made me who I am. As a designer, I want to push people’s eyes. Chinatown is rich in culture, strong in the community, and a convening home for so many, and I wanted to show through this collection that fashion can exist outside of traditionally allocated spaces. But the best intentions can have unintended impact — and I’m owning that and correcting it.
“The images released are lookbook images. They are meant for the press, editors, and stylists within the industry to see the collection’s looks, similar to what is exhibited during a runway show. As the images were meant to share the clothing and collection, the images were closely framed. The original image only shows a portion of the Land Acknowledgement. In choosing to photoshop the image, we aimed to avoid misrepresentation of the Land Acknowledgement statement. Additionally, in an effort to not extort the artist, Jess X. Snow, the creatives that assisted with the creation of the beautiful mural, and the community that surrounds them, we felt our decision would prevent misrepresentation by not portraying the mural in its entirety.
“I have no intention of continuing the removal of aspects of the mural, specifically the land acknowledgment, in future shared social posts, as those, like the mural, are meant for the community, not just the fashion industry.
“I understand the implications of the erasure that I participated in, and the importance of the acknowledgment, and I am greatly apologetic for my actions. We are a small team and every one of us are immigrants, women, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. For this photoshoot, our casting and hiring process prioritized women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I take issues that have been raised to heart with great gravity and do not mean any harm by my actions. I understand that the best intentions can have another impact — and I, as well as my team, are owning that in order to relearn, and work to be better.
“Fighting for equity is a constant battle and learning process — one that no one, including me, is exempt from. We are in contact with the appropriate parties involved and look for their guidance as they take the much needed time and space to process. Rectifying the situation is our top priority. I am incredibly grateful that they have held me accountable, as learning and growing is vital for a better tomorrow. We must do better, and we will.”
During the past few years, activists have pushed for a call to acknowledge the colonization of Indigenous land in the United States, while there has also been a larger call for solidarity between AAPI and BIPOC communities to address social and political injustices together.
The area the Lenape people occupied before English and Dutch settlers forced them out was known as “Lenapehoking” and extended from New York City to Philadelphia, including all of New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and part of Delaware. In Lower Manhattan, the Lenape people were forced out by Dutch settlers, who, in the 1660s, built a wall on what’s now known as Wall Street.
New York’s Chinatown formed in the 1870s. But many Chinese immigrants were driven out west because of anti-Sino violence. In 1965, the end of immigration restrictions ushered in a wave of Chinese newcomers to the neighborhood, and by the 1980s, NYC’s Chinatown held the largest Chinese community in the United States.
Since the launch of his namesake brand in 2009, Prabal Gurung has centered identity and politics in his work. In 2017, sparked by the Trump administration’s attacks on women’s rights and immigrants, the designer showcased a collection full of slogan T-shirts emblazoned with phrases like “We should all be feminists” and “Girls just want to have fundamental rights.” The following year, the Nepalese-American designer took a stance on the lack of diversity in fashion, releasing an ad campaign for his fall 2018 collection, named “Stronger In Color,” in which he employed a predominantly Asian crew of creatives and models. Later, in 2019, he released a collection that explored American identity through the question “Who gets to be American?” which models donned on sashes for the show’s finale. Back then, he told Refinery29: “For me, being an activist is a part of my identity.”
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The year was 2012. Then-teenage blogger Tavi Gevinson sat in the front row at the Dior show in Paris wearing an enormous bow on top of her head, baffling many fashion insiders who couldn’t understand why a 13-year-old had been invited to cover a fashion show (let alone block views of the runway). At the time, before there were influencers, fashion bloggers were the ones donning eccentric looks to fashion shows and commenting on industry happenings and trends with the confidence of a career critic.
The blogger moment hardly had a chance. Influencers quickly replaced the indie scribes’ hot fashion takes. A cohort of tastemakers that was supposed to democratize fashion gave way to a wave of mini marketers who were open to branded partnerships. By the end of the 2010s, Gevinson shut down Rookie. Leandra Medine’s Man Repeller turned into Repeller, only to close months later. And Bryanboy, one of the original fashion influencers, left his witty blogging for the shinier shores of Instagram.
Now, almost a decade later, TikTok is becoming a space where creators are stepping into a time machine that ferries them back to the era of independent commentators. While some might write off the platform as a melting pot of memes and dance-off videos, its spirit is more old-fashioned than some might think. It brims with conversations on sustainability, ethics, trends, fashion history, and design that are often excluded from the traditional influencer landscape that mostly relies on curated images. They’ve traded #ootd for #trendcycle and #personalstyle, inviting their audiences to engage with their content beyond the likes.
Sure, TikTok is also full of fashion creators pushing trends, displaying hauls, and sharing their latest press trips. But a different archetype of influencer — less of a vessel, more of a critic, if you will — is also emerging on the platform, where personality moves the algorithm more than a pretty filter or sponsorships ever will.
“It reminds me of the time before influencers, when the people who were influential were people who had other jobs but they had something to say,” says Alexandra Hildreth, a TikTok fashion commentator who goes by @guyfieri.superfan.
Hildreth works full-time as a project manager at Beyond The Mag, a fashion consulting and creative firm, and lives in Brooklyn. She first downloaded TikTok in January 2020 — when, according to her, it was “embarrassing to have TikTok” — and only decided to start commenting on fashion a year later. Since then, her videos filled with unfiltered opinions on designer collections, trends, sustainability, and style have garnered her 1.4 million likes and nearly 44,000 followers. “I always joke that I can’t believe people follow me because every single one of my TikToks is like me in my pajamas at seven in the morning,” says Hildreth, whose nom de TikTok is based on a Halloween costume of the platinum-haired chef she wore during her time as an undergraduate at the University of St. Andrews (yes, the Scottish institution where Prince William met Kate Middleton).
The unfiltered energy on TikTok is nothing like the hyper-studied still life that is Instagram. Most of the videos feel like one-on-one conversations with a fashion-obsessed bestie. Fashion content on the app is less aspirational and polished than other platforms, which helps creators focus on substance rather than curated fluff, and facilitates the growth of niche communities, like #Cottagecore, which has over 6.6 billion views, and #Altgirl, which has over 1.5 billion views.
“Something I’m really excited about is the rise of subcultures,” says Agustina Panzoni, an Argentinian TikTok creator who goes by @thealgorythm on the platform. “There are no mainstream trends, but rather smaller trends happening in different subcultures.”
Panzoni would know. Last year, after losing her work visa, she transitioned from working at WGSN, an American trend forecasting company, to making TikTok videos. Panzoni studied economics in college, and later ventured into forecasting after learning about this field during a trip to Australia Fashion Week. But after losing her job, she’s found a space to pontificate on fashion trends that works on her own terms. “If I can’t do it professionally,” she told herself, “I’ll do it somewhere else.”
The magic formula has been to bring her behind-the-scenes knowledge of trend forecasting to the app through video series helping people navigate fashion trends and their cultural significance. Here TikTok’s motto is “I find things you like.” The pay-off is big for Panzoni, who has garnered over 190,000 followers and over 1 million likes in seven months, watching her follower count grow to 100,000 in her first week.
Even with such a robust following, Panzoni is not trying to make a living out of it: “Influencer marketing is so saturated that at this point we are using this as a platform to push us professionally.” Instead, what animates her to keep uploading videos is the TikTokerati’s appetite for raw, opinionated, often funny content.
Currently, the independence that these creators maintain from brands or affiliate marketing platforms separates them from the bulk of fashion creators out there. “Listen, if I brand I really loved a brand like Prada or Marc Jacobs reached out to me, obviously you’re not going to say no,” says Hildreth. “But as far as becoming a full-time influencer, who makes a living off sponsorships and placement promotion, that is not something I have an interest in.”
AJ Krakovsky agrees. If you’ve ever scrolled through his @mizft TikTok channel, the phrase “Don’t be mad at me, these are just my opinions” may sound familiar. Krakovsky starts each video with this line, then segues into his raw opinions about everything, from the Kardashians to why Anna Wintour and American Vogue “get on my nerves” and why Selena Gomez is “underrated.” Krakovsky started on TikTok in November 2020, after sharing videos of his bad experiences working as a model. Since then, he’s grown over 120,000 followers on the platform and over 5.2 million likes.
Prior to joining TikTok, though, he was already a fan of fashion critics, especially people like Luke Meagher from the YouTube channel Haute LeMode, who have disrupted the traditional critic format. “I’m drawn toward people who 100% keep it real,” he says. “People who know they might get in trouble for doing something but do it anyway.”
Even though he could easily monetize his audience, Krakovsky says he’s not interested in filtering his opinions in order to work with brands. In fact, he’s already tried to work with some fashion companies, but has been rejected because “they find my content to be controversial.”
In an industry ruled by access and connections, creators have the talent and unabashed confidence to say what they want, and TikTok is giving them a space to do it. After all, if they have nothing to gain, they have nothing to lose. For now.
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Like many betrothed couples whose nuptial plans were disrupted by the pandemic, Charlie and her now-husband Will Hull had to get creative about their forthcoming festivities. The arrival of Covid-19 brought with it a slew of lockdowns, travel restrictions, and social-distancing rules that knocked the wedding industry — and its millions of brides and grooms — off course, leading some to opt for virtual ceremonies, micro-weddings, or elopements while others postponed to a later date. In all circumstances, however, one question remained the same: What about the dress?
In order to keep their initial wedding date, Charlie and Will were required to switch their indoor venue, which introduced Covid-related restrictions on table arrangements and bar access, and scale down their list of invitees from 120 people to 30. For Hull, a change in attire swiftly followed suit. Instead of the vintage-inspired, beaded number she had originally ordered from Net-a-Porter for the occasion, Charlie went for a minimalist design from H&M which had the potential to become the shorter style that, deep down, she says she wanted all along. Charlie then altered the hem to land just above her ankle to complement her 5’2” frame and, at the last minute, bought a matching bolero jacket for what turned out to be an unseasonably chilly spring day.
“I ended up going for a really simple A-line midi dress as I felt that, being under a marquee in my parents’ garden with only 30 guests, the first dress was too much for that setting. I wanted to feel like my dress fit in with the new style of the day,” she says. While she describes herself as someone who enjoys keeping up with the latest trends, Hull says that she had no qualms about making the sartorial swap, especially when it meant finding something great on the high street without the hefty price tag: “I was completely open to it. To me, feeling comfortable was most important.”
Hull isn’t the only bride who’s gotten cold feet, so to speak, about their pre-pandemic bridalwear plans. According to bridal stylists and designers Refinery29 spoke with for this story, their clients have had to be more nimble in every aspect of the wedding planning process, and dresses are no exception. Whether it’s adjustments to the same gown that’s been untouched and stowed away since early 2020 or a full-on change of ensemble, some dresses are undergoing as many transformations as the main events themselves. Since personal style can very well change over the course of a regular year, let alone one unlike any other, it’s not surprising that brides are altering their gowns accordingly.
“Women are getting more accustomed to bending and twisting, whether it’s for guest count numbers, event design, even experiential add-ons,” says Carrie Goldberg, Weddings & Travel director at Harper’s Bazaar. “People are adding and adjusting on all those fronts, so why not do it with the dress?” She has seen the trend take form in a number of ways, including the removal of sleeves to accommodate unforeseen changes in season or setting.
Goldberg offers the example of a bride who, after postponing her destination wedding in Italy by two years, has since added embroidered detailing to her gown and reconstructed its bodice for a more fitted silhouette to evoke a sense of newness for when her big — belated — day arrives in 2022. The corresponding accessories and veil have been modified, too. “It’s really just about tweaking the look so it feels fresh to [the wearer] now rather than feeling like they’re wearing a dress that’s years old,” Goldberg explains.
Considering how much space a dress can take up against a different backdrop is another design element that’s sent certain styles back to the tailor. “If your guest number shrank and you were originally planning on wearing a huge gown, maybe it’s about wearing a slimmer style to the reception and only wearing that bigger gown down the aisle,” Goldberg says. “In a space with so few people, you take up a lot more space than your guest count does.”
Goldberg further illustrates this point with another anecdote, featuring what was once an indoor winter wedding at a dramatic urban venue that morphed into an outdoor summer event. In keeping with the revised aesthetic of the upcoming celebrations, the bride decided to remove her gown’s embroidered sleeves to create a sleeveless V-neck look better suited to her sun-dappled surroundings.
When you’ve canceled your wedding three or even four times, you want to wear [a dress] to just feel happy.
Stephanie White, Odylyne the Ceremony
Katherine Holmgren, co-founder and business development director at the modern eveningwear and bridal label Galvan, has been navigating similarly upended circumstances with her clients. As business crescendos in tandem with easing restrictions and a mounting eagerness to gather in person, women who had put styles on hold for 2020 are finally ready to commit. But the pandemic is an ever-evolving situation, and so, too, are the wardrobe needs of many brides-to-be.
“There are definitely some women who are leaving their dress just as it is — can’t wait to wear it, have been waiting to wear it all year. And then there are others who are changing lengths, adding coverups such as a silk jacket in the same material and color as their slip dress, or a long silk trench coat over a dress to be worn outdoors versus indoors, for instance,” Holmgren shares. One Galvan bride found her feet constrained beneath a lengthy hem that had been tailored to sweep the floor when worn with a pair of 4-inch heels. Now that her traditional church wedding and ballroom reception will be a beachside affair, she’s having her gown cropped short enough so she could comfortably go barefoot in the sand.
Another phenomenon that Holmgren and Goldberg are both seeing take off is the curation of a wedding wardrobe rather than a singular focus on the dream dress. With the rise of more and smaller events, brides are compiling a series of outfits to compensate for an absence of fashion in the last year. An upside to this trend is the occasion it gives them to reveal more of themselves (figuratively, but in some cases literally) in their dress choices. By approaching the wedding, or in some cases a whole wedding weekend, as a series of memorable vignettes, finding a look that underscores the specialness of each moment appeals to brides itching to put their neglected styling muscles to work. It’s also an exercise in adaptability. An example of this, Goldberg says, would be turning that sleek column-like dress purchased with the intention of walking down the aisle into something to change into before dinner instead.
Outfit changes are also a way to turn up the festive factor, which is particularly welcome after such a grim and stagnant spell of isolation. “Every time you walk into a room in a new outfit you signal to your guests that the party is nowhere near over, says Goldberg.” For brides who had micro-weddings during the peak of Covid and plan to host a larger celebratory fête down the line, a traditional ceremony-type gown may no longer be in order. And the appetite for shorter frocks that started during the early stages of lockdown continues to have an impact on bridal attire.
For designer Stephanie White of Odylyne the Ceremony, it has shaped an entire collection. The capsule, set to launch this week, is a direct reaction to inquiries White was receiving over the past year and half from brides and stockists alike, including requests for shorter versions of the label’s signature silhouettes and the incorporation of more high-low hems. By cutting down on fabric and production, White was also able to create more affordable and versatile versions of her gowns for her cost-conscious clients. Her hit Mini Caspian dress, featuring a sheer puff sleeve and ethereal high-neck collar, has taken over Instagram feeds and courthouses across the globe.
“We’re launching a whole capsule collection of mini dresses just because of the success of this style,” White says. “I feel like it’s the dress that, when you’ve canceled your wedding three or even four times, you want to wear to just feel happy. So hopefully I can make a couple more really happy designs.”
Short or long, sleek or voluminous, classic or unexpected, what’s certain about the spate of matrimonial looks on the post-Covid horizon is that they won’t always fall within the boundaries of tradition. Pandemic weddings, postponed or otherwise, have opened up more opportunities for brides to express themselves.
“One outcome of the past year which I think is really refreshing is there seems to be a much wider range of outfits that brides are interested in for their weddings, and a lot more flexibility in what you can wear to get married,” Holmgren says. “It’s not that the traditional bride doesn’t still exist. But I think the more ways brides can express themselves, the better.”
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Chop Suey Club is one of11 women-led businesses nominated by Refinery29 for99 Days of Design — a program working to empower small businesses through graphic design support and financial aid in collaboration with 99designs by Vistaprint.
Some things you might encounter upon entering New York’s gallery-turned-boutique, Chop Suey Club: traditional stoneware teapots, a brooch shaped like a nose, men’s swim briefs, Frank Ocean. Perhaps an elite cast of designers and creative directors roving about mid-event — or maybe a neighboring bodega-owner, pausing to greet the shop’s founder, Ruoyi Jiang.
Still, in the face of all that variety, the shop’s inventory adheres to one key tenet: Everything falls in the genre of contemporary Chinese design. “Five or six years ago, trying to find art that incorporated my heritage but also felt distinctly modern felt impossible,” Jiang says, “so I decided I should remedy that.”
At the time, her guiding principle was a simple one: to rewrite the “made in China” trope — and all the stereotypes that came with it. Jiang wanted to showcase an eclectic range of products and works of art coming from China that felt striking and contemporary — the sorts of works that would broaden consumers’ conceptions of what Chinese art was “supposed to” look like. And evidently, there was plenty of local demand: Soon after the spot’s opening in 2015, the place found resounding success with an ever clout-y assortment of celebrity and pedestrian buyers in constant attendance.
At present, nearly seven years later, Chop Suey Club has become more than a retail destination. The place has matured into a community hub, hosting regular events geared toward New York’s Asian American community. It’s become a stalwart in the ever-changing landscape of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. And it’s come to stand as Jiang’s personal defense against xenophobia. “Art is my way of combating anti-Asian racism,” she says. “I think a lot of hate comes from fearing or disliking anything foreign. So I’ve always wanted to use design as a way of inviting people into my culture — helping them appreciate, admire, and embrace it.”
Now, as quarantine restrictions lift and our retail landscape begins to regain momentum, we sat down with Jiang to talk about all things Chop Suey Club. Ahead, read as she expounds on the secrets to uncovering new, independent makers, maintaining a business in the midst of a pandemic, and fighting anti-Asian hate through contemporary art.
At the outset, how did you get Chop Suey Club off the ground?
“Chop Suey Club was intended as an e-commerce project, but through some unforeseen circumstances, I inherited the lease to a commercial space in Chinatown from a landlord I have a close, personal relationship with. So, I decided I’d start with a brick-and-mortar store first, then develop our online presence afterwards. Honestly, it was super scary. I don’t come from a retail background and at that time, our location was pretty bleak — there were only a small handful of stores and restaurants nearby. Opening a brick-and-mortar store in New York was a huge challenge because the overhead cost was enormous, but I did some math and figured out I had about five months to really make it work. If it wasn’t working by then, I’d have to close the shop. But lo and behold, five months later, it was working. We were getting more and more customers, and growing our inventory by the day.”
Do you have a typical customer?
“Our customer base is pretty eclectic. We have a lot of local customers — and because there are so many new residential developments popping up on the Lower East Side, that number is constantly growing. In the beginning, the shop was geared toward attracting professionals in creative industries — stylists, creative directors, designers — and that’s exactly how it worked out. Our very first customers were actually some very prominent fashion designers and stylists, and that kind of solidified the whole project.
“Later, we pivoted a little bit to attract more Chinese American or Asian American customers when we saw how little Asian art representation there was in New York. We wanted our Asian American customers to have access to lifestyle items that spoke to their heritage, but were also tasteful and modern. Right now, I’d say that’s still our biggest intended audience. But that’s not to say we’re not thrilled about all kinds of customers. Also, we’ve been fortunate enough to draw in quite an impressive list of celebrity customers, which has been very surprising: Grimes, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean. But I can’t say that part of it was planned.”
As a business owner, how did you stay afloat during the pandemic?
“It’s funny: When the business first took off, I knew a decent amount about e-commerce, but I hadn’t actually employed any of that knowledge because I’d been so focused on the IRL experience. Then once the pandemic hit, I had to find a way to make the shop thrive digitally. I immediately learned that not leaning on e-commerce had been a big loss for our business. During the shutdown we poured a lot of effort into developing our digital sales, and we’re doing way better than we were at first, so that definitely helped to keep us in business. We also got loans from the government, but that ran out quite fast.
“It’s definitely been a rough year for us. Right now, financially, we’re trying to get ourselves back to where we were maybe two years ago. But at the same time, I’ve felt really lucky, especially seeing these old and new stores closing down around us. Of course, we pondered shuttering the storefront so we could save money — a lot of money — but we decided that the real-life experience was so important to our mission.”
How would you describe the nature of the goods you carry in the shop?
“At first, I only wanted to carry products that weren’t so stereotypically Chinese. I didn’t want things that relied on heavily used Chinese motifs, images, and decals. I wanted to present a different image: I wanted things to look really modern without needing to declare anything about their heritage at a surface level. I wanted people to know that there were all these cool and exciting and interesting designs coming out of China — and that Asian art wasn’t just this one specific thing. In part, that’s still true, but lately, I’m paying a lot more attention to designers that utilize some of those motifs or that traditional imagery because that’s become something of a trend. A lot of Asian designers feel like they should be relishing their opportunity to make these things — rather than allow their culture to be appropriated by other designers trying to adopt the fad.”
How do you go about curating the art and design products you carry?
“I’m always looking for new products and designers. It’s a full-time job. I’m surfing the internet, I’m checking social media, I’m talking to friends. I’m never not on the lookout — because finding new industrial or product designers is really hard. When it comes to fashion, there’s a lot more space for editorial or public promotion, but on the industrial side, you need to do a bit more digging. So I spend a ton of time looking through various design awards, and I check graduation exhibitions from various design schools to see if there are new, talented designers we should collaborate with.”
For folks who haven’t been, what’s your retail space like, aesthetically?
“The place is extremely small so the interior is very funky. We don’t have a lot of wall space, so we can only display a few pieces of art at a time, and they’ve got to be two-dimensional. Other artwork that’s more sculptural sits on the floor alongside the other displays. When you look around, you just have to let your eyes settle on something — there’s no clear, organizational principle.
“Basically, the whole place feels like someone’s living room. It has an upstairs and downstairs, so people walk in and they’re like, ‘Is this a studio? It feels kind of homey.’ But I love the closeness of the layout. Over the years, the store has become more than just a retail spot. It has become a shopping experience. Early on, we started hosting events, simply because we had the space, and unexpectedly, the showroom became a community gathering space. We had people who would come every weekend to see what was new, and we developed strong relationships with them. We had art dealers who would visit and local shop owners who we built rapport with. It became the place to be.”
You’ve mentioned that you believe in utilizing art and design to combat xenophobia. Can you tell us about that philosophy?
“There are a ton of people who harbor deep hostility toward people from other cultures because they don’t understand those cultures or know how to interpret them. So, I’ve always felt like the key to helping people gain a little bit more perspective is to actually invite them in and open your culture up to them. Give them a chance to understand where you come from. When it comes to bridging that gap, art and design are an excellent way of making connections, because they give people a chance to build a relationship of their own with another culture. For example, if someone who knows very little about the Asian population buys a beautiful Chinese teapot, uses it daily, and admires it, they’re inviting that element of Asian culture into their lives. They’re embracing it. And that feels like a step closer to even broader acceptance.
“Also, at Chop Suey Club, we pay a lot of attention to the history or the concept behind each of our products — and we make a huge effort to explain those details to all of our customers. When someone comes in to make a purchase, they’ll often leave having learned a bunch of new things about a certain product’s history or the traditional Chinese ideas that inspired it, and that’s a really excellent way of making Asian culture feel more accessible. In fact, we’ll have Chinese customers bring in friends without Asian backgrounds, and we get the pleasure of listening to one friend explain to the other all the nuances in these artworks or lifestyle products. It’s such a lovely thing to watch.”
Are the events you host at Chop Suey Club directed toward a similar mission?
“Definitely. With all of our events, I want to communicate that it’s good and okay to be proud of your own heritage and to actually showcase that pride for other people. Plus, events are such a powerful way for people to connect, so I love that we can provide a space for New Yorkers who want to do that.
“Growing up, I went to an international school in Beijing and all the kids there came from all over the world, so we had this term for one another: ‘third culture kids.’ It was a way of describing kids who grew up in a culture that didn’t match either of their parents’. Kids in that scenario often struggle with identity issues — they don’t know how to explain where they came from. And right now, I see a similar thing happening within the Chinese or Asian American communities in New York. Even though these people identify as Americans, there’s this Chinese element that they can’t really reconcile, and it really helps to have a community to explore that with. I think having a greater understanding of your own heritage can help you feel more at ease with your own identity.”
Products aside, what do you want people to take away from their experiences shopping at Chop Suey Club?
“I don’t want shopping here to be this purely transactional experience. I want it to be about building community, embracing culture, bridging distances, and celebrating work made by minorities. But at the same time, it can be so difficult to balance your business and your ideals. Being a physical business in New York, the financial struggle is always going to be real. So yes, we still need to sell products — and we still want to sell products. But we want to be so much more than a cut-and-dry vendor. And honestly, I think we are.”
How do you plan to cash in on this marketing & design opportunity from 99designs by Vistaprint?
“This grant came in just in time, actually. We’ve been renovating the store and we’re just about to finish, so there are lots of opportunities for us to incorporate more of our visual identity than ever before. We’re planning to cut a new window decal, print new business cards, make new stickers, etcetera.
“And speaking of all those marketing materials, we’re super excited to have new logos to work with. Our previous logo was really unique but also somewhat difficult to use…so this time around we wanted something that would fit well on merchandise or a store awning. The logo designs from the 99designs by Vistaprint team really manage to encapsulate our brand identity: they highlight Chinese heritage without losing that key sense of modernity.”
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