CHUFENG: We define our creative identity as a slow fashion studio, but we intentionally avoid using the word “brand.” Even though we make fashion-related work, we see fashion as a medium that connects to art, criticism, and interdisciplinary practice. For us, fashion is embodied through clothing and accessories, but it also communicates ideas through those objects. We are interested in how garments can move beyond being seen only as commodities. Because we live in a capitalist system, clothing is often treated as something to buy and sell first, instead of something people can look at, wear, and understand through meaning and experience. I think garments have a strong potential for communication because they give direct feedback. You feel them when you wear them. That is different from looking at a painting in a gallery, where you may need certain tools or knowledge to understand how to view it, appreciate it, or talk about it. Clothing can also have that educational process, but it happens through the body. Our work tries to connect clothing and soft sculpture through materiality. Both practices use fibers, fabrics, pattern-making, and construction. The garment line connects more to slow fashion, while the soft sculptures use similar materials and logic in a more three-dimensional way. The sculpture can exist on its own, while the garment becomes activated by the human body.
BUHRMAN: Well, that's a great answer. I appreciate that. When did you first realize your creativity could become like a practice and not just a talent?
CHUFENG: I think a lot of it comes from the partnership I share with Lulu. I did not come from a fine art background. When we started the studio in early 2020, Lulu came from fashion and garment-making through Parsons, while I came from media and cultural studies at NYU. Lulu was already interested in approaching garments as art objects, not just as commercial products. She wanted to explore fashion in a more non-commercial or anti-commercial way. I came in with tools for thinking about culture, media, communication, and language. Because we both originally come from mainland China and moved to the United States for education, language became an important part of our work. We were always moving between Chinese and English, and that made us think about clothing, sculpture, and art as different languages for communicating ideas. Over time, I started learning more hands-on skills from Lulu. Before that, my work was more theory-based, through reading, writing, and analyzing. But working directly with fibers, fabrics, and materials helped me understand the practice more deeply. I see myself almost like a translator, while Lulu works more like a composer. Together, we are building a language that is unique to us. The goal is not just to make objects, but to see how those objects communicate, how they interact with people, and how they connect with the community around them.
BUHRMAN: Wow, yeah. I was looking at your website, and I saw that Kommune had your work.
CHUFENG: Yes, they’ve been good friends for a while now. I like that store a lot. They bring in new artists regularly, and they always have communal collaborations going on. A lot of it revolves around transforming the space and bringing in new ideas. I think the reason we get along well is because we share a similar non-fixed identity. That is something we try to follow in our own work too. At the same time, we still have grounding principles that give us a unique aesthetic, even as it continues to evolve through the process.
BUHRMAN: Yeah. So you’re the seventh person I have to interview, which means you’re the last person. It’s really interesting to see that everyone I’ve interviewed does more than one thing. Like you said, you make sculptures, and you also make clothes. That’s the whole point of my magazine: to show people that just because you’re a photographer or designer, it doesn’t mean you can’t do something else with your work.
CHUFENG: Yeah, that’s amazing. I think the concept of your thesis really shows that. It’s always useful to look at the points of intersection. By interviewing seven different people, you’re in a unique position to observe commonalities, patterns, and similar philosophies, even if everyone’s practice looks different. Sometimes people arrive at similar ideas through very different paths.
BUHRMAN: What parts of your background still quietly shape your work today?
CHUFENG: I think it has a lot to do with where we’re from. We come from what people might call the global East, and then moved into the global West. That creates this constant meeting point between Eastern and Western philosophies. For us, Chinese philosophy is interesting because you don’t always learn it formally in school. It becomes part of daily life through sayings, phrases, teachers, parents, and the way people think. It is very woven into everyday experience. A lot of it is also influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, especially the appreciation of emptiness. In the West, there is more focus on the self, individuality, and the separation between mind and body. That contrast creates a kind of tension, but also a lot of inspiration. The more I learned about Western philosophy, the more I began to understand Eastern philosophy differently too. That tension often appears in our work. We are interested in finding connections between ideas that may not seem connected at first. When audiences can experience those connections for themselves, it becomes almost educational. It opens up a new way of seeing. I think that is also what happens in multidisciplinary work. You are always reconciling different labels, mediums, and ideas. Sometimes the combination sounds unusual, like fashion and tattooing, but for the people making the work, it feels natural because they live within those intersections.
BUHRMAN: My next question is: was there another profession you were interested in before starting this brand?
CHUFENG: I would say no, because I’m 28 now, and when we started the studio practice about five and a half years ago, I was coming directly out of undergrad. It felt less like choosing a profession and more like finding myself in this position through my partnership with Lulu and the friends who came along the way. We started the studio during the pandemic, so in a way, it was reactionary. It felt like a necessary response to what we were experiencing at that time: anxiety, uncertainty, and seeing the cracks in the world more clearly. There was also a lot of imposter syndrome, but that mixture pushed us forward and helped shape the practice.
BUHRMAN: Who are your biggest inspirations in life, and why? It can be people who inspire you now, growing up, or during school.
CHUFENG: Taoism is a huge influence on the studio. Figures like Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi are really important to me. Even though they lived thousands of years ago, reading their work can feel like connecting with a distant friend. Their ideas gave us a core philosophy when we were starting the studio and helped us imagine the kind of world we wanted to create through art. Music is also a big inspiration for us. Someone like David Bowie, especially his collaboration with Brian Eno, is really influential. Bowie’s different personas created whole worlds and offered alternative ways to experience reality. That kind of transformation is very inspiring to me. Lulu and I also really love Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum is one of our favorite places to visit in New York. We connect with his idea that every object can be a sculpture. That is powerful for us because we are interested in celebrating objects and thinking carefully about how we appreciate them. For us, loving an object, a craft, or a piece of music can become a way to love the world more. If something exists and makes you appreciate the world differently, then it gives life more meaning. That idea influences how we think about objects, repetition, time, and attention in our work.
BUHRMAN: My next question was going to be: what’s something outside of your field that influences the way you think or create? But I think you answered it, so we can skip that one. My next question is: where does a project start for you? Does it begin with an idea, a reference, or do you just start making?
CHUFENG: Since I’m the last person, I’m curious about the other answers you got for this question. Do people usually lean more toward one side or the other?
BUHRMAN: Not particularly. It’s pretty mixed, I would say. But I think most people said they start drawing, or they just start making stuff.
CHUFENG: Yeah, I think for us it’s similar. Because we work as a duo, sometimes it takes more planning. We might have an idea from a year ago, and at different checkpoints, it evolves a little bit. At some point, we might sketch it, or we might come across something random, like discarded furniture left on the block, and that triggers an idea that has already been brewing. We might take a picture of it, and then suddenly we have a clearer way to approach something that started as an abstraction. Other times, it begins with a group of random drawings. Lulu is more like the composer, and I’m more like the translator. Sometimes she’ll create a shape, whether it’s humanoid or completely abstract, and then we’ll look at it together and ask what it could be. From there, it becomes a brainstorming and free-association process. I might put words down to define it. It could be something simple, like a circle, and I might describe it as a container or imagine it as a pocket design. We create these little puzzle pieces, and sometimes they start to fit together. There are a lot of surprises along the way. When we make garments and sculptures at the same time, a technique from one sculpture might inspire a future garment design, and the garment work can also influence the sculptures.
BUHRMAN: So what does a typical creative day look like when you’re in the middle of a project, like a piece of clothing, a sculpture, or a collection?
CHUFENG: Typically, we go into the studio. We usually do one collection a year, so that work is spread across the year. But when we’re working on a collaboration, installation, commission, or sculpture, it becomes much more intensive. If there’s a deadline, we might have to make a new piece in two to four weeks. During that time, the schedule gets intense. There are late nights, and time starts to feel less structured. You kind of have to rearrange your life around the project.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, I bet that’s really stressful.
CHUFENG: Sometimes, yeah. A project can create its own schedule. If something takes a month and a half, you just have to live in that strange rhythm for that period of time.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, I feel like fashion designers, or the ones I’ve tried to interview, all say they’re super busy. So thank you so much for helping me with this. I really appreciate it.
CHUFENG: Garment-making is tough when you try to do it as a business, and we make it harder for ourselves because we don’t make that much. Since we make fewer pieces and put more effort into them, they become more expensive. That creates a slower process of finding people who resonate with the work, like it, and can afford it. A huge part of our community actually cannot afford our clothing, which makes sense because I probably couldn’t afford it either. That’s part of why we make other objects besides garments, at different levels of detail and price. Smaller objects and accessories allow us to engage with the community in a more accessible way. We realized that some people who appreciate the concept can’t afford the clothing, while some people who can afford it may not care about the concept.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, I mean, fast fashion is taking over the fashion scene, and it’s terrible because it’s so cheap and so many of the designs feel the same.
CHUFENG: Yeah, and we just can’t compete with that. The best thing we can do is make it clear that fast fashion and what we do are two different worlds. That’s also why language becomes important. Even the word “fashion” has been co-opted in a way. It can be hard to use that word to express the kind of feeling or meaning we want people to connect with. That’s also why we don’t really like using the word “brand.” It carries a certain context that changes how people understand the work. I always use the example of the word “apple.” Years ago, an apple was something that grew in an orchard. It was food. But now, Apple is a company connected to all the devices we use. The meaning of the word changed because of the context around it.
BUHRMAN: What kind of environment helps you create your best work? I’m guessing it’s your studio.
CHUFENG: Yeah, the studio space is important, but it’s also hard to come by. There has to be a balance between privacy and being able to work together. Environment-wise, I think it’s good to be able to touch grass here and there and really make that part of your lifestyle.
BUHRMAN: How many employees do you have?
CHUFENG: Full-time, it’s mostly me and my partner, Lulu. Then we have two to three part-time team members who help out here and there. We usually meet weekly or biweekly to discuss what is coming up and figure out the schedule.
BUHRMAN: What part of your process do you find the most frustrating and the most rewarding?
CHUFENG: I think the most frustrating part is the bureaucratic side of running a practice. We also find it frustrating that there is pressure to have an online presence, especially because we really believe in the in-person experience. But you need both to work together. The online presence helps bring people to the physical experience. That convincing process can be difficult over time, and I think that is what can wear down a practice. The most rewarding moments happen when something highly conceptual enters everyday life. We are trying to build a unique language, and when people become interested in that language, want to learn it, or want to be part of it, that feels very fulfilling. It’s like something comes from nothing. Something original becomes a new possibility in someone else’s world. When we first came up with the studio name five years ago, we were the only ones saying it. But by year three, people started saying it back to us. They had their own understanding and description of what that world was. That is rewarding to us, when people acknowledge the world we created and invite it into their own.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, that sounds like a really nice feeling. I want to start a fashion brand one day.
CHUFENG: I’ll be supportive of that.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, thank you. So how do you know when a piece is finished? Or do you ever really know?
CHUFENG: There are two ways to answer that. When you’re making a design or a piece of artwork, sometimes it is finished simply when the time is up. A deadline is often what forces something to be done. But there is also room for ongoing work, and that duration can be interesting too. I always think doing too much or too little can kill a work, so the most important part is knowing where to draw the line. We like to leave some room open, but we also like to finish things cleanly. That is part of our design language. For example, many of our pieces use a natural cotton color, almost like beige. We use that material in different textures and weights to create contrast. It becomes like a projector screen or a blank canvas. For us, that represents something natural and empty, but not blank. It is a way of illustrating emptiness. That is the part that can stay unfinished or open for interpretation. But other parts need to be resolved. Does the piece need a hand? Does it need a certain form? How do we realize that form clearly? Those are the parts we want to finish carefully. So our work is always balancing those two tensions: how much symbolic blank space we leave for people to interpret, and how much we finish very cleanly and intentionally.
BUHRMAN: Have you ever had a project fail or not turn out how you expected it to?
CHUFENG: Lots of the time, yeah. I think that is what the creative process is for. Sometimes you make more mistakes than correct decisions. It also connects to risk-taking. How much risk can you afford to take? Sometimes risk makes the work more interesting, and sometimes it just does not stick. I think a healthy creative process means you fail more than you succeed when you are testing an idea. Otherwise, you might be playing it too safe. If you are too safe, then you could just be a corporate company, because that is what they usually want. The beauty of being small is that we have more room for error. We can try newer combinations without knowing if they will work yet. For example, if a company like Nike puts out something strange or risky, there are bigger concerns, like PR and public reaction. For us, there is less pressure, so we can test a concept on a smaller scale. At the same time, we still have to think about consistency. The part where we need to be safe is the part that sustains the studio and pays the bills. I think every creative practice has to balance that line between risk and survival.
BUHRMAN: What would you say the breakthrough point was in your career?
CHUFENG: I think there are two pieces I was thinking of. One is a pair of pants, and the other is a furniture piece we created. I like the pants because they are a really unusual piece. All of the openings are like pockets, and each one is adjustable. When you pull the tension, the circles gather into these sea-anemone-like openings. When the piece was first made, none of the tension was tightened, so it was completely flat and much longer. It was almost not wearable until it was put on the body and each opening was adjusted. Only then did the pants shrink into their intended structure. That moment showed me how garments can work as sculpture on the body. Clothing is different from sculpture because it takes effect directly on the body, and that is one of its most unique qualities. For us, this piece really illustrates the connection between fine art sculpture and clothing. It also makes the garment feel architectural, which I find really exciting.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, I’m looking at the stool. It’s really interesting. To me, it kind of looks like the yin-yang symbol.
CHUFENG: Yeah, if you look at the surface of the stool, one part sinks in like a hole. On the other end, there is an upholstered button that creates a similar sinking effect. I really like the subtle relationship between those two points. We call it the Sinking Stool, which also plays with the idea of sinking and thinking. When we describe thinking, we say things like, “Let me think on that,” or “I need to think hard.” There is this feeling of zoning out, zoning in, and entering a flow of consciousness. I think that connects to the elements we work with as a studio. It is a furniture piece, but it also bleeds into life and functions as something more sculptural. We try to let the concept live within the object itself, and the process of fabricating it was also really fun.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, I think it’s great that you’re able to make furniture, sculptures, jewelry, and clothes. That’s amazing. I think it’s really hard to pick favorites.
CHUFENG: These two are my favorites of the day. Maybe it will change tomorrow, but for today, these are the two pieces I wanted to bring up because they are different enough and show the language we speak as a studio.
BUHRMAN: Do you consider your work to be beautiful? And what does beauty mean to you?
CHUFENG: Great question. Yes, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. I connect beauty with life, but I don’t think beauty is the same as prettiness. Prettiness and beauty are very different to us. Beauty can also be ugly. I think beauty has more to do with attention and experience. Nothing is beautiful completely on its own. It becomes beautiful when you connect the physical and the metaphysical together, like the object, the idea, and the context around it. Sometimes, with a Monet painting, you can just look at it and feel something. You don’t need to know who made it or what it is about. A good piece of art can affect your senses immediately. But if you spend a year researching Monet and learning everything about his work, and you can still return to the painting and think about nothing, that is beautiful to me. The more you know, the more you think you have to analyze. But sometimes the real way to look at something is just to be with it. That can be hard because the more knowledge you gain, the more you have to undo. For me, beauty is connected to that ability to be present with something. It is almost like a process of subtraction. You have to remove all the scaffolding around your thoughts and leave room for that childlike, innocent quality that allows you to properly engage with something. That is where I draw the line with beauty. Does that make sense?
BUHRMAN: Yeah, that makes sense. All your answers are great. I really appreciate it.
CHUFENG: No, thank you.
BUHRMAN: So do you think about time when you create, like the past, the present, or the future?
CHUFENG: We do, because time is a huge part of the work we do. When we say slow fashion, we have to think about what slow and fast mean, and both of those ideas are connected to time. We have a distinct relationship with the past, present, and future. On one hand, we think about how everything we make connects to history, legacy, culture, and what came before us. The past informs the future. You can’t really know what is new if you don’t understand what already existed. At the same time, there is also value in letting go of that structure in the moment of making. You gather knowledge, study, research, and understand the context, but when you actually create, you sometimes have to toss all of that out the window and just be present with the work. That is important because there can be ego in wanting to be the first person to create something new. If you don’t know history, everything might feel new to you, even if it already exists. So there is a responsibility to learn and self-educate, especially if you are working with garments, fashion, or any creative medium. But once that knowledge is absorbed, there is also a need to enter a different state, where you are not thinking about past, present, and future so directly. You are just in the zone. Time starts to lose its meaning because you are fully inside the act of making. For us, that is also connected to freedom. Creating and sharing work becomes a way of learning how to be free again.
BUHRMAN: What do you think your work says about the time that we're living in right now?
CHUFENG: I guess the one-line answer is that the world is fucked up, and we need something beautiful. I could make a three-minute, five-minute, ten-minute, or thirty-minute version of that answer, but I think it is important to stay aware and conscious of the environment we are living in. That is part of why we started the practice in 2020, during the pandemic. That time revealed so many undesirable things, and those things felt like they were taking away the possibility for something desirable, or something beautiful. There was a lot of anger and anxiety, and the studio started as a reaction to that. You find momentum because you don’t want the world to work that way. When all you are offered are disappointing options, you start wanting to create something different. Sometimes, when you meet people, conversation alone is not enough to change anything. You need something deeper and more profound. Then, as you keep doing the work, you realize it is not just about changing one person. The work expands and touches more people that way.
BUHRMAN: Did you have more to say?
CHUFENG: I was trying to say that the work responding to the time should be baked in. As artists, we should be able to answer the question: if the world is so fucked up, if wars are happening and bombs are being dropped, why are we still doing what we do? We ask ourselves that question all the time, and it feels more relevant than ever. It is important that artists do not create only entertainment, because sometimes entertainment can contribute to distraction, control, or even harm. What I am still trying to understand through the work is fashion’s potential to actually change a person, rather than just becoming another style they add to their wardrobe. I think fashion can be transformative, but I don’t think it is always explored that way. A lot of the time, transformation is used as a surface image. It plays into people’s insecurities and offers them a comforting shell disguised as coolness. But I think fashion has the potential to do something deeper. I want to see that tangible power brought back into fashion and reintegrated into everyday life. Fashion, like art, can feel separated from most people. Some people go to boutiques or galleries, while others feel like they do not participate in fashion at all and just buy from places like Shein or Uniqlo. I think those thresholds and barriers are really important to question. I like having conversations with people who only shop at places like Uniqlo and offering them a different way to think about clothing. Sometimes they realize, “I never thought about my relationship with clothing like that before.” For fashion to actually change people, it has to affect more than just style. It can redesign your consumer habits, your relationship with objects, and maybe even the way you move through the world. But first, you have to care about something beyond clothing itself.
BUHRMAN: So where do you see yourself in five years?
CHUFENG: It’s good to be realistic. In five years, the studio might not be here, but if we are still here, I hope we continue creating interesting work. One thing I’m excited about is our lifelong mending initiative. We promise to repair people’s garments for life. If someone gets a piece from us, wears it for five years, and the interior wears down or a button falls off, they can send it back to the studio. We’ll patch it up and send it back. Something like that needs time to grow. It creates an ongoing relationship between the person, the garment, and the studio. If we are still here in five years, I hope we will have mended many more pieces for people. Every time someone sends a garment back to be repaired, it means they are choosing to extend the life of that piece instead of throwing it away and buying something new. That connects to a different value system. You have to see a broken garment with a patch as cooler and more meaningful than a completely new one that still smells like the store.
BUHRMAN: How do you want to be remembered, if you want to be remembered?
CHUFENG: To my friends, I hope I can be remembered as a good friend. But with the studio, I don’t think it has to be connected to me personally. I like the idea of the studio being a democratic entity. People can remember the studio, or even the feeling of the studio, without needing to remember my name. I like the uncertainty in that question. It can be self-exposing, but it can also feel like a trick question.
BUHRMAN: Yeah, because someone said they don’t want to be remembered.
CHUFENG: Yeah.
BUHRMAN: But most people are saying they want to be remembered as a good friend, or a good father, or just normal things like that.
CHUFENG: Yes, and I think those are great answers.
BUHRMAN: So the last question I have for you is: what is one piece of advice you would give to young artists and designers today?
CHUFENG: Like I was saying earlier, I think one should find something they can love the world through. It could be a practice, a medium, a person, or a thing. Find something that allows you to love the rest of the world through it.