WUYONG ANTI-FASHION
4 min readMa Ke’s “Useless”, Home-spun Charm
Ma Ke
A Chinese fashion designer and founder of two clothing labels: EXCEPTION de Mixmind, a ready-to-wear line started in 1996; and WUYONG, an haute couture line founded in 2006 and based in Zhuhai.
In 2005, she presented her clothing at the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture; and in 2008, her fashion house WUYONG was appointed as a Guest Member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in France. In 2009, her work found its way into the National Art Museum of China Ma Ke graduated from the Suzhou Institute of Silk Textile Technology in 1992, and subsequently studied women’s wear at Central Saint Martins. In 1996, she established her first clothing label, EXCEPTION de Mixmind, currently sold in the label’s own shops in China, with major retail presence in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Their collections are comprised of women’s clothing made from locally sourced cotton, silk, linen and wool, and include other accessorie and items.
Ma Ke is among the youngest of the first generation of Chinese fashion designers who have received international acclaim, and she is the first Chinese toshow at Paris Haute Couture, with her subtle, organic and reflective clothing, creative and experimental in shape and classically oriental in style. Ma Ke is best known abroad for her two WUYONG collections: WUYONG/ the Earth, which debuted at Paris Fashion Week Spring Summer 2007; and WUYONG/Qing Pin, which was held on July 3, 2008 as her first show for Paris Haute Couture. Confronted by a local clothing industry with cheap, homogenizing mass-production and poorly paid workers whose skills were assigned no value, and by a fashion scene lacking local aesthetic influence, dominated by foreign labels, she dedicated herself to developing her “useless”ideas; that is, to breathe new life into time-honored professions and traditions that, otherwise, could well have faded to grey in a generation or two.
“I left my comfort zone to find a new direction by traveling to remote villages, where I realized what could do and wanted to do,” Ma Ke explained in tracing her eureka moment. The result was a breakup with her first clothing label, EXCEPTION, and the birth of “WUYONG”, literally meaning “useless”.
Her rise to international fame is largely because of her use of environmentally friendly fabrics and recycled materials, and for their manufacture using traditional dyeing, weaving and embroidery techniques, most notably those of the Dong people of Southern China. Despite her soft nature, her unorthodox shows and anti-consumerist-statements have earned Ma Ke a reputation for being anti-fashion. However, she is equally lauded for her conscientious efforts to preserve traditions and protect the environment. It must have taken a steely sense of determination and iron-cast belief in herself to build what now is essentially her WUYONG empire.
Ma Ke’s first two shows for WUYONG, held more than a year apart, were distinctive for their absence of runways and for incorporating certain elements of performance art.
In 2007, Ma Ke was invited to present her first collection, titled WUYONG/the Earth, at Paris Fashion Week. The show was held in the gymnasium of the Lyce e Stanislas.
Rather than presenting the collection on a catwalk as in a traditional fashion show, Ma Ke had the models stand motionless on tall, illuminated plinths arranged on the gymnasium floor. The audience was invited to walk amongst the models and examine the clothing up-close. The show was a triumph: Elle magazine called Ma Ke’s Paris debut”brilliant… one of the great moments of the season.” The collection was later put on display at the gallery Joyce Palais-Royal from March 1 to April 6, 2007.
In 2008, Ma Ke was invited to reprise WUYONG/the Earth as part of the Fashion ion in Motion (live catwalk)events held at the Victoria Albert Museum in London. Three performances were given in the Raphael Gallery on May 16, 2008. Concurrently, a piece from the collection was on display in the museum’s China Design Now exhibition.
Ma Ke’s far-flung studio/ factory, set in a weather-beaten garden in Tangjia where the city’s urban sprawl gives way to historic remnants and ruins, is a world within itself, dripping with creativity, grace and oriental beauty. It produces the WUYONG collections, employing a team of workers skilled in traditional clothing manufacturing techniques. All stages of production are done in-house, including the spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing; even using traditional equipment such as a Chinese loom dating from the 19th century. Some of the articles in the collections either incorporate or are fashioned out of recycled material and found objects, including a paintcovered sheet made into a dress and an old tarpaulin constructed into an oversized coat.
The studio is an extension of Ma Ke’s personality: dreamy, bursting with ideas, sprawling.
This living, breathing fashion house in Tangjia represents the delicate, artistic vision of its softly spoken creator, who loves to collect traditional Chinese trinkets, ornaments and eye-catching curios. Here is a woman with vision and, crucially, the fearlessness to see her vision through. The studio is an extension of Ma Ke’s personality: dreamy,bursting with ideas, sprawling.
The designer launched her Beijing “Wu Yong”station in Beijing in 2014. A remake of a former factory site behind the CAFA Art Museum, it marked a new start in Ma Ke’s rebuilding of her fashion philosophy.
“People push the door open and walk into the space, their eyes welling up because of the long-lost feeling of coming back to the basics-the roots. In 2007, Ma Ke starred in the award-winning documentary Useless by Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Depicting the Chinese garment industry, the documentar recorded her Paris Fashion Week sensation. The film won the Orizzonti Doc Prize at the 64th Venice Film Festival in 2007. Ma Ke also designed costumes for singer Dadawa’s concert Singing in Heaven (2001) WUYONG/Qing Pin, held on July 3, 2008 as Ma Ke’s first show for Paris Haute Couture.
