Nathan Zhang in front of Brandnü in Wudaoying Hutong
Published: February 27, 2013
Zhang works with migrant women to create the patchworks used in the clothes he sells, all in the name of a socially and ecologically responsible fashion enterprise. And with the new fashion lines his designers use the materials to make, Brandnü straddles the line between new fashion and vintage. “All I wear is garbage,” he joked to ARTINFO when we asked what clothes he was sporting — every one was made from upcycled materials or was second-hand.
But that doesn’t mean Brandnü, which also gets donations of discarded fabric from factories surrounding Beijing like Yida, isn’t the real thing. The shop's roster of designers includes some of China’s best up and coming names. Between them, he points out, they’ve designed for Hermes and even Björk.
ARTINFO finds out more about the man and the story behind his tiny fashion space in one of Beijing’s trendiest hutongs:
How did you get into fashion?
I have always liked fashionable clothes — even when I was young in the ‘70s and lived in a small city in Liaoning where you couldn’t buy anything. I was always able to find a way to make things looks unique. I guess I was just born with a good sense of color and style.
What brought you to the idea of opening Brandnü?
I always liked the charity shop model in Canada, where I lived for 10 years. When I came back to Beijing from Toronto, there was nothing like that here, so I decided I would open my own charity shop. My friend was by coincidence renting a space in Wudaoying, but he never used it, so after he heard my idea he told me to use it for free for a year. That’s how I came to Wudaoying Hutong.
Before that I was chief director for a local TV station [in Xinjiang]. I thought it would be more creative, but it turned out to be exhausting work, so after almost a year I quit to find something more interesting. I decided to start my own project, which became Brandnü.
Who were the first designers you worked with?
The first designers I ever worked with were Zhang Na, who has her own brand called Na Too, and Sara Yun who also has her own [eponymous] label. Sara is a good friend of mine and we first met in my shop — she was very inspired by my project so she asked a lot of questions. She had the talent and I had the resources, so when one day I decided to do “second-hand fashion,” Sara designed the first few fashion lines, which I still use to today.
I also met Zhang Na at my shop, and she was the first designer to use my patched fabric. These have become really popular items.
Who are you working with the most on a regular basis?
Zhang Na is the designer I work the most with. She has been using my patched fabric to make collections which are the same as her regular ones. Her designs are very detailed, and have lots of childlike fun. Her [upcoming] Spring and Summer collection this year is inspired by [the story of] “Peter and the Wolf”.
What about your most recent collections? And how involved are you with these?
I have never designed a collection to be honest. I am more of a project coordinator, working with migrant women and fashion designers. For Brandnü, our newest collection is going to be something more mainstream and for easy wear.
Most of the clothes I like or design myself are inspired by the things my kids play with or like. For example, I designed a cape with spikes on the back inspired by my kids’ dinosaur toy. (Zhang is also wearing a lime-green, felt, fish-shaped pouch round his neck that one suspects came from a similar flash of creativity.)
How is Brandnü financed? What is its set-up and place in the market?
I borrowed money from my family to start Brandnü. It is a social enterprise. I wanted to provide job opportunities to migrant and rural women whilst producing the most fashionable upcycle items on the market. I want Brandnü to be recognized for being a creative, well-intended, and environmentally-friendly brand.
How did this come about with the migrant workers and can you tell us a bit more about what do they do?
At first when I opened my shop I took clothing donations, which I then gave to the migrant worker community. There are five second-hand clothes shops in the area and they sell these donated clothes to the migrant workers who can’t afford brand new ones.
Within that community, there were quite a few women who couldn’t work because they had to take care of their kids, so the migrant worker organization set up a migrant women’s sewing cooperative. I saw they had no idea what they wanted to do and neither did they have the ability to make things in a way that added value to them.
When I then discovered that there were so many second-hand clothes that they could not be sold individually and were having to be sold by weight, I came up with the idea to cut them into patterns and make them to patched fabric, which could be used in different ways to turn these old clothes into fashionable products.
I pay the workers according to how much patched fabric they have made. It is important to work with them because they lack opportunity. Since I am good at building bridges between different groups, I have kept working with them and am still trying to keep improving their living conditions. Right now I am working on an International Women’s Day event and trying to raise money to improve the migrant women sewing cooperative’s working conditions.
What is the difference between clothes and fashion?
Clothes are there to keep you warm, while fashion is there to show your attitude. Fashion means free, unique and young.
Originally posted in Artinfo China.
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