Found in Translation

EMMA TANG: My mom grew up in rural China and my dad in northern Sweden. I was born in Stockholm, and moved around a bit before we settled down in Shanghai when I was 5. I attended an international school my entire life, and was lucky enough to have both my Swedish and Chinese side integrated together under one household, celebrating Chinese New Year with my extended family in Yunnan but also celebrating St. Lucia’s Day with Swedish expats in Shanghai.

HALEY LUNDBERG: My mom is Asian American, she’s Chinese. My grandmother moved from Hong Kong and my grandfather’s from Guangzhou. So my mom is pretty westernized in terms of what she’s given to me. A lot of it’s been lost in translation, but I still value that side of myself a lot. It’s a very important part of my childhood, one of my very strong memories are ones with my 婆婆 (pópó/grandmother), food and family is something that is very much part of my Chinese American identity.

SHERRY XU: I grew up in Shandong province in China before going to an international school in Beijing and finally a high school in America. I always knew I wanted to end up in America for college, but my parents weren’t about to move with me so I had to come here on my own.

EMMA: Sherry, let’s start with your capstone piece. Could you give us a some details on it?

SHERRY: In my collection I tried to combine some traditional Chinese elements and western couture manipulation techniques. Some of the Chinese elements include raffia (I got the inspiration from the old fishermen, the garment they wear is called 蓑笠 (suō lì). I used brocade —a luxurious fabric in the only the wealthy would be able to afford in ancient China. I designed the pink and the purple floral patterns myself. The pink one features 梅花 (méi huā/plum flower), and the purple one features 牵牛花 (qiān niú huā/morning glory). 梅花 indicates independence and is symbolic of the force to overcome difficulty in life. 牵牛花 is symbolic of love and diligence. Since purple is the Pantone color of 2018, I tried to incorporate that into my Spring 2018 collection. Duality is an important concept in my collection. I drew inspiration from both the east and the west, the past and the present of China. The raffia represents the past, the peaceful and utopian lifestyle; I got the color scheme (pink and purple) from looking at the neon lights in Shanghai, and that such a metropolitan city is capable of summarizing the present.

HALEY: Her colors are very lush and rooted in her concept. She uses symbols that are connected to the theme yet are strong enough to stand alone — if someone cannot identify the root of their inspiration they can still find beauty. It seems to me that Sherry takes an element or an idea, like a happy thought she’s enjoyed or a memory she’s appreciated, and develops that into a visual, elevated reality. She’s able to boil down unique elements of her own identity, and remix them into an innovative concept. Her collection encompasses east meets west. There’s an aggressive mashing of textiles and prints, soft bubblegum pink organza and chunky denim. If it’s not too cheesy, it can metaphorically and literally represent the concept of the two worlds coming together and patch-working themselves in.

EMMA: Yeah, I love that there are identifiable Eastern and Western elements included and yet it’s done subtly to create a unique collection that isn’t blatantly from one culture or another. The silhouettes are very modern. There’s clear attention not just to what is considered traditionally attractive for a woman to wear but to the important elements in the piece that are telling a story, such as how the feathers lining the sleeves and collar of the dress helps to highlight the 牵牛花 print. Did you create any pieces where you really felt like you were inspired by any bits of your background?

HALEY: I would say the Kimono project we did related, but I find it a little bit touchy because I feel like it borders on appropriation. On our first project, we designed a Kimono—it was supposed to be an easy sewing project that we could manipulate the pattern and some basics. But it was an interesting time for me because I was taking an Asian culture studies classes and I was in an East Asian/Early Chinese art class, so I drew inspiration from those. But at the same time there wasn’t an emphasis on learning the details in the background and comprehending the culture. It became a vessel for manipulation into something else. Which isn’t necessarily bad, and happens a lot in fashion. But it is something that’s a touchy situation. I was able to draw from my background, and that was really exciting for me because I don’t really get to talk about my Chinese half often.

EMMA: Did you want to go more into the history of the kimono, at the time of the project?

HALEY: It was after the fact that I realized that it was kind of an issue. As a half-Chinese person, I felt pretty secure in expressing those cultural aspects, though I did so tentatively, always wondering if I was overstepping or is a certain element too much of a stereotype or is this exaggerating an aspect too much. It’s an area where it’s difficult to navigate for a lot of people if you don’t have the background to understand the culture itself. I remember struggling to figure out how much I should actually be relating back to the original kimono.

EMMA: For your pieces, are you guys ever directly influenced by either of your backgrounds? When do you let it influence you? I know since within school you have a lot of limitations because teachers assign you what to do, but within those boundaries, do you ever choose to explore anything culturally specific?

HALEY: I wouldn’t say that it’s something explicit. I don’t always identify the fashion elements in my background as much. To me, my background is more about family and about certain imagery, but it’s not something that I consciously include my pieces.

SHERRY: Yeah, I agree. I won’t push myself to do something Chinese, but culture is a part of fashion and it’s important when you want to distinguish yourself. So when I tried to push myself to be unique, my cultural backgrounds naturally manifested. In terms of incorporating these eastern elements and allowing room for self-expression, my focus is on the aesthetic pleasure an element adds to the piece while still accurately representing and respecting the culture. For example, I included a traditionally Japanese element in my Kimono project— it has particular cultural significance for them. My choice to include it was purely aesthetic, though I understand and respect that there is history to the element. I feel like a lot people are really against that line of thought, but I personally am neutral. Sometimes it can be about aesthetics.

EMMA: There’s obviously a lot of beautiful elements in all cultures that are great for aesthetic purposes but to me there’s a fine line between using it for aesthetics because you want everyone to appreciate its beauty in the details and appropriating an element because it’s a trend or a “look”— like how a lot of celebrities have worn 旗袍 (qi páo/one-piece Chinese dress for women)—with absolutely no realization of the culture behind it.

HALEY: There’s an issue with not understanding what your role is in the culture when you use these elements. I think certain people can use it and certain people can’t. You need to understand the history of westernization in globalization: that certain groups of people facilitated terrible things and produced very beautiful things at a great disadvantage to the culture. And understand how the history between cultures has translated to society in the modern world.

EMMA: Yeah, they key is to be consciously aware of what you’re doing. You can do it for aesthetics but not without acknowledging where you’re pulling the element from. Do it because you know the element is from a certain country or certain area and you love it and want to share that love with the world. I like it when I see designers who’d actively visited the origins of the culture then said “This is incredible and inspiring and I want to incorporate in my own pieces to spread this feeling it’s brought up in me”. These kinds of individuals help spread cultural awareness in a positive way, bringing groups of people closer together.

HALEY: I think the negative of this would be when somebody references something and the group remains unknown in the credits. The original culture and their people don’t reap the advantages of what the designer or the person gains (monetary or other forms of success). They’re not getting credit where credit is due, basically.

SHERRY: It’s a gradual process for people to comprehensively understand what globalization or incorporation of other cultures are about. It begins with inserting elements for purely aesthetic reasons — it appeals to the masses which provides a motivation to learn more about that culture. Once you fall in love with a part of that culture is when you start to really research and understand the rest of the culture. In art history we learned that Japanese culture got transmitted into western cultures through people like artists, who borrowed Japanese elements directly. It was later that they started creating their own unique pieces that combined their own culture and Japanese references to end up with something distinct. I feel like it’s really like a gradual process and we’re still in that process right now.

photography DEVON LITTERAL

models NICOLE COOK, PHOEBE LI

clothing SHERRY XU, HALEY LUNDBURG