Momo Wang——Craftsmanship for Happiness（1）

In the summer of 2011, the Chinese designer Momo Wang walked on the runway of the graduation show of Central Saint Martin's College. Compared to other tall and slim models, her 'mini' models with balloons in their hands looked so happy and so different. The young girl, who came from a small town in the north-east China, got the second runner-up award and soon became the most eye-catching designer in her country. Many people said she's going to be BIG and have her own label. But Momo said: I'm nothing but a craftsman. Like other boys and girls who love handmaking, she's still the simple Momo, who just likes making lovely stuff and gets a great sense of achiements by seeing people wearing her clothes.
We had our interview at CSM CharingX. The building has been sold to the bookstore next to it. Next term everything's going to be changed and all the students and teachers are moving to the new building at King's Cross. Sitting in the Room 406, we started our talk from the school that has witnessed the history of London fashion.
(Y:Yoanna, M:Momo)

The Happy Ending

Y: Let's start with the question that many people who have seen your final collection would be interested in. You are a fashion prints student. But why there's so many knitwear in the collection?

M:I've tried almost all the techniques in prints during the first and second year of my study. As a fashion designer I think I must cover as many aspects as possible. So I was thinking maybe I should give myself some challenges in my final collection, to combine prints with knitting, and to be more competitive than other students. I have many friends who study knitting and I've leant a lot from them. I learned knitting and crochet by myself. So in the final collection you can see many prints that are presented by knitting. It's a comprehensive present of my ability.

Y: Have you ever done any internship as the other students?

M:No. Generally speaking, we can take one or two years off to do some internship. But as soon as I realised that the building was going to 'disapear', I decided that I would graduate in 2011 and be the last year of students graduated from CSM at Charing X. I'm very emotional. I won't feel like I'm not ready. If it's the time then I must do the thing.
Y: Your collection is very, very different from the other students' work. Where did you get the inspiration? What made you to produce such a happy and fresh collection?
M: It's very ramdom actually. Last summer I was help one of my senior with her final collection. She made me realise that if I took one year off then when I was back there's going to be nothing in this building. Everybody was talking about our moving to King's Cross, but nobody had ever seen the building in such a mess and things were changing in the next year.  So the building and our prints room on the second floor are where my inspiration come. I want to build a connection between my final collection and my memory here at CSM.
Y: So is it the feeling of a happy ending you want to develop in the final collection?

M:Yes, a happy ending. You've seen the balloons. The idea is very simple: I wish the balloons could fly and bring the building at Charing X to King's Cross. Don't abandon it. Don't build a new one. Just take the old one with its story and fly to King's Cross together. Our school is located in the very central of London, which is a very expensive area. We understand it and we know there's nothing we can do with it. But it's sad to see the building with so many stories and memories of those designers disapeared and became a bookstore. So I wish the balloons could take our school to King's Cross with us, happily.

You see the first look. I picked the samples of the worsk of all the prints students from the 1930s to now, and sewed them on the skirt, like a bird's feather. The little girl is the building. She flies away with the memory in the building and in our prints room. When I'm old and look back to the collection, everything is still fresh and specific. I'm not very good at taking inspiration from abstract stuff. I love the natural and original thing. Many designers may focus more in contemporary art, but I love to go to the zoo, to the parks. My inspirations are all from my real life, and I realize them by hand.

Y: What's it look like at the very begining? Is there any important change in the final collection?
M:Yes, I can show you my sketch book. It's very different with the result. At the begining I made many specific prints, like brushes and paint cans. But then I found them too weak to support a whole collection. So I gave up a lot of them. I posted a Weibo (the Chinese Twitter) at that time, saying that: Momo Wang, this is not your last collection, but the first collection in your life! Many ideas can be realized in the future, but by then I had to decide on what to keep and what to give up. To focus on one concept and concentrate the 5 looks together and give a powerful feeling to people. That's the problems that every designer will face with.

There are many things that can support my collection in our prints room. My 30 classmates come from 18 different countries. Sometimes they just came to the studio in their own costume. Everybody can bring some inspiration to each other. So I take some elements from folk art, Russian culture and African totem into my collection.

Family, Teacher & Friends

Y: I met your mother at the day of your line-up. Did she and your family help you with the collection?
M:I went back to China and spent 10 days at home during the final, because there's too much handmaking and I couldn't finish it by myself. You know women like our mothers and aunts, they all know how to do knitting. So I told them what color and pattern I want, and they just helped me with the knitting. Sometimes my grandpa would come and check our process. My whole family was involved in my collection. So when I showed them the pictures of me getting the price, they were very surprised and said: We are on the international stage! I come from Jinzhou, a very small town in the north-east of China, where nobody barely knows anything about fashion. So when I asked them to help me they were very confused about what we were making. Does it look good? Can people really wear it? But they would listen to me explaining about it and later they started to accept this kind of edgy stuff and even changed their dressing style. I'm very happy to see that my whole family has become fashionable because of me.

Y: What's your relation with the tutors? What suggestion they'd given you?

M: My tutors like my personal style very much. So they told me not to do looks that fitted the average model. They wanted me to produce a collection like 5 looks of myself. To make the clothes that I want to wear. My difference with other designers is that I'm not professional. I mean, I've never done any internship, so I won't consider too much about trends and the market. I just search my own closet and make things that I like. And as for the propotion, my clothes is very different as well. Because I'm tiny and my models are tiny, my looks are all short at the top but long at the bottom. So my models all looks good in propotion, just like those 'giant' models.

Y: Well for the models, are they your friends? You seem to work very closely together.

M: Yes, some are my friends and some of them are my friends' friend. My tutor also introduced me some models and we even had a casting.  We've become very close friends after the final show. It's a very unique experience for all of us. They are very happy because they are all tiny people, who've never thought they could be models one day, and even walked on the runway for such a serious show.