Designer Ma Ke and "Wuyong" 馬可與「無用」

Background

Potofolio - In Chinese, do need google translate
Wikipaedia Page
Founder of “Wuyong” (literal translation is “Useless”) 無用
She hates fashion and the title of fashion designer…
Statements of the brand “我想做些眼前未必有用但以後會有價值的事，我想把人們眼中無用的東西變得有用：我想人們不再以是否有用作為取捨的原則。我喜歡『無用』，所以才能賦予它新的價值。價值從不在物件本身，而在於懂得珍惜的心。” I want to do things that don’t seem to be useful now but it would be valuable in the future; I want to turn useless things in people’s views into useful things: I want people to make decisions not based on how useful it is. I like “useless”, so that we can bring new value to it. The value is not in the material things itself, but in people who know how to cherish it.

I think some of her designs were inspired by nature and natural materials (silk, in this case. There are different type of silk, and the type of silk she uses here is very special because you can only make it by hand as it’s a combination between thicker and thiner silk threads which has a rough texture, and her design focuses on to illustrate the beauty of this type of material)
My emotional world is very diversed, and I love everything in the world, I trust people I meet, and my relationship with events(I know this is vague, because it is vague)“我的情感蛮丰富，对世界万物都存有爱心，我也信赖与所遇人、事的缘分。”马可认为，本身的创作灵感也是缘于这种爱心。[2]
民间调研 Field Research
Find the memory of ancestors in the households in farmers’ homes, the joy of returning to nature, return to traditional culture, and traditional handcrafts(“在农民的家里找到了祖先的记忆”，“回归自然的快乐回归传统文化，传统手工艺”)
Chinese culture is my real root of all my creations and my life. (“中國的文化是我真正的根源，我所有的創作也好，包括我個人的生命生活，最終這都是我的來源“) (This is from an interview)

Gather a group of tailors who come from rural China mountaineous area, use natural materials to make and dye the clothes 集结一些掌握传统女红的中国山区手工艺人，采用天然材料以手工制衣和以植物染色，把衣服从写满欲望的时装还原为体现价值的服装 [1]
Extract plants to make clothes; some clothes were buried underground, and the erosion of rain and soil would leave traces on the cloths.“从植物中提取汁液染制成衣，一部分服装曾被埋于地下，任由雨水和泥土的侵蚀，在布料上留下斑驳的痕迹“ [4]
She also attempted putting clothes in rivers or under the sun. 马可还尝试过把衣服长期放在河流里冲洗或在太阳下暴晒
Some Clips of Making Clothes (this one is making the cloth from threads)

Beijing is very close to a lockdown now, so I don’t think she’s doing a lot of things publicly right now. According to their wechat public account, “Due to covid, the “finding clothes–finding the most precious handmade clothes in life” exhibition is deferred.（因疫情等因素，正在展出的「尋衣——找尋生命中最珍重的手作衣裳」延期撤展，「無用尋衣」第二季開幕延後，具體時間請各位家人關注無用公眾號！）
Not much media coverage since 2020
Wechat Official Account for her brand shows that her company is still writing stories of clothes with special values to the owners, and this is an example (in traditional Chinese)
Now her brand does not just sell clothes–most recently they sell “zongzi”, and one of the division of her brand sells organic and vegan food

She also holds exhibitions for folk art that are open for the public for free
I found all of the information above on Wechat, but I think you can also find them on their official website www.wuyong.org, which is really hard to navigate and all in traditional Chinese (nvm)
Her most recent exhibition

You can find all the posters of her exhibition here

第一夫人的设计师: She was the courlier for China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan/Xi Jinping’s wife), and she “hopes that she can show the world the design idea centered on Chinese culture (“希望透过第一夫人的影响力，向世界展示以中华文化为核心精神的服装设计理念。”[1]