Why did you decide to become a fashion designer? I knew I wanted to be a designer at the age of four. I saw haute couture collections in magazines and then I just knew. Everything about clothing design - the history, the craftsmanship, the way it was an integral part of life and in so many permutations - was an endless fascination for me. Where did you get your fashion training? I graduated from Vassar College in 2000 with a degree in art. From Russian literature to northern Renaissance painting, every class I took and every professor I had were excellent and complemented each other. After that I did an internship exploring the cultural anthropology of fashion at the Costume Institute at [New York's] Metropolitan Museum. I also got great experience working with Anna Sui and my favourite mad genius designer, Robert Cary-Williams in London. Why did you decide to set up your own label? I launched my signature label, Mary Ping, in 2001 because I had too many ideas and too much curiosity to wait. The core of my aesthetic has always been the same since I was young. Most of my sensibilities grew from childhood nostalgia and memories of my parents and grandmothers' closets and the things they surrounded themselves with. At the same time you also launched the more experimental Slow and Steady Wins the Race (SSWTR) label. Why? Slow and Steady Wins the Race began as a simple experiment to explore fashion, its system and our consumption. For example, the collection is seasonless [and goes] against the current idea that fashion needs to constantly change. Each collection either centres itself on a fundamental of design and its sociological and/or anthropological role. So we started with a collection [called Seams] about how clothes were put together. Eventually, I decided to devote all my time to SSWTR. Mary Ping became too much work, especially [when having to balance the demands of] two labels]. Explain how SSWTR works. It's presented as a quarterly clothing diary, cataloguing ideas that are focused on a specific and fundamental characteristic of clothing design. For example, N?4 Sweats was about variations on the grey sweatshirt using only design details from a traditional sweatshirt. N?8 Shirt included permutations of the classic white button-down shirt using only design details from [the] traditional white button-down. We want to create pieces that are purified and distilled, that carry an extra sense of value with meaning to the design. At the same time they are approachable for everyone [prices are about US$100 per item and quantities are limited for each catalogue]. How do you come up with ideas for each collection? It always begins with a relevant theme and a central category that is about a fundamental characteristic of clothing design, or how we interact with clothing. Rainwear (right) is the 20th collection for us and it came about at the suggestion of my friend Rachel Silberstein who co-owns a superb store in Portland, Oregon, called Stand-Up Comedy. There are capes and ponchos named after Portland's waterfalls, as well as shoes and exclusive trench coats, anoraks and dresses, all d.w.r. [durable water-repellant]. What other projects are you working on? This year has turned into the year of collaborations and installations. I am creating [studio] environments that straddle art and design. Aside from a tentative pop-up store in Paris for the holiday season, some of our work is currently in a group show at Dispatch ( http://www.dispatchbureau.com/ ) and I will also be participating in a show in Australia in July. SSWTR is about creating very limited pieces with a new concept each season. Do you think this is the way fashion is heading, especially in this economy? The state of the economy will not change how we design, but hopefully it will steer people in our direction and shine a larger spotlight on what we do. Hopefully, the [financial] climate will recalibrate our value system and [help to] create new parameters for more considered choices and design with meaning. Does your Asian heritage inspire your work and aesthetic? Of course, my personal tastes are hinged on certain childhood memories of my grandmother and mother, both of whom are Asian, but had very European and western styles growing up in Shanghai. Slow and Steady Wins the Race is available online at slowandsteadywinstherace.com The Rainwear collection is available at www.shopstandingup.us
