Born in China, Qian Wu is a New York based fashion designer graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, also has a background in fashion engineering. As a designer, the Chinese designer made her statement by encouraging women with her athleisure aesthetic design. The contrast of both feminine and masculine is always part of the inspiration for her designs, combining elegant sexiness and masculine functionality, and redefining functional garments in a rebellious, sexy, and chic way. Qian believes sexiness and functional garments are underestimated.
QIAN
WU
The Brand: MOVCREATOR
MOVcreator was founded by Qian Wu who transferred her major from design and engineering into fashion design after graduation with her bachelor’s degree. Instead of executing for other minds, she wants to make her own statement from her perspective to see women in this man-dominated perspective world–to encourage women with her athleisure aesthetics design.
The contrast of both feminine and masculine is always part of the inspiration of her design. For her, she thinks SEXINESS and FUNCTIONAL/ PRAGMATIC garments are ALWAYS UNDERESTIMATED! What she proposed to achieve in her collections is to see the sparks on the combination of these two contrasting elements together—elegant sexiness and masculine functionality. Then the whole concept was formed: redefining functional garments in a rebellious sexy and chic way.
A CONVERSATION WITH QIAN WU
Describe yourself as a creative and how your label was born?
I am a New York based fashion designer, founder of MOVCREATOR, also have a background in fashion engineering. That’s why design of mine always developed & approached in an ergonomic way.
As a designer, I made my manifesto statement by encouraging women with rebellious sexy design. The contrast of both feminine and masculine is always part of the inspiration for my designs. I like to combine elegant sexiness and masculine functionality, and hope my design redefining functional garments in a rebellious, sexy, and chic way.
I believe sexiness and functional garments are under-estimated. Because of that, my designs are becoming my language to make people rethink about activewear & functional garments in a fashion perspective. And that’s how my label—MOVCREATOR (https://www.notjustalabel.com/movcreator) was born.
What MOVCREATOR proposed to achieve is to see the sparks on the combination of these two contrasting elements together—elegant sexiness and masculine functionality.
With each prototype draped on human body in motion, most beautiful moments are kept during the movement of human body. My design references are no longer based on the front and back, but evolving a lot more subtle moments from in ergonomic way.
What is the most challenging issue in for an independent label ?
Allocating the resources in right place with correct partial for the brand is the most challenging issue. As an independent designer, you have to think in a really realistic way, such as how do I split my budget for product development and marketing? Is it worth to input a big amount of money intomarketing? What should I do if it doesn’t work? What other ways I can get more people to know my work? All those questions are not fully answered in a short term, you have to be sensitive enough to catch the sign before you make the next decision.
What’s the main impact of social media in both ways, buying and brand marketing?
Accelerating the efficiency for both customers and brands. Social is like a bridge to connect the customers and deferent brands. For me, there are more positive impacts behind that, it helps to get more exposure for my design and I also get more opportunities based on that.
How do you manage to choose your models in order to spread better the diversity issue through your label?
I am always choosing model depends on their unique temperaments. Even with great MUA and stylists, it’s really hard to switch that part. Energetic and powerful women such as unisex dancers, athletes are all at very top of my choices.
What do you think is the biggest challenge regarding your work?
Take my last collection Movement Creates as an example. Each piece made with the shell and harness part. A little change of tension from harness part of my garment will cause a large differences from the silhouette Since I am designing in an ergonomic way, my design process also evolves tons of fittings, what I did was taking videos from my each fittings with different garment tension, and trying to achieve the most natural and flowing outcomes instead of everything being fixed in a certain place.
How do you think your label can play an important role in your daily client’s life?
There will be 4 product lines in MOVCREATOR:
-The [REMAKE] series-all products from this line remodeled from waste clothes and materials, handmade and produced in limited quantities.
-The [DAILY] series—this line representing brand characteristics, which is suitable for daily wear in various occasions, with ergonomic tailoring and ingenious detail design, the interior is rich in functionality.
-The [FITNESS] series- this line designed for yoga and daily fitness, people can wear it for gym and daily light travel.
-The [DAILY+] series- this line helps with user’s semi-personalized customization based on the [DAILY] series, which is the personalized customization version of the [DAILY] line. On the basis of the existing version, customers can choose the upgraded fabric, lining, embroidery, etc. provided by us.
What do you think about the opportunity of selling your pieces online nowadays?
Selling online helps to accelerating the way to allocate my target customers. I personally am a fan of window shopping and I have witnessing a lot emerging designers are also making the most of online shopping to promote their products with great feedback. So I think this is a really great opportunity.
Imagine that you must write a letter to your FUTURE SELF. What would you write?
Hi Future Qian, I don’t think you will be end on something random so just keep going!
QIAN WU
The future is now.
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