2019 was a year of contrasts: periods of frenetic energy followed by restorative lulls. A year of building, of rebuilding, of taking risks, and of stillness.
As a label entirely designed and made in New York City, there is always a heightened state of activity and expected productivity, which makes being able to be here one of the most exciting things ever. The other side of that is, well, the pressure of newness is no stranger to an independent design label.
But, as I’m learning, sometimes you say so much more by doing less.
This past year, in all its highs and lows, was an adventure in every sense of the word. We may not have shown a new Collection at New York Fashion Week, but we found ourselves in parts of the world we had previously only dreamed of.
We signed a new lease on an intimate atelier on the edge of New York’s Garment District. More pieces than ever before found their way to your closets. And, most rewarding of all, we met with so many of our existing and new family of clients.
I know there’s a lot out there, and it’s a privilege that you’ve chosen to find beauty in this little New York label.
There's so much that we cannot wait to share. But I’m most excited to say this: it’s in the moments of quiet that I’ve been able to find the silhouettes, the colours, and the words to build the story of the next Collection, which will show in New York Fashion Week in February 2020.
I hope you love it as much as I do.
I’m spending the last two weeks of this decade with my family who flew in from Indonesia, taking in nature, surrounded with love.
Have the happiest Christmas and holiday season. Thank you for following me on this journey, and for your continued support. 2020 is going to be special. See you there.
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3 studios. 3 collections at New York Fashion Week. 3 years doing this. We've met all of you at trunk shows and fallen in love with Miami, The Hamptons, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Palm Beach, Atlanta, The Bahamas, Jakarta, Thailand, New Mexico. We've partnered with brands like Moët & Chandon, Porsche, Baccarat Hotel, Emilie Heathe. We've been at the Grammys, film festivals, award shows, Broadway premieres, galas, weddings, birthdays, critically-acclaimed off Broadway plays, dinner with your newlywed in Hawaii, dinner with your best friends at your favourite spot in West Village.
We've been so blessed.
Have I ever told you the story behind the Botanist dress? It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and I couldn't stop thinking of a certain shape, but I had run out of muslin to drape with. So I tore up my cream-coloured sheets and pinned for hours...and that became the Botanist. I didn't know then that it would be the opening piece of my debut collection at New York Fashion Week.
It's been a strange time in fashion, I've learned so much about what works for us, and what doesn't. We hold designers to such rigid cycles and standards, requiring them to churn out beautiful, strong work season after season, sometimes 6 in a calendar year. Making clothing has always been about story-telling to me, and what if there isn't a story to tell every 3-6 months? Every collection has sprouted from a feeling, every colour on our moodboards plucked from a handful of 35mm film photographs I took. A deep interest in something I've read, or seen, or felt.
And how do you force one to feel? You can't.
As a small independent luxury designer, I am so excited to continue focusing on stories, not seasons. I'd rather obsess over the drape and folds of a dress and how it resembles a particularly evocative leaf I grew up with in my childhood home in Malaysia, than churn out clothes that mean nothing. I think that's what sets us apart, and why so many of you tell me how beautiful and strong you feel in the clothes. I trust you'll be patient with us as we move forward. We will remain entirely designed and made in New York's Garment District by an incredibly talented and intimate team, using only the most sumptuous and lovely of fabrics.
Many aspects of running this label keep me awake at night, but here's what puts my mind at ease: that so many of you have come from every place imaginable and found a piece of yourself with us. That you have somehow found beauty, function and meaning in a Botanist dress.
Thank you for following me on this journey. I can't wait to show you more.
]]>I want to tell you about Spring/Summer 2017.
Spring/Summer 2017 is more about a feeling than it is about a place. I felt it after going down what seemed like a zillion rickety wooden steps at a cliffside beach in Santa Barbara in the early days of summer. It was quiet, with someone's golden retriever a tan flash of movement in the distance. My friend, Sarah, ran off to take pictures on her iPhone.
Everything felt still, and new, and at peace. The dappled water markings on the rocks, the ebb and flow of the waves, the luscious gradation of white, sand, and rich taupe. The layers, the slow-motion slur of the ocean, the softness of it all.
I'd like to leave you with a poem that perfectly encapsulates this collection.
I need the sea because it teaches me,
I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,
if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,
or only its harsh voice or its shining
suggestion of fishes and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.
It’s not simply the shells crunched
as if some shivering planet
were giving signs of its gradual death;
no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,
the stalactite from a sliver of salt,
and the great god out of a spoonful.
What it taught me before, I keep. It’s air
ceaseless wind, water and sand.
It seems a small thing for a young man,
to have come here to live with his own fire;
nevertheless, the pulse that rose
and fell in its abyss,
the cracking of the blue cold,
the gradual wearing away of the star,
the soft unfolding of the wave
squandering snow with its foam,
the quiet power out there, sure
as a stone shrine in the depths,
replaced my world in which were growing
stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,
and my life changed suddenly:
as I became part of its pure movement.
Jasmine Chong Spring/Summer 2017 is a song of silence, a meditation on clarity, a lesson that could only be learned through feeling and experience. I can't wait to share it all with you.
]]>The thing no one really tells you about fashion is that you're never done.
When I thought I was finally finished with the Fall/Winter 2016 collection - I didn’t realise how wrong I was. I sat on my speckled cowhide rug in the studio, staring at the midnight silk charmeuses, the dark as night velvets, the caramel-champagne golds hanging ceremoniously on evenly spaced laser-scorched Jasmine Chong hangers (a habit I picked up at my showroom internship at Halston). Here was the result of months, even years of experimentation, uncertainty, and work. Here was the single most tangible manifestation of the late nights. I almost felt done.
There was a sense of relief, perhaps even liberation, but also a precarious feeling of being plunged yet again into unknown waters.
When I decided to work on the collection, I was designing 8 full looks. This then became 9. And one week before the show, 10. Of course, my team looked at me like I was insane to add a full look on such a tight deadline, but I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t show at New York Fashion Week without this look that had settled deep inside my head. The Archer Jacket and the Catherine Pant were pieces so central to Fall/Winter 2016 that I needed to offer my woman a luxe interpretation of it. So, it was born in midnight silk velvet, and this velvet powersuit became the strong, modern antithesis to the Runaway Gown, because I’ve always felt like my woman is just as likely to get married in velvet suit as much as a velvet gown. I’ve never regretted it once.
This is what I have begun to love and hate about fashion. You’re never really finished, and you’re never really sure. Your collection will ask you questions at ungodly hours of the night, and you won’t have an answer, so you’ll get up from your bed and sketch ideas until you feel satisfied. Your work will be more demanding that the most complex, demanding relationship you’ve ever had, but you will love it so much that it will all be worth it.
Thank you for following me on this journey, it means the world to me. I can’t wait to share more with you.
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