Since her days as a fashion student at the Parsons School of Design in New York, Daisy Wang Jingwen has been weaving a modern Chinese element into her everyday style. It may have something to do with her cultural roots. As a native of Qingdao, a city in China’s Shandong province, the 29-year-old is instinctually drawn to Chinese aesthetics.
And as a badminton player in the past, she values and prioritises comfort and athleisure wear. Yet there was never a brand that quite combined her love of modern streetwear with her culture. Thus, Dawang was born.
Based in New York, the brand offers ready-to-wear clothing that combines Chinese traditional aesthetics with Western sensibilities: think casual qipaos, reimagined dudou tops (a traditional Chinese undergarment) and other “modern chinoiserie” apparel. Wang first developed an interest in fashion when she was 15 years old after moving to California for boarding school. “I had no experience in fashion whatsoever, or art in general, but our curriculum required us to take at least one year of art and music,” she says.
After choosing to take a fashion design class, she quickly became enthralled by the subject. “I was like, ‘Wow, I really enjoy creating something out of hand that’s wearable, that’s my vision,’” she says. Her dedication to fashion became so steadfast that when it came time to apply to universities, she chose to apply exclusively to art schools – and she got into all 10 that she applied to.
Parsons.