After working with Fendi and Stella McCartney, the designer is trying to make traditional Chinese craftsmanship cool for young people
Shanghai-based Hong Kong designer Oscar Wang is no stranger to luxury brands. He designed animal-inspired air pods for Stella McCartney in 2021, an adorable quartet of pandas for Fendi in 2019 and sneakers for the Golden Horse Awards in 2017. Now the designer has turned his attention to traditional crafts and ways of modernising it for younger audiences.
The title of his latest exhibition, East West, has a double meaning. It refers to the project’s cross-cultural exchange between Wang and American artist Daniel Arsham; but it also refers to the Chinese equivalent term dong xi, which can also mean “objects”. Wang has collaborated with Arsham on a series of limited Dōngxī teapots, which are made of Yixing clay, a rare and expensive green clay found in southern China’s Jiangsu province that was traditionally used to make teapots. To appeal to a young crowd, the series also includes merchandise such as Dōngxī teabags and T-shirts.
The project was launched in Wang’s Open Work studio in Shanghai and is now being exhibited at Archive Editions, a vintage shop Hong Kong’s Landmark mall. Wang says that the teapot combines utility with a rich heritage, which is why “it should be displayed in a vintage shop, as visitors who come here have a great appreciation for these things and can pass them on to somebody else [maybe someone from a younger generation].”
Tatler chats with Wang about his new project and why he recently turned from a coffee to tea person.
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What inspired the East West project?
Daniel was looking for artists from [Asia] to come up with [new] ideas [for a collaboration]. During the pandemic lockdown, we were doing a lot of FaceTime sessions, and we came up with this concept [for the products collaboration], because the Mandarin term “dong xi” also means objects. [As artists,] we don’t just want to make objects; we’re inspired by the conversations we have between the east and the west.
We call [our design concept] a blueprint—that’s why you see a lot of blue and markings on the products.
Tell us about the designs.
The markings on the teapot refer to the western and eastern hemispheres coming together with arrows flowing through them. It’s kind of like water flowing through earth. It also symbolises the conversations between Daniel and me, and how it’s constantly flowing. The patterns almost form an infinity symbol, as I wanted this spirit of coming together to represent an infinite cycle of the exchange of ideas between the east and the west.
