My name is Qiutong Ge (葛秋彤) and I preferred to be called Cho, which is the homophone of the first letter in my first name, which means autumn. I was born and raised in a small city called Kunming in the Southeast region of China. The province where I grew up is known as its very rich diversity of various ethnicity cultures. On the beautiful land of nature, 52 different ethnical groups live in harmony and created a splendid picture artwork. Deeply influenced by such an environment, I am always very interested in all kinds of art crafts that can be accomplished by hands. While I was in grade 12, I transferred to a public high school in Canada and finished my senior high school education there. Living and studying in a foreign country, I was able to build my connection to the western world while appreciating my own culture better. Therefore after I start my education, I took my interest in traditional Chinese culture as an approach to my design and thinking. By doing that, I found the joint of my passion and a widely concerned topic—sustainability.
Therefore while trying to design based on my interest of traditional Chinese patterns and techniques, I am also trying to study the current fashion cycle and the possible resolution to the problems in this industry. I have made pieces that can be seen in everyday life such as hoodies in zero waste pattern inspired by traditional pattern and pieces with tradition pattern but in very western material like wool suiting. I have also tried to explore the value of clot to individuals based on my knowledge and research on some small communities in my province that produce meaningful cloth for themselves.
I believe that fashion is essential to all human beings whether it is acknowledged or not, therefore it is an industry which is capable of extremely massive help and damage to the world.
Fashion designers today are not only artists that can express their soul and creativity through garments, but also operators of this possibly fatal machine. We must know what we are responsible for; it is not just the fabric we have in our hands, but the whole world, literally, the whole world, which stretches from the farmlands to the factories in developing countries, to the fashion studios, to the sales people in the mall, to the customers, and to the landfill. If we do not take the responsibility, who will? We are not only the hands but also the brain. Thus I want my project not only be the artwork that shows my aesthetic, but also a responsible one for the society, and hopefully an educational one that can inspire more people into thinking sustainability.
I prefer to set my topic first and develop my research in depth, collecting both visual and literal inspirations, and conduct as much experiment as possible. I believe reading is essential to my design since I can always understand the topic I am dealing with in a less visually affected way and be constantly inspired. While making the garments, I prefer to combine effective methods such as machines and time-consuming but irreplaceable methods such as hand embroidery.
In my future career, I want my design to serve the purpose of sustainability in all aspects such as harmless material, fair labor treatment, and etc. My closest step would be complete my degree at Parsons of course. As for my post-graduate plan, I hope I can work in a sustainable fashion brand for at least two years before I pursue further theoretical education by doing Master or even Ph.D. degree. As an individual, I am fully aware that what I can do is very limited, but I believe that there are many people like me in this world. Someday, all the individuals who believe in what I believe, who want what I want, will form a strong and immense net, that is the day, the vicious cycle of the industry will be broken and changed. It is a large goal, but just a small dream, which is to make fashion industry less harmful to the world.
