Slowstitch Studio
Could you tell us a little about the general fashion & textile environment in the country at the moment?
Honestly we're probably not the most informed when it comes to the current fashion and textile landscape. Our focus is inward for the most part and we just try to create things that excite us and challenge us in our own way. In some sense this kind of perspective might be pretty representative of the indie fashion brand scene in Thailand as a whole right now. The last few years have seen a wave of celebrating smaller brands and studios, and most of them seem to be working in this way where creative energy is directed at going deep into one's own core while taking care to not be affected too much by the external.
How was Slowstitch born and why did you choose to base yourselves in Chiang Mai, away from the capital?
Slowstitch was born about a decade ago when we met while studying under the same traditional textile master in rural Japan. At first it was a collaborative project where we would create some things, share ideas and write about our journey for other textile enthusiasts to read. We got a lot of positive feedback early on which motivated us to keep working on new designs and take on more projects. Bangkok was our base for the first year while we established our studio but it quickly became a little too much. Some creators thrive on the high energy stimulus overload environments of capitals, but for us our inspirations come from sources like old master's works, iterations of previous ideas, or some new thing we've wanted to try to see if it works. We needed physical and mental space to explore those threads and decided to move up to Chiang Mai in our second year of working. It has offered us a much better balance for what we want to do. The city is culturally alive in the sense that there's always some events going on, but there's enough breathing room to decompress when you need to. It's also in this interesting state right now where there's lots of connections to the greater international community but at the same time you can drive out into the mountains and quite quickly find yourself in small villages that live intimately close to nature. Places like that have a particular energy to them and as a creative you can find opportunities in that energy and interplay of extremes.
The name Slowstitch suggests you have a clear philosophy of how you want to do things, clearly setting yourselves apart from an industry which is normally the opposite of slow. Could you tell us a little more about your vision?
The name Slowstitch came first and the philosophy developed much much later. It just sort of came up as an idea in conversation one day because the word encapsulated some key concepts. After studying traditional textiles in Japan, what we wanted to do was create the kinds of patterns that nobody had bothered with anymore for hundreds of years because they were just too time consuming. Stitch-dyed shibori textiles in general took a bit of a nose dive after industrial manufacturing arrived on the scene, bringing with it the ability to easily and perfectly print hundreds and thousands of yards of fabric. And we saw all that potential right there to take ancient techniques and reimagine them through our eyes as someone living in the 21st century with all the resources we have today. We didn't want to simply recreate the same thing - we wanted to update it, to see how it could find a place and an aesthetic in our lives today. But we wanted to do the hard stuff, which inevitably meant long processes and complex stitching patterns. Time + lots of stitching = Slowstitch. Over the years the name has taken on additional layers of meaning for us. There's a lot of internal development that a brand goes through over a decade, even if it's not all entirely visible. The satisfaction of engaging in craftsmanship, the communion with universal patterns and geometry of archetypes, the visual interplay between chaos and order - these all have something of value to offer us. When you're sitting and patiently working for a week on a scarf you get a lot of time to think about this stuff and how the pieces you create can be a medium for ideas. For now we just try to own what we make and keep working on textiles that excite us. At the core of every piece is our desire to honor the human touch and we try to imbue each pattern with that thought.
Like many things in Thailand, you bring together local and international influences to create a unique expression of who you are. Could you describe some of those influences that have excited and inspired you along the way?
Rusted industrial structures in various states of urban decay. Hilltribes of the Northern areas substituting unexpected contemporary materials into their traditional artforms. Old master's works in museums and out-of-print books from around the world. Random patterns of ours that we did years ago which look tempting to revisit and try some new interesting variation.
What does Thailand today mean to you?
Home and the freedom to be who you are. We hope it stays that way for quite some time.
Thank you Anne & Serge for the thoughtful and thought-provoking answers!
For more information you can visit their website or IG.