Discussing the awakening of women's self-awareness with Masha Ma

During the Paris Fashion Week of 2019, the Fashion Shop "Clothing Store" editor Lisa interviewed designer Masha Ma, the founder and designer of the eponymous brand MASHAMA, and the first mainland fashion to release works on the official calendar of Paris Fashion Week. Designer. Living in London for 13 years and running in Paris for 7 years, Masha Ma brought the charm of Chinese women to the stage of the International Fashion Week. We will use Masha Ma's perspective to take you into the “Enlightenment Awakening of Women's Self-Consciousness”.

Lisa, editor-in-chief of The Fashion Shop, and Wang Xiuling, the guest of the show

Q: Lisa, editor-in-chief of The Fashion Shop

A: MASHA Ma, founder and designer of MASHAMA

Q: Hello, thank you for your interview with The Fashion Shop. What are your expectations for the MASHAMA brand?

A: We are now paying more attention to the future of Chinese women. International Fashion Week is a good platform, after all, we are the first brand to publish works on the official calendar of Paris Fashion Week. For me, what is more interesting now is to find the right style for real Chinese women in an international environment.

Q: Do you log in to Paris Fashion Week every year? After that, have you considered other places like New York, Milan Fashion Week?

A: Yes, this is a special thing that needs to be adhered to. Since we started doing it, we must continue to do it. If I leave once, I think this is just a cultural exchange, not a fashion week.

I think the best level of fashion is in Paris. In the big fashion week, only Paris is the fashion week where all the international brands that are truly defined gather together.

Q: Is attending Paris Fashion Week the biggest gain in Paris?

A: This is just one of them. More is extra work. I have an understanding of women in the environment, in people, and in different regions. I have gained more inspiration through the understanding and understanding of European women in China.

Q: The theme of this season is “The Waste of the Skin”. In the big show, I saw a very powerful design. What was the original intention of choosing this theme?

A: The MASHAMA FW19 series is an enlightenment to women's self-awareness. I think Chinese women are more confident than they think. In this era, women are actually quite powerful. It is different from the state of Chinese women before.

The theme of the 2019 Fall/Winter collection is “The Waste under the Skin”. The film “Under the Skin” is a very literary and niche movie. Because the film "Under the Skin" tells the story of an alien wearing a human skin in northern Scotland to find ways to capture humans. I think the environment is very lonely and humid, and the whole world is very cold. But what I find interesting is that the film chose a woman's skin. It could have worn a powerful man's skin but chose a woman. In fact, this film uses a female perspective to understand the world. Interestingly, the alien itself is a powerful one, but it is vulnerable in the human community. Therefore, it is also very metaphorical to choose women, including everyone's view of beauty and the view of the skin. The so-called submarine shortage, when the human body fades away from the gorgeous skin and deeper structure and inner heart, makes people wonder, what is true under the appearance.

Q: Have you encountered any difficulties in the production of this design?

A: In fact, this recycle fabric is a bit difficult because of its color, fabric, and material limitations, but it is also a challenge for designers in the process. Every year at Paris Fashion Week, I bring together designers from all over the world. They bring tens of thousands of pieces of clothing. Sometimes I feel that we may not need so many clothes, can recycle them, and recreate them as new ones. Very meaningful and creative things.

Q: Is this series useful for special crafts or special fabrics?

A: Starting from the perspective of human and nature, the outdoor fabrics that appeared in this show were recombined by the fiber after the decomposition of the discarded plastic bottles. This technology has also been patented. Therefore, the touch of this fabric is very special, it is not only an environmentally friendly windproof and waterproof fabric. Still a re-engineering of the environment.

Q: As we all know, the new Chinese design force has gradually occupied a place in the four major fashion weeks. As one of them, how do you view this phenomenon?

A: I think this is a very good thing. Because you must go to more places to see, see the people around you, see the things around you and the situation around you to see yourself more clearly in the opposite direction. The problem is that you are with yourself, not with others. Go abroad, see more possibilities, and finally decide your main battlefield.

Q: We know that you graduated from the Saint Martins College of Art, lived in London for 13 years, and then worked in Paris for seven years in Paris Fashion Week, almost 20 years in Europe. So what is the biggest difference between Chinese women and European women in your understanding?

A: My understanding is the definition of self. Women in every region of every country have their own characteristics. The self-definition of European women is actually very self, without gender. The self-definition of Chinese women is full of feminization. I think the power and strength of Chinese women is that they have a very soft outer shell, but they are very strong inside and even stronger than European women.

The confidence of European women and Chinese women is different. It is also reflected in the wearing. Chinese women's self-confidence and self-feasibility are more feminine, while European women's self-confidence and self-confidence are more neutral.

Q: The answer is very artistic. How do you find a balance between art and business? The most realistic question is whether the clothes are made or sold.

A: Business and design are not contradictory. I think the two are complementary. Although I have found a very abstract theme, I have presented it to my work after thinking, so I will not pull out the plot in the movie and do it directly.

So for me, there is no commercial or artistic choice, because it depends on how you define yourself. If you define yourself as an artist, the artist is not responsible for the solution. But if you are a designer, you should learn from others in your life to solve problems. Whether it is a building or a fashion designer. As long as you say that you are a designer, you are already destined to find a solution to make others live better. So I always position myself as a designer rather than an artist. A product made by a really good designer must be worn, or you can be an artist as long as you are yourself.

With Donna Summer's I Feel Love peeping the show, the turbulent rhythm forms a dynamic and curious dynamic overlay. The series combines sensory stimuli into one, very weird, very scary, and very tempting. “You are lonely because you are unique” for each individual identity recognition that feels incomprehensible, lost direction in the strange emotions of women, and also completed a exploration of self-cognition. The so-called wound of the skin, when the human body fades away from the gorgeous skin and deeper structure and heart, makes people wonder, what is true under the appearance.

This season, the new CAS/ team of Y/Project has cooperated. In addition to the classic MASHAMA FACE, a number of international supermodels ENIOLA, VARSHA and KENNAH have been newly launched. Its Chinese model Xu Wei is also the second time to board the MASHAMA show to become MA GIRL.

In fact, MASHAMA has been trying to explore in recent years. If you pay attention to it, you can find that the female subjects studied by MASAHAM in recent years have lost some of the "big woman" and turned into more independent and pluralistic. Women shouldn't be tied to the rules and regulations. Whether in the way of matching or model CASTING, in addition to adhering to the brand genes, they are constantly breaking through and innovating.