We were lucky to catch up with Moon Chang recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Moon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

When I was young, I wanted to become a fine artist, especially paintings and sculpting, for a long time. However when I was 7 years old, I started to draw human figures with clothes, dressing up them, writing the years and styles, and also price as well, and I guess that was the moment that I wanted to become a fashion designer. And I realized that I wished my art to be more functional and useful, which can help people, and found out fashion design is one of the most valuable areas for human beings. Also, when I was in Los Angeles in my middle school, there are two major events, one was I awarded the first prize at “LA Times’ Saving Earth” painting competition, and the other was, I was selected as the art gifted student at CalArts, and I experienced many different perspectives of art and designs. At the age of 14, it was my first official class at the university with art and design professors, and I was amazed by the art education in America. That experience strongly led me to become a fashion designer, and also made me go to New York to study fashion.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have two lines from my brand, one is Moon Chang, the hybrid couture line, mainly focusing on traditional couture using recycled materials with traditional couture fabrics. My second brand, VENUS IN BLACK is a lifestyle and contemporary line founded in the heart of New York, It was born with the love of my dog, Venus In Black. Venus is mostly received as the goddess of beauty, however, Venus is my muse, black french bulldog. I reinterpret Venus as the symbol of dualism, related to my aesthetic and philosophy. VENUS IN BLACK is inspired by the dog and fashion culture in NYC, which is boundless and full of freedom by highlighting the contrast of the beauty and the beast, the light of purity and the darkness of the shadow, and the fantasy and the reality. VENUS IN BLACK is a wardrobe version of my couture line by accentuating the comfort and functionality so that customers can mix and match together with their pets.

The concept of my brand Moon Chang is, using “cuteness” as the survival mechanism by solving mental health from the perspective of a fashion designer. My design can look like a beautiful collection, but inside of it, there is a dark and sad experience, and much research behind it, which will evoke people’s curiosity and sympathy. There was the special challenge of this collection. I chose PTSD and mental health as the main concept of my brand because I found a hope that fashion has a healing power. This journey started with my personal experience being a victim of the fashion industry, fashion overcame my health. I realized this is not just my experience, it is for everyone who is in the fashion industry, moreover, people living in this society. My collection looks beautiful externally, but inside of it, there are dark and sad experiences, and many researches behind it, which will evoke people’s empathy and curiosity.

Before moving onto the design process, I studied a lot about PTSD, starting from personal experiences to medical and scientific research. Darwin’s evolution theory played an important role in my research, saying every life has a strong feature to survive, and I thought of animals like dogs, cats, and rabbits, who have cute features like big eyes, ears and fluffy and soft fur. I applied automatically to my concept, using cuteness to survive, into the clothes, and came up with a traditionally survived and inherited with cute features, such as a ribbon, ruffles and flowers, especially from 17th century couture techniques.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The brand goal of Moon Chang is to elevate the environmental human and animal friendly lifestyle, to work on enhancing animal rights, and to abandon toxic and non recycled materials, animal leather and furs. Moon Chang promises to be a sustainable, ethical, and beautiful brand which is born with the love for coexistence with human and animal, and with human and nature. Our mission statement is “Create the boundless beauty for the coexistence with human and animal, and with human and nature! Do Cute! Do Right! Do Serious! VENUS IN BLACK!”

We illustrate the story of our lives, and also want to share my talents and resources with many young students. As the long term goal, we are planning to do “Charity and Educational Collaboration” for the young creative. We found out there are many students who want to study fashion, but are also facing difficulty going to school for many external reasons. As the brand’s long term project, and as an fashion educator, our brand Moon Chang is also planning “the brand as an educational platform” to mentor young generations about the fashion foundation and business process. We want to create an industry mentoring system by collecting many other brands and designers to participate to teach young students who want to become fashion designers.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is very important for my brand Moon Chang, which makes us grow, and get huge attention after launching my brand with NYFW. My brand doesn’t use any PR agency, we handle all the PR marketing by ourselves and social media, especially, instagram was very helpful. It was the space where we could meet many industry officials and customers all around the world. Interactivity and communication are the key assets to build the audience, these digital and visual assets are very powerful to interact and gain attention from viewers, and at the end, this leads customers or buyers to encounter the actual products. However, the key point here is, the quality and consistency of artworks and contents in creative, honest, and respectful ways. Definitely, all the posts being loved, collaboration shoot with Vogue, L’officiel, Schon, Numero, Wonderland, and so on. However, followers really enjoy the collaborations with celebrities the most, and also the positive perspective of the celebrity collaboration is, their fans also become fans of my brand, and my fans also become theirs. One of the biggest followers I received was the collaboration with Sadie Sink, aka Maxine, Stranger Things, Netflix, and I could feel the power of the Netflix show, and fandom of the character. Also the other collaboration with Taylor Momsen was also amazing, this leads to high sales after posting on instagram, as she was Jenny, one of the main characters from Gossip Girl, as she was the fashion icon.

We have distinctive plans over social media postings. For the posts, we mainly post the official outcomes and collaborations from mainstream fashion media or official announcements from the brand. For the stories, this is the fun part, which followers are having engagement with, we do upload official, but also personal stories of the brand, which followers want to know about, such as daily life or weekend vibe of the founders, Moon Chang and her French bulldog, Venus In Black.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://moon-chang.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonchangny/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moonchangny
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/tx5GAQqbdAk?si=A6dk2Fs7ZljTxZ1K

Image Credits
First six images, with 1 Venus Studio Poster, 3 Pink Background, 2 Light Grey Background, images credits to Moon Chang Studio, photo by Moon Chang. Vogue Editorial ( Last two with Darker Background, image credits to Vogue Italia, photo by Song Choi)