Wúmíng

Wúmíng means "without name", and for the first two years the label sold exactly that way — unlabelled silk shirts passed between friends in Hangzhou, each one cut from mill ends the founder bought by the kilo rather than the metre.

The house works with a single family-run weaver an hour outside the city, on looms set slower than commercial speed. The resulting silk is heavier and quieter than the fabric the region is known for: it falls instead of catching the light, which is the whole point.

Everything is cut on a four-piece block. There are no darts. The founder describes the studio as "a room where we remove things", and the collection has shrunk every season since it began.