The Moxie Series: Kimberly Wong

You have three fundamental principles: communication, attention to detail, and following personal passion. How did your experience in Japan inspire you to live by these principles?

Fresh out of school, I shunned taking corporate marketing jobs in New York and instead headed off to rural Japan for a bit of adventure as an English teacher. At that time I couldn’t speak Japanese so I needed to study hard to understand the culture through its language. Japanese people and companies always paid attention to detail in their customer service no matter what they were doing – from being in school or working at a convenience store. While I was living in Japan I discovered my passion for food because most of the children’s parents were farmers. I still remember the very first REAL tomato I ate. 

你有三个基本原则：沟通交流、注意细节和追从内心的热情。那么，你在日本的生活体验是如何激发你按照这三个原则生活的呢？

刚毕业，我就放弃了在纽约的一份企业市场营销的工作，转而去到日本的农村地区当一名英语老师，这样做也是为了有一点点冒险的感觉。当时，我完全不会说日语，所以我必须非常努力地学习日语以试图从他们的语言中了解当地的文化。日本人以及日本公司，无论做什么都会特别关注在服务客户过程中的各种细节，从还在学校读书到在便利店打工都是如此。在日本生活期间，我也发掘了自己对食物的热情，因为我的学生们大多是农村家庭，我仍然还清晰地记得自己在当地尝到的“真真正正”西红柿的味道。

What kind of person do you design cukimber for? What kind of message do you want cukimber to convey?

cukimber is purely about the happiness I feel when I create art. The person who is a “target market” would just be other people who want to be happy and want to have a change in monotony. One of the best products I’ve been selling is my face masks. People do not just want to wear the plain surgical masks!  

你的品牌cukimber是为了什么样的客户群体而设计的？你想透过cukimber传达什么样的信息呢？

cukimber代表了我在艺术创作中最纯粹的快乐。我们的“目标客户”仅仅就是那些同样想要变得快乐或者想要从单调乏味中做出改变的人们。口罩是我所设计的最棒的产品之一，人们也不想只戴着普普通通的外科口罩。

What was it like to open your popup in Xintiandi, one of the trendiest fashion centers of Shanghai?

It was a bit surreal. I was literally a nobody, but I got a chance in a mall to open on the first floor, between Yohji Yamamoto and Jason Wu shops. The week before, due to some difficulties with pop-up food & beverage concepts, the shop that had been blocking full view from the entrance closed, and you could see my signage from Huaihai Lu. However, I don’t attribute just a view from the street into success right? I had to measure it in terms of the slow burn of needing to understand fashion and selling the pieces that don’t move as quickly as one might assume. Every step of the process takes a great deal of time and effort, as well as dealing with wanting to realize a lifelong dream of being a fashion designer without burning out. 

你在上海最潮的中心之一——新天地开的快闪店是什么样的呢？

这家店是有一点超现实风格的。我其实只是一个无名之辈，但是我得到了这样一个在新天地一楼开快闪店的机会，店面就在山本耀司先生和吴季刚先生的店之间。一周前，因为快闪店食物和饮料概念上的一些难题，我们的店不得不关闭了，并且已经从入口开始全部被封了，不过你还可以在淮海路看到我的签名。但是，我不会说，能让人们在如此繁华的街上能够看到我的作品，这就能算作成功了，对吧？对我来说，我会把成功视作真正地理解时尚并且以比预期要更慢的节奏来卖出单品。这个过程的每一步都会耗费大量的时间和努力，当然，面对自己想实现成为时尚设计师的人生梦想且要避免失去热情也同样费力。