Min Min and Nicole Ngai are Exploring Modern Chinese Womanhood

Fashion brand Hu Die Gong Zhu, born from the mind of designer Min Min, brings together contemporary post-internet, post-irony, post-everything sensibilities with elements of Chinese couture. In an exclusive shoot for Polyester, photographer Nicole Ngai captured Hu Die Gong Zhu’s mix of elegance and winking theatricality, featuring some of the brand’s most adventurous designs to date. After the shoot, Nicole and Min met up in London to talk about their inspirations, bringing camp to traditional Chinese design, and their ongoing collaboration. 

N: Hi Polyester! It’s Nicole and Min. We’re having lunch together in our favourite restaurant in Chinatown - Four Seasons. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend, the photographer Wei Shan, so we’ve been following each other for years before finally meeting in real life at the start of the year during a shoot. And we are real life friends now! What made your want to start your brand, Min?

M: Because I was bored, haha! During lockdown, I had nothing to do at home so I decided to start Hu Die Gong Zhu. But I always wanted to be a designer since I was a kid and I finally had some time to work on it.

N: What was the first thing you designed?

M: The Money Guard Qi Pao – the print had lots of traditional Chinese elements such as the tigers, the trees. But not too traditional between modern and traditional, kind of like “廉价”, which means cheap.

N: Your prints have a really youthful campy feel! You take traditional elements but make them over the top.

M: And also the traditional qi pao should be elegant, classic, sexy but my version is just a little bit funny and not elegant at all.

N: And I guess that’s fun because it’s a twist on the traditional qi pao and a take on modern Chinese womanhood.

M: How do the Hu Die Gong Zhu garments you photographed here make you feel?

N: I’ve always liked your designs! I’ve always felt very attracted to them, I think we have similar styles and explore similar themes in our work. And they’re so easy to photograph as well, they’re so beautiful!

M: What did you want to express in these images?

N:I really wanted to highlight the designs in these images, so I chose a simple colourama backdrop but used colour and worked with you on quirky posing to bring it to life.

M: And what inspires your photography practice more generally?

N: In general I like exploring intimacy and human connections. On smaller shoots like the one we did I’m more focused on having a good time! It’s very processed based for me and I always say the images are a reflection of the time we had. So I hope you had fun on our shoot! Bonus restaurant review of Four Seasons: 5/5! We always come here and it’s so good every time! My favourite dish today was roast duck and Min's special fried rice.

Photography: Nicole Ngai | Model: Min Min | Clothing: Hu Die Gong Zhu | Hair: MASAKI | Assistant: Iris Siqi