Rem Zathang

Excerpts from an Interview with the Designer

Recorded on: March 8 2023

Tell me about your collection!

I wanted to do something where I could show the university my culture. I was working with this linguistics professor, we were doing research on languages in my culture, in my home country, and how they're so diverse.

Us Chin people, we live in America especially, there's a lot of people from my community in Indianapolis. Not a lot of people know, and so she was telling me that we should do something to show people that are not our people that we exist too. Our culture and languages are very rich. I got inspired to do something with my traditional clothing, but not fully the traditional clothing, by putting elements or bits and pieces of the fabric on my designs to show my culture.

But at the same time, we live in the modern day, so also a bit of the modern style, a city vibe. My whole inspiration is to show traditional clothes as everyday wear. Because, the traditional pieces, you can't really wear them every day. They're not very practical to wear or work with. We only wear them on special occasions or celebrations. So I thought, what if I make something that is very traditional where you’re taking a piece of your culture with you, but in the form of clothing. I wanted to do so many pieces and show so much, but I have to limit myself to a certain number. My concept is culture and modern colliding because where I come from, I don't want to forget that either. And where I Iive now, it’s all American culture now, so those two cultures are colliding.

Could you talk a bit more about the culture you’re bringing to this collection?

I am from Burma, now called Myanmar. There are many ethnic groups in the country, and I’m from this ethnic group called Chin. And even in the Chin ethnic group, there’s multiple languages, thousands of languages. So, even someone from Chin, I might not speak the same language as them, but we’re both Chin. 

The language, the clothing, the fabric, it is very diverse. My friend, my roommate, she's Chin too, but she speaks a different language. Her, her clothing, her fabric, they're all different. They’re weaved differently. 

So what I am going to be doing for my collection is not probably going to cover all the traditions. I'll probably pick one and go with that one.

What silhouettes are you planning on including?

In my collection, I have four women and one man. I am more inspired by formal wear, but also office wear. That is more of my style. Right now I'm very scared of color, which maybe I should work on more because right now, I only work with black and nude colors. 

I see black as very versatile. It can be anything from streetwear to a ball gown or something very formal. So right now, my design is kind of in the middle, something that you can wear to work, in an office job, but something that you can wear to a party.

To me, I don't really need to have a setting to wear a certain type of clothes. I see it as like you just wear whatever you want anywhere. I like to dress up everywhere I go. So for people that don't know me, they’ll think, “Oh, like you're too dressed up for this. Like you're just going to a grocery store.” But I will express myself everywhere I go.