Clothes should support life, not exploit it.
joy mao is a slow fashion studio creating small batches of thoughtfully-made clothing, accessories, and artwork. The brand centers people, process, and pleasure—in pursuit of a more sustainable and joyful way of being.
What you can expect
2025 is an ambitious year of work over here at joy mao, where I'll be aiming to accomplish at least twelve projects, roughly one per month:
Four collaborative collections — working with a fellow maker to experiment with new ideas and modes of making
Four personal projects — investigating a new material, skill, or story, to push myself as a textile artist and researcher
Four public programs — inviting people to make with me, fostering space for co-learning and connection through craft
And perhaps a few surprises!
Follow along on Instagram, or be the first to know via Substack.
Exploring natural color with Ryan Taylor
Serpentine Scarves is the first of the 2025 collaborative capsule collections, celebrating Lunar New Year — the year of the wood snake.
Created in thoughtful collaboration between slow fashion designers Joy Mao and Ryan Taylor, the limited collection features eight one-of-a-kind merino wool scarves, treated with a color-shifted natural dye.
Chores
Chores is an ongoing, collaborative body of work in Joy Mao’s textile art practice, featuring her hand-embroidered interventions on vintage garments.
Each piece bears a unique pattern of embroidery originally inspired by the unintentional yet beautiful splatters left on an old painting smock — embracing the rhythm of repair and rebirth, and celebrating the stains and scars left as evidence of hard work and deep care.
Collection 1 (No. 1-18) - sold out
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 1 (No. 19-28) - sold out
Collection 2 ᐧ Season 2 (No. 29-38) - available December 9, 2024 at 12pm EST
Substack Newsletter
A journal of sorts, with bits and pieces of studio life, reflections on each season of work, and relevant announcements and/or resources.
八宝粥 Ba Bao Zhou
八宝粥 Ba Bao Zhou is a capsule collection celebrating the everyday abundance of our beloved New York Chinatown.
Created in collaboration with Lorraine Lum and the Chinatown community during Joy Mao’s 2022 Artist Residency at The W.O.W. Project, the collection investigates how clothing-making can be a vessel for community care.
An inaugural edition of the collection was made-to-order in August 2022. Stay tuned on Instagram for future releases.
Written by Sophia Li, curated by Cameron Russell, photographed by Camila Falquez, styled by Rachael Wang.
Joy Mao and Lorraine Lum, by Camila Falquez for Porter Magazine
"As an artist and designer of her namesake sustainable brand – a slow-fashion studio creating small batches of clothing, accessories and artwork – Mao champions care that extends past those who you can directly touch, holding space for the unseen."
