A couple months ago, I teamed up with YETANG and big bro Nick to produce one of their monthly lookbooks. The theme was Back to School with a cool girl’s twist – complete with fake hot pink hair extensions – so we decided to shoot on my campus at Peking University.

Natasia Guo, founder of YETANG, and her team have been doing an incredible job bringing entrepreneurial startup vibes to Beijing. There are numerous well-curated online concept stores in the US/UK/Europe (Fab, LN-CC, Opening Ceremony) but in China this is a rarity. Besides Taobao – which is essentially a messy bomb dot com that sells everything you can imagine while inducing intense ADD and FOMO – there aren’t that many platforms selling well-designed products. YETANG fills that market gap and it’s exciting to see a fellow banana starting the waves. And yep, that was a hint towards the next victim for my #GIRLCRUSH interview series. Stay tuned yo.

Photographed by Victoria Jin | Styling by Zoe Zou | Makeup by Xiao Ming 晓明 | All clothes available on Yetang.com

I first met Irene back in September, during Beijing Design Week. She was wearing a Mondrian-inspired silk dudou from her own Beijing-based brand, PILLOWBOOK, which remixes modern aesthetics into traditional Chinese lingerie styles.

Fast forward a couple of months and a healthy amount of online stalking, I’ve tackled her down for a new series called #GIRLCRUSH. This will spotlight girls I meet who have that special spark, who inspire endless talks about the future, who have a vision, and who are really really hardworking.

Before we start, a definition of ‘Pillowbook’ might be useful! A long long time ago in China, whenever a girl just got married and was expected to finally be with her husband – she’d be like 12 or 13 years old at this point – her mother would give her this mysterious Pillowbook ting, showing her what was to be done in bed to make her man happy. (Sorry for the noob description guys, but my mom reads my blog…) Anyway. Here goes!

Read More