The man making many girls’ dream wardrobes come to life is actually just every girls’ dream bestie — a good listener, the number one hype-man, and personal stylist, all in one. That’s why MARKGONG as been on a steady come-up since its animal printed baby tees first snuck up on the female-forward consciousness. And this rise has only just begun — read the full conversation for more.
Editor’s Note: Would be great to pair reading this interview with Troye Sivan’s “She’s The Best”. There could be no better backtrack to this.
Where are you at in life right now?
At my current age, I would say I’m kind of chill and I’m trying to keep my life as balanced as possible.
Is there anything that particularly affects your mood on a day-to-day basis?
My mood really just depends what on what I’m feeling when I wake up. Do I feel tired? Or stressed? How I slept the previous night also affects this. If I wake up energetic, I’ll be in a really good mood.
So nothing specific?
Even if something stressful happens, when I put on some clothes and I look at myself in the mirror and think, “Oh, I look cute today,” then I’ll have a good day. An outfit can really have the power to change the mood of my day.
If you could liken MARKGONG’s come up to a character growth arc or story plot, what do you think of?
Sex and The City. She could feel sexy, not so confident or gloomy. Maybe she wants to fall in love, be bossy or get hooked up. She’s ever-changing and really urban, living in the city where she is experiencing all kinds of stresses and situations. But, living, nonetheless. So I think what my brand does is create all these different characters for women, allowing girls to see and embrace themselves no matter their mood, shape, form or colour.
When and how did this fashion dream start for you?
I really love when Rihanna said “she can beat me, but she cannot beat my outfit” — an outfit is basically a weapon to me. That is why it’s something I have been obsessed with since young.
It’s a weapon everyone has access to and can harness, and it allows you to take on new characters that can be totally opposite of who you really are. I think that’s the fun part of fashion. You can protect yourself, and you can make yourself feel strong at the same time. And for women specifically, I think it’s a great vehicle for her to embrace herself, to make herself look and feel good. I think feeling good is the most important part.
Did the women around you influence this? Whether it was who you saw on TV or the friends in your life.
Definitely, when I look at well-dressed girls. I want to be them. Not in a way that is sassy and on a pedestal, but in how I can really affect the people around me. But I also love how dolling up in something new just makes me feel so good about myself. So I think it’s like an innate thing. Like it’s just part of who I am.
You’ve been in the industry for a while. So far, has there been a lesson that you’ve learnt from working in the real world that you would never have learnt from Parsons?
There’s a lot of things [laughs]. I think the most important thing is that fashion is a business. It’s like any kind of business. Don’t look at fashion as an art. In the end, we’re trying to use this to make money. This is probably too straightforward, but it’s a business and you definitely need to ensure your company, your brand, survives. So I think that’s something designers these days need to be very clear about.
I feel like a lot of the young people always get caught up with fashion as a dream. But then they forget that you are also selling a dream.
Exactly. So you have to keep that balance. I think that’s most important part. Also, there’s plenty of other things that Parsons (School of Design) will not teach you. The production, the finance, how to work with your staff, how to advocate for yourself, how to talk to buyers, how to actually bring a big collection to life. So don’t get tricked up.
This is like a warning sticker.
Yes, don’t be fooled.
Is there something or someone that you are most thankful for while being on this journey so far?
Myself? I’ve already given some thought about what I would say if I won the CFDA award one day. [Laughs]
But honestly it takes a village, and there’s really a lot of people to thank. The stylists, my team, my family, my mom; there are a lot of people who are always pushing me. Friends push me too.
Doing a brand is not an easy thing. I feel like 99 per cent of the designers out there have thought about giving up at least once before because it’s such a stressful industry to be in. So I love to talk to my friends to express my emotions. But my friends say, “Why are you quitting? You’ve just got to do it.” And you basically need a lot of support to actually build up a brand. So there’s no one specific person that needs to be appreciated. There’s a lot of people who help me and our team throughout this journey. It’s always about teamwork. So I’m always thankful for whoever I cross paths with while building up MARKGONG.
Let’s talk about your clothes now. Inspiration can come out of nowhere, but also everywhere. Is there a specific place that you go to whenever you feel uninspired? Somewhere metaphorical or physical to reset or just clear your mind?
Before MARKGONG, I would always find inspiration in movies, books, or TV shows. But from last season and in the upcoming collection onwards, I’ve become more inspired by feelings. Not the feeling of being a Gen Z, which social media likes to overload on. Just good feelings and bad feelings. I feel like people now are very attracted to emotions. That’s why my last collection was about situationships. It’s all from daily life.
I’m not building specific characters; I want to create clothes that make people feel something. That’s why I’m exploring a lot of new silhouettes. I want to evoke emotions in people when they see my clothes. Situationships can come from something as simple as flirting with different guys, and I want to use clothes to make people feel that complex push and pull.
But if we are talking about routines or habits, I guess last season, I put on either Sabrina Carpenter’s latest album or oldest album and I go at it for like, ten hours straight. I just listen to it on repeat and go about my day to find and fine-tune that feeling. After that, I would then be able to decide things like what colour to go with what material. This is the fun process I’ve been going through lately.
So I guess music is kind of important, right?
Yes, I put on some music or set up a movie to play when I’m trying to pin down that “feeling” because I feel like the background sound helps me get into different moods. For me right now, I put on music to get into character, feel the beat, and then discover what new chemistry comes out of that moment.
You’ve worked with a lot of big names over the past few years, but I’m sure you have your own image of who this GONG GIRL is, What’s something you’ve learnt from working with these actual It girls?
I learn a lot from working with the stylists of these artists. Sometimes they just cut the skirt or shorts shorter without hesitation, or add different layers when styling. I always get inspired by them. So actually I always love meeting and working with new GONG GIRLs.
I try to be very open-minded. Like Margot Robbie — why not? I love the surprises that come from seeing new girls wear my pieces. I tell my friends that I love to see a good- Barbie-gone-bad moment. That drives me crazy. So whenever we get new requests, we get excited.
Seeing different girls, different ages, different body types, and different nationalities wear MARKGONG gives me new inspiration.
Does working with It girls expand or change your idea of what an It girl should be?
It definitely expands my image, for sure. When I work on my new collections, I’ll also have more thoughts about trying new lengths, or a different heel, a new colour. That’s why you can see there’s more and more colour coming out in my collections.
I want to see more older women wearing MARKGONG and just being sexy and confident. I’m super interested in dressing her.
You’ve quoted dressing Rihanna and Lisa at the Oscar’s as career highlights. Have there been other sartorial moments that you hold close to heart?
I think there was one time that I really just lost it. I’m a huge BLACKPINK fan. So when I went to watch the girls in Hong Kong knowing Jennie ordered a look from me but I had no idea if she was actually going to wear it, seeing her go up on the stage wearing a total look… I was speechless. We are already good friends with Lisa’s team, so she is more like a family thing. But Jennie — I’m such a fan. The whole atmosphere when she walked out in MARKGONG… I felt like I became a fan of her all over again. This is honestly like the best part of my career.
Do you get to meet them?
Yeah.
We’ve been talking about dressing up and you also mentioned Barbies. What’s so thrilling about the act of dressing up for you? Whether for yourself or your models.
For me, it’s about feeling good. I always ask my models to put on the clothes and then get them to say how they feel. How do you feel wearing this? The heels can sometimes be like a weapon and it can hurt. But I always ask, “How do you feel? Do you feel sexy? Do you feel strong?” That’s the most important part. Even when models walk on the runway. Are they trying to show off their body and their attitude? Being confident is important when you wear my clothes. When you’re not feeling that comfortable, dressing up can bring out that confidence. That’s the most important part for me and the brand. When I wear something nice, I want to feel good about myself. Maybe there’s pimples all over my face, but when I put on the dress, it’s like, “Damn it, I look good.” I think that’s the most important part about making clothes and wearing clothes.
Is there a GONG GIRL in Gong Zi Ming who also wants to dress up?
You saw my coaching video?
The walking? Yes.
Well, I definitely practice a lot of walking in my house. I always imagine how I would walk if I were on the runway and if I were a girl wearing MARKGONG on the runway. Actually, 30 minutes before this call, I was trying on some new heels from our new collection, walking around this room. It’s like, “Mm yeah, this one is good.”
Do you try everything on?
Sometimes. Especially if I need to test the show music. I will literally borrow a pair of heels and bring it back to my house and just listen to the demo and walk to the pace. It’s like, “Ok, this one’s going to make girls feel good” or sometimes we need to speed it up a bit.” So I do it try out sometimes to really try to feel the attitude.
MARKGONG as a brand is very ultra-feminine, but you are ultimately a guy, How do you find that feeling to become that girl?
Most of my friends are girls. I get so much information from them every day, about how they feel, how they dress up, how their relationship is, how their marriage is, and even how their kids are. I get so many different ideas from women of different stages of life, different ages, so my mind is always constantly processing in a female way. I’ll even put on a female character sometimes. When I design, handle castings or fittings, I put on my female mood. I just try to put myself in their shoes and get a different vision of them.
You’ve done a few men’s looks before, but do you ever think there will be a men’s collection in the future?
Pending. I’m still struggling on that part for sure, and there are a lot of people who have been asking me about this. Where’s the GONG BOY? And I was like, “Well, just hold on. I don’t know yet. Maybe in the future.” But so far, I don’t know.
Ok, because I don’t think I can deny the soft boy movement that is happening, so I personally feel there’s quite a desire for a MARKGONG take on this.
Yeah, that’s definitely something I’ve been processing in my mind. I see it too. But I need some time to really come up with a good vision for that. Till then, you’ll just have to wait until I am able to come up something cute enough for the boys.
I will be waiting, I’ll be quite excited if it happens. And speaking of vision, I want to talk a little bit about your show productions. They are essentially world-building exercises every season. But I’m sure there’s the pressure to build something bigger each time. How do you grapple with that?
My team and I were literally just talking about this. [Laughs] It’s like, “Girl, we’ve been doing big shows every season. How long are we going to keep at it?” The struggle is there. Right now, me and my team are just setting up the mood to be like, “It’s ok, we can slow down sometimes or just do a simple show.” We can just really focus on casting, or just a venue, or even just the music. So that’s why I said earlier that I am trying to keep my life as balanced as possible. Not trying too hard, just trying my best to not kill myself. So I think the balance I want to maintain right now is building up the business at a more sustainable pace. We don’t have to be crazy about having a 3,000-people show. Slowing down is fine, too.
Last season, my art directors asked if we could just do something simple. That’s why we mainly focused on building the mood. The motel show last season killed me. So we made a purple maze out of velvet. We didn’t go as hard as the season before, but the outcome was amazing. I felt like I didn’t have to be so aggressive about setting up a big Eiffel Tower in the show. Sometimes we just need to focus on the clothes themselves and we might get something interesting out of it too.
Well, I think that’s quite a confident thing to say. I feel like your brand has always carried an air of confidence from my perspective. Not from always being very bold, but also knowing there’s no need for big fanfare to show up and show out.
We have to trust ourselves, so people trust us, too — we won’t let them down. But we’ll see; the new collection is coming soon. Few more months to go.
Like I said before, you’re a male designer who’s designing for women. What is one thing you hate to see other male designers do for the female body? Are there pet peeves?
That’s sh** I would talk to my friends about. [Laughs] People know my best friend is Shushu Tong, and we judge each other’s work all the time. We always talk about our designs, show each other our hand sketches. I’ll ask, “What do you think about that?” Then he’ll be like, “I don’t understand.” And vice versa. When I showed him the Margot Robbie boots, he was like, “Girl, I cannot.” Yeah, he definitely doesn’t understand. So many girls started requesting for those boots not long after and it became like our number-one selling boots. That’s also the first time a pair of MARKGONG shoes really stood out to the public. When Shushu designs those cute, bowed, princess-y dresses, like for dolls, I’m like, “Girl, are you sure about that? Like, who’s gonna dress up like that?” And then he’s like, “Ok, Mark, this is our best-selling dress.” Ok, no offense. Right now, I don’t judge. I mean we have like eight billion people on this planet. Somebody is definitely going to love it.
It’s like when you don’t understand your best friend’s boyfriend. But it works out for them. I think it’s the same thing for clothes. Different clothes work for different people. People have different tastes, so they feel good in different kinds of garments. So right now, I’m just trying to be open-minded. I’m open to see all kinds of design, how people dress up. That’s life and that’s… and that’s what makes the fashion industry fun. People always dress up differently and different clothes give different people different characters. So, I think that’s the most important part.
But is there anything in womenswear specifically that you want to see more or less of?
Sometimes, I get a little sick of quiet luxury, but I myself am obsessed with that. I won’t design clothes for that client, but I wear The Row all the time. [Laughs] That’s why like I said, I always try to be open-minded. Maybe you might hate quiet luxury this season, But you might feel differently for the next. Or like I could hate very sexy dresses or doll dresses now, but that could work out for the new collection.
So you’re also open about how your own opinions of things might change?
Yeah, exactly. Last season, there were actually a number of new silhouettes that I had not tired before. So I’m really proud of having challenged myself for that. That’s why I think I might start to choose new fabrics that I’ve not worked with before, or try different techniques that I haven’t done before. In being more open-minded, I feel like you find more inspiration and different angles to see clothes and fashion.
You never know when something is going to be in or out again.
That’s exactly what I called my friends about last night. She was having a little “love situation”. I was like, “Stay open-minded. You might not like him now, but maybe in the next couple years, he might be your dream type. Just be open.” For my very first launch, the Spring ’25 collection, I was doing these dog print T-shirts. I told my friends like, I don’t know why we’re making baby clothes with animals on it, but these pieces ended up that becoming one of our biggest selling pieces of all time. So you just got to be open-minded. You cannot miss a chance.
In the next 5 to 10 years, where is MARKGONG going to be? Or is there even a need for that vision?
Building up MARKGONG at a steady pace and to a bigger scale. We’re actually going to open our very first brick-and-mortar boutique soon.
Yes I saw! In Shanghai, right?
It’s a long time coming but I’m also just really taking things step by step. I just want to keep my life balanced and let come what comes. If I stay chill, keep feeling good and serving the good stuff, people are going to feel it too, and eventually love what I love.
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