The Lazy Lady: Sofi à Paris founder talks slow fashion in Shenzhen

Sofi Han designs slow fashion in a world of paradoxes. We meet the 25-year-old half-Korean, half-Chinese designer over a drink in Coco Park to discuss her fledgling brand, Sofi à Paris. Dressed in a boxy yet slouchy maroon shirt of her own design, black capris and plain dark sneakers, she espouses the same ease and directness embodied in her new collection, Lazy Lady.

“The main focus of the brand is to not just sell a garment, [but tell] a story behind each look,” Han explains through her boyfriend-turned-translator Sander. She does this by taking different Chinese fabrics and incorporating them into Parisian styles.

Han began studying fashion at 18 in France at the Esmod fashion school’s Paris campus. In 2013, with her formal schooling complete, she traveled to Yunnan and Guizhou to learn about design and production of silk, cotton and hemp.

A year later she launched Sofi à Paris in Shenzhen, the city she’s called home since moving here, aged 5, from Harbin. We ask why she chose Shenzhen over Shanghai to base her brand. She shrugs. “Why not Shenzhen?” she says, citing the city’s untapped potential as an incentive. “Shenzhen has a lot of fashion and quite a few designers, but the problem is none of them have broken through to the international or national level.”

Han has, like many residing in the special economic zone, an entrepreneurial spirit, an ‘if no one else, why not me?’ attitude common among the business-minded here.

While her attitude mirrors those of other business owners in Shenzhen, the similarities end there. In a country known for cheap, massive and quick production, Han chooses to make slow fashion, which is characterized by local sourcing, custom pieces, a longer production time and sustainability. In the words of one of America’s most famous slow fashion designers, Soraya Darabi of Zady: “It’s about understanding the process or the origins of how things are made, where our products come from, how they’re constructed and by whom.”

This idea seems counterintuitive to the ethos of Shenzhen, a city built through the speedy production of buildings, transportation and electronics. Fast fashion stores like H&M, Uniqlo and Zara feed into the collective mindset of lightning manufacturing – a mindset where a Zara item can be shipped from Spain to China and delivered in one to two days if it’s not available in-house.

Big brand outlets cater to people who walk into a shop needing an outfit for the night – one they can try on and purchase right away. In contrast, Han’s custom pieces take approximately five working days. Her Lazy Lady collection has less than 20 pieces in it, classified by six days of the week, such as Tranquil Wednesday and Champagne Friday.

Zara and H&M both have ‘sustainability’ listed in their mission statement, but what is the ultimate result of fast fashion production? Where do those unwanted, sustainably sourced and made clothes get tossed when the next trend arrives?

 In 2011, Los Angeles Times fashion writer Janet Kinosian succinctly summed up the answer in her thoughts on Lucy Siegle's To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing out the World?: “Textile industry production is responsible for nearly 30 percent of China's pollution, according to Siegle, and then ends up jamming landfills with mostly synthetic polyesters that take centuries to decompose.”

Conversely, slow fashion not only generates far fewer pieces than their fast fashion peers, but designers of slow fashion tailor more individual pieces and work more closely with the consumer – the person who will send a garment down the landfill path or keep it for years. Shoppers on Han’s website, sofiaparis.com, can speak with Han directly and pick fabric colors. This personalized input makes it more likely a customer will keep their purchases long term (slow fashionistas hope).

“We’re concentrating on the group of people who want to live a relaxed lifestyle,” Han says, explaining the concept and French inspiration behind her brand. “In France, people live a lazier lifestyle, more comfortable, relaxed.”

“I don’t just want to sell a piece of cloth. I want to tell a story with it, whether happy or sad,” she continues, refering to the vignettes Lazy Lady uses to elucidate each day’s look. Though the vignettes explain the outfits, each reads more like a poem than a traditional product description. 

They also serve to embody the two main psycho-sociological tensions explored in Han’s product line: the fully independent woman and her desire for a lover’s admiration juxtaposed against the modern business women fulfilling her commitments while living a lifestyle of ease.

For example, the NeoClassic Tuesday vignette reads: “With the passage of time // You’ll find your outlook broadens, your mind settles // And one day you’ll realize // Your story, your journey, is in fact none other than yourself.” Here, the woman of the Lazy Lady story expands her worldview and simultaneously works towards self-actualization. This seems paradoxical to the following day’s vignette: “For him // You always dress your best // For him // You discover a more beautiful you.”

Clearly, the focus has altered not only in the looks (from Tuesday’s white shift dresses to the deep red hues of Wednesday’s fitted pants and tops), but also in whom the woman seeks approval from: herself or an admirer.

“I want Lazy Lady to be for the women of today,” says Han. “They are independent, can provide for themselves, but they would enjoy that there is still somebody who cares about them in this lonely world.”

Han aims to make her pieces suitable for both the personal and the professional aspects of a woman’s life, creating one outfit that can have many uses. “By adjusting the piece a little bit, it can be tasteful and attractive,” she notes. Perhaps Lazy Lady would be more aptly called ‘Efficient Lady.’

Sofi à Paris’ website states it arose “in response to the demands placed on urban women to be different people in different places [at] different times.” Han thinks the pressure placed on modern women to fulfill their different roles comes from society and themselves. However, rather than having that pressure dictate a fast-paced lifestyle, her looks cater to people desiring quality and versatility over speed, hence an outfit which can switch from daywear to nightwear with only the smallest of changes.

Right now, Han is busy designing her winter collection. “I want to work on custom designs that can be suitable for anyone regarding materials, design and price range,” she says of the concept so far.

Though her label may revolve around slow fashion, Han is certainly no lazy lady herself. In Sofi à Paris, she has cherry-picked the best aspects of France and China and made them into a brand that functions at both the office and the bar.

// Sofi à Paris’ Lazy Lady collection can be ordered on sofiaparis.com. Simple pieces cost RMB600-700 and specialty orders RMB1,200-1,500.