TEAM WANG – more than just a luxury streetwear label, the brand is an imaginative trendsetter that celebrates the notion of ‘Know yourself, Make your own history.” With the Lane Crawford offline exclusive COOKIES — STANDARD drop on the horizon, Jackson Wang, Designer & Creative Director of TEAM WANG design and Henry Cheung, Co-founder and CEO of TEAM WANG design sat down with us to share the behind-the-scenes of running this luxury streetwear label.
What's the creative process when designing this collection together?
Jackson: I usually start with some big concepts, then work on details with Henry and the team together.
Henry: I talk to Jackson a lot on daily basis, sometimes concepts or ideas would just pop up while we are chitchatting. When we nail down some concepts we like, then we start working on big ideas and more detailed execution plans with our team.
Were there disputes between the two of you when it came to creative direction for the brand?
Jackson: Always!!! LOL. Well, not at all. We have our own way to come to a conclusion, I can’t tell you how, but may be that’s because we are friends for years, we know each other well, so hard to come up with really “disputes”.
Henry: Our roles to the brand is different, so sometimes we look at things from a different angle.
What is your inspiration behind the COOKIES — STANDARD launch?
Henry: We think of our Cookies as a journey. When we first founded TEAM WANG, we had “Know Yourself, Make Your Own History” as our spirit and inspiration. Then we started Cookies 1, The Original, as we wanted to explore the origin of ourselves, then we went on to Cookies 2, Me vs Me, which was about how to deal with your own voice, and sometimes conflicts in our own mind. And, coming to this latest COOKIES — STANDARD, we would like to think about what is “standard”, everyone has a standard, and what’s yours?
Why "cookies"? What does it mean?
Jackson: I just think that collections and product drops are like snacks in our daily life, that’s why we came up with this term “cookies”. It stands for our mainline collection.
What kind of lifestyle does TEAM WANG represent?
Henry: It’s more about attitude, than lifestyle. It represents the attitude our team have towards life. We hope we all can gradually know more of ourselves and be able to make our own history. It’s not about big epic history, but it’s more about the history of your own which you believe in and you can be proud of.
Jackson: TEAM WANG lifestyle… um… I like things being authentic. Our brand is very true to our team, it represents the music we love, fashion and style we like. We feel comfortable in it, and it’s more than fashion, it’s not only about clothes. Sorry I can’t say too much… don’t want to spoil our plans.
What's your favourite piece from the collection? And, why?
Jackson: I love the whole collection. I probably won’t show something I don’t like. If I have to say one item, may be the beanie? Because I wear them very often during winter time.
Henry: I like our iconic black tee. Although it’s very simple, I like to represent TEAM WANG with my clothes. It’s also what I believe in and reminding me of our vision every day.
Why choose Lane Crawford as the exclusive offline retail partner with TEAM WANG COOKIES — STANDARD collection launch in China?
Jackson: I like going to Lane Crawford ever since I was at school, not only do I love shopping but I like the atmosphere there. I just like to window shop and look at the cool people hanging out there.
Henry: I used to hang a lot at the Lane Crawford store lifestyle section where they display bunch of different types of products there. I explored quite a lot in that section. There are different types of lifestyle products like chairs, tables, sculptures, and even wine glasses, plates and speakers - just anything that relates to your everyday life.
See also: our cold culture edit for more new season collections