about
unisecon was founded in new york in 2018 by designer nina shuyi jiang.
becoming a mother and beginning the label in the same year brought nina back to the making she knew as a child: working with her hands, arranging materials and finding possibilities through repetition. this attention to everyday gestures continues to shape the collections.
nina studied fashion design at parsons in new york and pattern cutting at central saint martins in london. her early work at boris bidjan saberi sharpened an interest in how construction and material shape the space around the body.
working mainly with natural materials, we explore how cutting, joining, folding and weaving change the structure of cloth, and how it moves around the body.
the work often begins before a garment can be cut. cloth is taken apart and made into a new surface; strips are finished individually before weaving; folds are arranged and secured by hand. these repeated steps create the structure, texture and movement of the clothes.
materials and making
handwoven cloth
we work with a handweaving workshop in hebei, china. selected fabrics are woven on traditional looms; variations in yarn and tension remain visible in the cloth. some begin with hand-spun cotton and natural dyes.
patchwork
drawing on the chinese tradition of baijia yi, cloth is cut into strips and pieces of different widths, rearranged and joined into a new fabric before the garment is cut.
weaving
inspired by chinese bamboo weaving, we cut cloth into strips, prepare their edges, then interlace or knot them. changes in direction and tension give the fabric a different density and volume.
pleating
folds are arranged and fixed by hand, one at a time. their width, number and placement shape the garment's volume and the way it falls and moves.