LUO is the independent clothing practice of Luo Qingyang, an artist working with handwoven rope to explore the relationships between the body, memory and existence.
The practice began to take shape in 2021, when, three months after the passing of her grandmother, who raised her, Luo encountered knotting during a three-week course at university. At a time when much of her familiar world had fallen away, she found herself drawn to a process in which something could still be built by hand, one knot at a time. What began as an attempt to create something she could truly believe in gradually became a way of rebuilding her relationship with the world, and with herself.
Working primarily with cotton rope, Luo constructs three-dimensional garments directly through knotting. Rather than treating knots as surface decoration, she uses them to build the garment itself. Lines gather into planes, tension gives rise to structure, and the material develops into forms that follow and reshape the body, existing somewhere between clothing, a second skin and sculpture.
For Luo, knotting is a way of reclaiming agency in the face of uncertainty. When life resists being held together, the act of making offers a space in which decisions remain possible: where a line goes, how a structure takes shape, what is held together and what is allowed to change. Through repetition, dismantling and reconstruction, she finds a way to work with what remains within her reach, gradually building something that is her own.
Her practice is also deeply connected to memory and the experience of loss. Having grown up alongside her grandmother, Luo carries her presence into her own life and work. Creation becomes a way of giving form to what can no longer be held in the physical world, allowing memory and attachment to inhabit something tangible.
Each garment emerges through a process of sustained attention, in which material, structure and the body are brought into a continually evolving relationship. For Luo, making is not simply a means of expressing an existing self, but a way of reconstructing one: finding a sense of agency, giving shape to uncertainty, and creating a place from which to begin again.
