Derek Cheng

After co-founding a gender-fluid brand PONDER.ER, just before the pandemic began terrorising the world, Derek Cheng and business partner Alex Po began challenging the rigid norms and ideas of masculinity often associated with Chinese and Asian cultures.

“Liquifying masculinity is the starting point of our journey,” Cheng says. “We don’t see PONDER.ER as a loud protest and we don’t want to give answers. Instead, we invite everyone to experiment with us, starting with our everyday wardrobe.”

Now sold at exclusive retail locations, such as Ssense, Harrods and Joyce, the brand has garnered the patronage of Korean rapper BM and girl group NMIXX, as well as dancers in from the Hong Kong ballet. The road to success, however, was hardly a walk in the park.

“Alex and I came from an art-school background, which was a great environment for creative development, but building and managing a business is a completely different expertise,” says Cheng. Nonetheless, after graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2016, he’d gained the attention of Vogue, Highsnobiety and WGSN with a creative vision that “celebrated local cultures, social change, and the relationship between fashion and identity”. He also explains that starting during the pandemic enabled him and Po to align PONDER.ER with the needs and values of the local creative community.

Last year, PONDER.ER won the Yu Prize, which provides support to pioneering Chinese designers and helps them enter the global stage through partnerships with Shanghai Fashion Week and the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM). Having already exhibited at SPHERE, the official showroom of Paris fashion week, for three seasons straight, Cheng has now set his sights on hosting his first runway show in the French capital – it’s among the young fashion designer’s many creative ambitions.

“I see a lot of opportunities for myself and for PONDER.ER to achieve,” he says. “For example, we could have cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists and practitioners outside of fashion, physical pop-up events and presentations across the globe. Meaningful content that touches people’s hearts.”