Growing up in communist China in the 1960's and 1970's, fashion designer Han Feng had little opportunity for creative expression. The rule of thumb around the country was conformity and she was discouraged from being too "adventurous" in her aspirations. She studied graphic design in Hangzhou, west of Shanghai, but her quest for originality would lead her even further west.

In 1985, she moved to New York City, where she took a job as a saleswoman at Bloomingdale's and began studying American style. Within four years, she was selling pleated scarves out of her apartment, and not long afterwards, showing her first womenswear collection in her own showroom. Since then, she has branched out into furniture design, interior design, and most recently, costume design for a new production of Madame Butterfly at the English National Opera this fall.

For Han Feng, the importance of design extends far beyond the physical realm of fashion. Design in any medium, she believes, provides a way to communicate values of the heart. From the canvas of attire - to décor, interior landscape and furniture design - to event settings, home entertainment and cooking - Han Feng makes the precious gift of inspiration and love focal points of her palette.

Structurally, simplicity and innovation are the touchstones of all her design work - reflecting Western functionality and Eastern spirituality, a warm and subtle play between the traditional and the contemporary.

Since the presentation of her first collection, Han Feng’s original designs have won many awards, among them the Vidal Sassoon Excellence in New Designs, The Asian American Federation Tribute to Excellence, The United States Department of Commerce Certificate for Great American Designers, and The Fashion Group International Rising Star Award. Over the years, her work has been featured in installations and exhibitions at Takashimaya and TZ Art in New York, The Storefront for Art and Architecture, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology and The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also taken part in an exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s.

Han Feng has appeared regularly in many major fashion and lifestyle magazines around the world. She has also acted as a guest lecturer at Harvard, The Fashion Institute of Technology and Parson’s in New York – and appeared on television programs including Martha Stewart Living, CNN and B. Smith With Style. She designs for various private clients, artists and celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Jessye Norman, Anthony Minghella, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kiki Smith, Sally Jesse Raphael, Blythe Danner, Mary McFadden, Martha Stewart, Anna Deavere Smith, Amy Tan and Paula Abdul.

It has long been Han Feng’s dream to return to China and integrate the Eastern sensibility that has always inspired her with the free-ranging creativity of the west. In May 2004, she opened a small boutique in Shanghai in an ultra-cool space she shares with several other designers. Her mission, as she sees it, is to inspire others to enjoy life, to live each day passionately, and to help empower today's woman to express herself however she sees fit.