About

Pan Pan was born in the very city where some of the lightest, earliest and finest silk garments in Chinese history dating over 2,000 years ago were unearthed. As Hanfugirl, she uses photos and social media to tell the visual story of ancient Chinese artforms and material culture, and their inherent connectedness to the rest of the world. She also has a healthy collection of replica dresses and textiles spanning over 2,000 years in style and craft. She is the one and only person in Singapore who specialises in research, education, photography, styling and editorial related to the Chinese culture and fashion history and also one of the few in the world to be writing about them in English for international audiences.

Pan Pan was first introduced to the term “Hanfu” in late 2015 when she chanced upon a beautifully made garment that looked nothing like the ubiquitous cheongsam yet was referred to as the traditional dress of the Han Chinese. She first created #hanfugirl in 2016 when she started dressing up in traditional Han Chinese dresses to work and it subsequently developed into a full-blown research and education endeavour to make historical knowledge relatable and accessible to the general public.

She has been invited by the Esplanade Theatre to present a showcase and fashion history walkway show on the 2,000 years of Chinese Fashion in 2017 and again in 2018 as part of their Moonfest programme offerings.

Trained as a visual artist in her formative years with knowledge of the western art history, Panpan combines her visual photo-artworks with editorials that often challenge pre-existing assumptions or stereotypes about the Chinese culture, and draws parallels between the past and the present, the East and the West. 

She has been featured on major local and international news platforms such as Channel News Asia, The Straits Times, Lian He Zao Bao, South China Morning Post, Vox and CGTN. 

She formally established the Hanfugirls Collective with like-minded people in 2019  and 2020 and received a residency opportunity at the Stamford Arts Centre under the National Arts Council where the collective conducted lectures, workshops and immersive performances related to ancient Chinese women and their art.

Hanfugirl regularly writes articles on Chinese cultural heritage, fashion and arts on her blog http://www.hanfugirl.io and maintains a Facebook page (Hanfugirl) and Instagram (@hanfugirl) which are sites for on-going exploration and discussions of topics related to culture and society. 

In her spare time, she likes to design accessories and small pieces of garments inspired by ancient Chinese fashion creations, crafts and motifs to be sold as limited edition creations.

She is based in Singapore, the melting pot of world cultures.