Zoe Siu is a Hong Kong-based knot designer known for her bold, sculptural accessories and striking ropework installations. Weaving together traditional craftsmanship and inventive design, Zoe founded the accessories label ZOEE in 2011. She has also been exploring the architectural possibilities of rope, and has transformed retail and gallery spaces with ropework installations.

KNOTTING MILL

Originally trained as a fashion designer, Zoe Siu founded her own accessory and jewellery label to showcase her innovative craftsmanship, particularly her knotting and ropework skills. Knotting Mill is inspired by Hong Kong’s textile mills in the post-war heyday as industrialists from Shanghai set up factories and trained a generation of workers in Hong Kong. Renowned for their quality and value, the products from these factories were made into apparel locally and exported worldwide. Based on this history, Siu, instead of fetishising remnants of the past, designed an installation that consists of two semi-circular racks connected to a number of hanks by a network of knots and ropework. In place of the bobbins from the textile mills of yesteryear, the yarn and knots symbolise Hong Kong’s textile heritage. In Siu’s contemporary reinterpretation, the knots stand for the recollections, people and objects from the old textile mills that collectively made social and economic history.