Across Chinese history, knots functioned as language — symbols of continuity, protection, union, and luck. Long before written systems, before borders or formal records, stories were tied by hand. Knowledge moved through repetition and touch. A single cord, folded and pulled into meaning.
Knots appeared everywhere: in clothing, architecture, ritual objects, and daily tools. They marked beginnings and endings. They secured what mattered. To knot was not to embellish, but to hold — materially and symbolically.
This way of thinking extended beyond objects into daily life. Forms were shaped by use, ritual, and proximity to the body. Softness was not weakness, but intention. Things were made to belong to their surroundings rather than dominate them.
Traditional domestic forms reflected this philosophy. Designed for interior spaces and everyday ceremony, they encouraged quiet movement and awareness. Comfort, humility, and closeness to the body were prioritised over spectacle. These objects did not announce themselves; they participated.
What endured was not the surface, but the logic beneath it.
The knot sits at the centre of this thinking — a meeting point of function and meaning. It gathers, binds, and holds. Structure becomes symbol through use, not ornament. Nothing exists without purpose; nothing is purely decorative.
To work with the knot today is not to replicate the past, but to continue it. Not nostalgia, but continuity. A belief that form can carry memory, and that what is made by hand can still speak.
Between form and feeling.
Between past and present.
Between what is seen, and what is carried.
Enter the JIE / 結 Collection
