Q&A: How Artist Ruohan Wang Transcended UL Gear for Peak Performance

You use colors and characters, and the way they play together to symbolize outdoor movement. How do you translate something so layered onto an actual layer, like a jacket or tee?

This collection has been a very special creative experience for me.
It actually began with a very specific moment. While hiking in northern China, I saw someone practicing Tai Chi in the forest while wearing an outdoor shell jacket. In that moment, Eastern body philosophy and northern outdoor culture coexisted naturally within the same body. It wasn’t a “fusion,” but two different forms of reverence for nature unexpectedly speaking to each other. That image became the emotional starting point of the collection.

When I began designing, I was drawn to Peak Performance’s earthy palette—grounded, functional, and deeply connected to nature. I wanted to introduce another layer into that world—neon yellow for imagination and energy, leaf green as a bridge between human movement and nature, and beige-apricot as a reminder of warmth and humanity. Once those colors entered the system, the collection started to feel alive.

When translating these ideas into garments, I wasn’t asking myself whether a graphic simply looked good on a jacket. I was thinking about what happens when the garment moves with the body. The jackets are incredibly light, almost floating, while the graphics carry emotional and visual intensity. Those two forces—restraint and expression—became dependent on one another.

There's a Swedish word I kept thinking about: lagom—"just the right amount." The material conceals everything in places you can't see, while the imagery I brought in is abundant and unapologetic. These two logics became conditions for each other: restraint as invitation.

Do you feel as though the art and lightweight material are complementary or strike a balance?

I don’t really see the relationship between the graphics and the ultralight material as complementary or balanced. It feels closer to transformation, which is also a core principle in Tai Chi. In Tai Chi, stillness and movement are never truly separate. Stillness is motion accumulated to its most extreme state. Lightness is force before it fully reveals itself. That’s very close to how I experienced this collection.

The graphics carry density, emotion, and visual weight, but because the material itself is so light, that weight never fully lands. Instead, it begins to float and transform through movement. Every gesture changes the relationship between the body, the fabric, and the image.

What interested me most was that Western technical precision created the physical possibility for this feeling, while Eastern philosophy gave it emotional meaning. When worn, they stop feeling like opposites and become part of the same experience.

What sort of movement practices or outdoor activities do you gravitate towards? If so, how did that influence this project?

My grandfather practiced Tai Chi every day when I was young, and I used to quietly watch him. I think your description—“moving lightly and freely while remaining rooted in nature”—is one of the most accurate ways to describe it.

I’m drawn to movement practices that involve awareness rather than competition—long distance hiking, Tai Chi, or simply spending time outdoors very slowly. These experiences change your relationship with time. They make you sensitive to wind, gravity, texture, and small shifts in the environment.

What Tai Chi influenced most in me wasn’t only the movement itself, but the way it understands the body. It listens inward. That inward listening has filtered directly into this collection—the body logic of these characters isn't anatomical. It's perceptual. The characters aren’t anatomical—they’re perceptual. They represent emotional and physical states rather than realistic bodies.

The characters almost feel like talismans meant to evoke a certain way of being in the natural world. How did they come to you?

“Talisman” actually feels very accurate to me, though not in a mystical sense. I see these characters more as emotional reminders: to stay soft, adaptable, playful, and connected to the body and environment around us.

The characters didn’t begin as fixed designs. They emerged from sensations and bodily experiences. One image that runs throughout the collection is the idea of walking legs, inspired by the Chinese character 人 (“human”). Structurally, it’s extremely minimal, but it carries ideas of movement, existence, and connection.

There are 13 characters in total, each representing a different emotional or physical state. The Wind Catcher reaches toward things that can never truly be held—wind, air, imagination. The Forest Seeker wanders quietly through nature searching for stillness and quiet conversation with themselves. The Watcher simply observes and protects continuity. Together, they form a kind of philosophical expedition—not to conquer nature, but to sense it and coexist with it.

When worn outdoors, I hope they feel slightly surreal yet strangely natural, as if they had always belonged to the landscape. In that moment, the boundaries between body, garment, image, and environment begin to dissolve.

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