Two bi-coastal friends develop sustainable fashion brand

Isabella Chan, a senior creative writing major at Chapman, partnered with her friend Katie Xue, a senior at New York University, to create a sustainable mid-luxury fashion brand, Amoy New York. Photos courtesy of Isabella Chan

Back in 1969, English-French singer Jane Birkin wore one of the most notable dresses of our time at the premiere of a French film "Slogan." Birkin's sheer sweater dress — notably named the "naked dress" — was the definition of daring and demure in the fashion world.

For two college students with a shared love for fashion, that dress was the inspiration for their growing fashion business: Amoy New York.

Isabella Chan is a creative writing major at Chapman University and Katie Xue is an individualized studies major at New York University. Despite living on opposite sides of the country, they banded together to create the fashion brand.

Xue and Chan share experiences with boarding school, living in China at different times in their lives and of course, a love for fashion — which allowed their friendship to blossom so quickly. 

Even though Isabella Chan (left) and Katie Xue (right) live on opposite sides of the country, they both share a love for fashion, which was enough for them to start their fashion brand.

Despite becoming "pandemic friends" while they were both in New York, each socially distanced outdoor dining session revealed how much common they truly have. Thus, during the height of the COVID-19 quarantine, the duo told The Panther they knew they wanted to start a project together — but the question was what kind of endeavor would they pursue?

"It was a podcast at first, then it was a magazine and then it was a blog,” Chan said, “Nothing really worked out. We've always done these very weird ventures on our own. So when we came together, we tried to do all these weird ventures together. (Amoy New York) just happened to be one of the weird ventures that actually worked out — out of the many random things that we would do."

Founded in 2021, Amoy New York is a mid-luxury fashion brand that values sustainability and creating pieces that people can continue to reach for in their closet. While they were inspired by Roberto Cavalli and vintage fashion, Xue said Amoy emphasized that luxury fashion brands are still responsible for following an ethical production process along with creating works of walking art. 

"(Amoy is) for the girl who's on the go and needs to be everywhere at once,” Xue said. "The whole point of our clothing is you can dress it up and dress it down."

When it came time to decide on a name, Chan and Xue wanted a calling card that represented their unique similarities, including living in China as well as their promise to represent the Asian American community in their business. Thus, Amoy, which is the name of the town Chan lived in for 14 years, was crowned the winner. 

"(The name Amoy) was trying to blend the fact that both of us had lived in these two places and China being the place that represents who we are as designers and who we are as people," Xue said. "Some of our photoshoots, they're done in China-towns. We try to feature diverse models (and) a lot of Asian American models because we do try to represent ourselves and Amoy New York is that blend." 

Despite the fact that Xue could spend weeks wearing head-to-toe black and Chan could wear anything from sweatpants to six-inch high heels, the versatility of Amoy allows for both of their differing styles to flourish in various ways.

"We've focused on more classic silhouettes and pieces," Chan said. "They're timeless and because we do have similar values, but different styles, inherently it kind of balances out to serve a style and silhouette that ends up being very flexible. Very much of a foundational kind of piece."

Chan and Xue said they are immensely flattered that people decide to wear Amoy's clothing for special occasions in their lives. Xue said it also gives the duo validation that all their work doing public relations, customer service, social media, clothing design and web design for the brand pays off. 

"It's also really interesting when we get like a random TikTok or random Instagram and it's someone trying on the dress for the first time being like, 'Oh, I love it,'" Xue said. "Or it's some girl being like, 'I just got engaged in your dress,' (and) we're like, 'Oh my god.'"

Along with the success of two launches on their website, Amoy hosted an event in New York during Fashion Week this fall. The event, which was held in Soho and co-hosted by the e-commerce brand SnipFeed, allowed Amoy to thank their loyal customers and network during one of the most important weeks for the fashion community. 

"It was just great to be able to throw an event for our clients and a lot of the people in the industry that had reached out to us to connect when we started Amoy," Chan said. "So it was just like an important opportunity for us to connect with all those people and solidify those relationships."

Although Amoy has exceeded their expectations in the quantity of orders, they continue to follow a pre-order system to avoid any inventory waste. In order to keep their promise of sustainability, Chan said anything from the order process to the recycled fabric must uphold the brand's values.  

"Inventory overflow is one of the biggest problems in fashion," Chan said. "Having clothes made before you know people are going to buy them is a huge waste. Those clothes just go in the trash after, and it's just super sad. A lot of these brands just have inventory waste up the wazoo and we really didn't want to do that. We want to minimize that sort of consumption. So we are a made-to-order brand." 

As for the future, Xue and Chan are not sure where Amoy will be in the next few years. Their dream is to have a physical storefront and make a full-time career out of Amoy. Those dreams are becoming stronger every day. 

"I was driving back from a shoot we had with Amoy," Chan said. "I was listening to the song and I was zoning out on the road, and I was having the most clear vision of me and Katie picking out the playlist or the mix for our first physical store. I was going crazy over it because it was so clear in my brain.”

Overall, Xue and Chan hope that anyone who visits their website, orders their clothes or attends any future events is able to understand the passion put into everything Amoy creates. 

"We just hope that the Amoy girl or whoever sees (our clothing)... we hope that it resonates with them, that they also want to be comfortable and value sustainability and care about where their clothing is coming from," Xue said.