Being a young, private brand of a small size, CATENATVS insists its own understanding of design and craft and tries to communicate with a consistent attitude, despite instant gushes of trends. CATENATVS is a translation of my surname in Chinese, 奚 (Wu: yí, Mandarin: xī, Cantonese: Haī), which is a hieroglyphic character of a man chained on his neck. It dates back to as early as when surnames were initially used among ancient Chinesemen. The logo of CATENATVS is a figure derived from this hieroglyph in oracle bone script. The heraldic shape of the logo and the Latin word are memorials to my experience in South Europe and are humble homage to everything that have ever inspired me during those wonderful years.

I was born and grew up in Soochow, China, a city famous for its rich history and fine arts. Artists and artisans here have been passing the tradition of craftsmanship over generations. I passed my childhood wandering in the streets full of ateliers of silk, embroidery, fans, umbrellas, watching travelling tinkers and cobblers work door by door. When I stayed home, I was always crafting thingies from cartons that I could lay hands on – most of them were cigarette cartons of my grandfather’s. I could pass a day happily with one ruler, one pencil, one pair of scissors and one bottle of glue. For me, the fun was behind tools and materials and I never failed to catch it.

When I was about seven years old, I dreamt of having my own wallet. I didn’t like the small polyester wallets with cartoon figures printed on them that I could find in the shops near our school, so I decided that I would make one for my own. One afternoon, I took the chance when I was alone home and I dragged out a bolt of cloth that my mother saved for her own suit, cut two pieces off with the heavy tailor’s scissors that I could barely hold and sewed them together on three sides with crooked stitches. I guess I never fancied any credit card slot because I didn’t own any card to insert. My mother, to her dismay, found the bolt of cloth with two huge holes carelessly cut when she returned home from work. But after seeing my new wallet made of checked cloth with a two Yuan bill in it, she laughed and said: “You forgot to add a zipped compartment for coins!”

My interest in crafting grew as I grew older. As I went to middle school in Pingjiang district, an area that hasn’t changed much since Song Dynasty, I had the opportunity to have a closer look at creating and crafting: some of my teachers were actual painter, seal sculptor, calligrapher, carpenter and sometimes real all-rounders. I tried grinding and polishing stones, sharpening various knives; I spent one semester, two hours every week, grinding brass bars and eventually made a pair of pliers to crack walnuts.

It was during my internship in a theatre in Beijing back in the university when I had the chance to observe the manufacturing process of costumes and leather bags. I was interpreting for an opera director and stage designer from Italy and we visited several prop factories on the outskirts of Beijing. Being props for opera, they were reminiscences of the life in the first half of the nineteenth century. They were still quite different from items of our days.

I went to Europe when I was twenty-two. I fell in love immediately with flea markets and bazaars and I would wander among the booths until dusk. I bought old blazers, ties, I bought leather bags and shoes made by Florentine artisans. In those years in Italy, France and Greece, I was absorbed in the great variety of costumes and accessories. However, until then, I was still hiding in the ivory tower and never thought of designing and making anything with my own hands.

When I was living in Greece, the brother of my girlfriend back then wanted to make a sheath for my kitchen knife that I brought with me from China. We went to a saddlery in the mountains and cut three feet of leather from their collections. It was the first time I stepped into a saddlery. I was stupefied by the strong odour of vegetable tannic acid and the fine tooling and stitching on the half-finished saddles. As a matter of fact, when I walk into a Tuscan tannery now, by smelling the intense scent of vegetable tanned leather, I can still remember my day in that Greek saddlery. This is the power of olfactory memory.

The making of this sheath has kindled my interest in crafting again, and, this time, I have found a material totally new to me. I soon gathered all the information I could find and started learning. The teachings of the masters in my middle school kept ringing by my ears. Life seems to be an ascending spiral and has brought me back to where I was, by only at a slightly higher position than before.

The establishment of CATENATVS is surely a turning point: it is the end of practising and skill-sharpening – I wouldn’t say it is the end of learning, for I am sure that learning is endless – and the beginning of exploring and eventually establishing the house-style of the brand. I do hope this small atelier, with all the effort and support, will find its own path in this fast-changing world.