Practice Not Magic: Zoe Hong’s Sustainable Vision
How One Designer's Journey from Pencil to Platform Reshapes Fashion Education
Rethink the Runway partners with SF Bay Area’s top fashion educator Zoe Hong to hold a Fashion Drawing Workshop on Friday, April 25th, 2025. This event is hosted by Pinterest at their San Francisco headquarter, and it will feature upcycled garments by Fafafoom Studio.
In anticipation of this popular workshop, our Program Director Mira Musank spoke with Zoe Hong, whose fashion illustration and design tutorials provide thoughtful and wholesome education. Enjoy the conversation, and we hope to see you at the the Fashion Drawing Workshop on Friday, April 25th!
Mira Musank: Zoe, thank you so much for doing this workshop with Rethink the Runway! Through my admiring lens, you have an illustrious design career - starting from an intern, to creative director, creating your own label, teaching at universities, and now a successful YouTuber with treasures of content and book author.
Was there a distinct moment in your career where you want to switch gear from a maker to an educator?
Zoe Hong: When I first started teaching, I still was working at my own brand. I asked if I could start teaching only one class that semester because I wasn’t sure whether I would love it.
Only a few weeks in, I found myself looking forward to Tuesday mornings as my favorite day of the week, even with the difficult commute entirely too early in the morning. It was six hours with my dozen or so students and I became quickly addicted to engaging with my students and their varied approaches to fashion, the off-the-wall, untrained ideas of creativity, the fresh energy largely unmarred by cynicism.
Mira: What was the defining moment that sparked your passion for fashion illustration, and how has your artistic approach evolved since when you first started until now, having created hundreds of tutorials and sharing them on YouTube?
Zoe: There was no defining moment where I became obsessed with illustration. I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil in my chubby little fist. When I was a little kid, all I wanted in life was a 64 color Crayola crayon set.
Koreans play this game with babies on their first birthday. They lay out a few symbolic items in front of the birthday kid and whatever they gravitate towards predicts their future. A dollar bill means they’ll grow up to be rich. Grabbing the toy stethoscope means they’ll become a doctor. I grabbed the pencil. Typically that means the baby will grow up to be smart and studious but I don’t know. Pencils have always been my favorite drawing tool.
My illustrative style is very academic. I call my style “design communication”—bodies and clothes rendered in such a way as to express the design as clearly as possible. I haven’t had many opportunities to stray past this style, but I’m definitely a lot looser when I’m sketching in private.
Join our Fashion Drawing Workshop with Zoe Hong on Friday, April 25th!
Only 25 seats are available.
Mira: On your website, you mentioned that sustainability has always been at the fore of your approach to design and business. Why is that important for you, and how do you inspire others to manifest sustainability in their own unique ways?
Zoe: Why is sustainability important to me? Why isn’t it important to everyone? Why isn’t it important to everyone that our planet doesn’t become so overloaded with junk that we all fry to a crisp and look like absolute garbage doing it, in watered down plastic versions of runway microtrends. Do you know what microtrends are? They’re clothes that are so ugly we put up with them for only a blip in time.
Sustainability and good design go hand in hand. When you marry thoughtful design and quality product development, you end up with clothes and accessories people fall in love with, people want to keep (and keep out of landfills), people would rather mend than trash. This is key before the organic fabrics and the post-consumer waste recycling. If you don’t have beautiful things people don’t want to keep, the rest doesn’t matter.
This is the core of my teaching approach. Create beautiful things. Take your time and make them right. Don’t make too many things. Focus on things people are actually looking for.
Mira: Many people are interested in sustainability and fashion, but don’t know where to start. I’m sure you also have students who struggle with confidence in their skills, be it in fashion portfolio, business or product development. What advice would you give to someone who feels intimidated from time to time as they develop their skills?
Zoe: My teaching catchphrase is “practice not magic.” One day, in one of my illustration classes, someone (once again) said, “You make it look so easy. It’s like magic.” I replied, “I’ve been drawing for 327 years. I’m not made of magic, I’m made of practice.”
I have made so many ugly things, drawn so many ugly pictures. Every single person you’ve ever admired has made many ugly things in their skill development journey. The learning is in the doing. Stop comparing yourself to things you see in social media. Social media has trained us to think everything we do has to be perfect, but there is no better teacher than making the mistakes yourself.
Join our Fashion Drawing Workshop with Zoe Hong on Friday, April 25th!
Only 25 seats are available.
Mira: Your upcoming workshop with Rethink the Runway will also feature live models wearing upcycled designs by my label Fafafoom Studio. How do you see fashion illustration as a tool for promoting sustainable fashion and changing perceptions about repurposed clothing?
Zoe: Fashion illustration is often used as an expression of admiration. It reinterprets and elevates the beauty of the clothes. Ultimately, anything sustainable needs to beautiful, period, before the added bonus of organic materials/zero waste cutting/etc. Illustration is about highlighting the beauty, and we can highlight the beauty of repurposed clothing as not a means to a sustainable end but simply as beautiful works of design.
Mira: For those attending the workshop or following your work, what excites you most about the intersection of fashion illustration, sustainability, and creative education right now?
Zoe: There’s a beauty in celebrating old school skills. It reminds me of a time when design development was about sketching out your ideas, taking the time to explore and develop rather than copying someone else’s work. Exploring the many ways one can illustrate something unlocks your brain into thinking about the many ways one can create a garment rather than ordering t-shirts to screenprint.
Not everyone needs to learn how to draw, but I challenge every designer to take an aspect of making, such as drawing, tailoring, or embroidery, and practice it as much as possible to explore how those skills can translate into better design. Again, everything about sustainability goes back to better products.
Mira: Last but certainly not least, how can people support you and your work?
Zoe: You can support me for free by watching my YouTube channel, requesting my book, Fashion School in a Book, at your local library or school library, follow me on my social media accounts, sign up for my newsletter.
If you have some money to invest in your fashion education, you can buy my book or my workbook, Fashion School in a Book Design Journal, you can take my courses on Patreon, or buy my education downloads in my online shop. Links to everything can be found at zoehong.com.
Join our Fashion Drawing Workshop with Zoe Hong on Friday, April 25th!
Only 25 seats are available.
Once again, thank you so much Zoe for taking the time to do this Q&A. We hope many readers will join us in the Fashion Drawing workshop on Friday, April 25th, 2025 hosted by Pinterest!
With gratitude,
The Rethink the Runway Team
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