Introduction
Ken Rao is a Taiwanese fashion designer and creative entrepreneur based in Taipei. Early exposure to fashion through his mother and the Asian streetwear culture of the early 2000s led him towards Japanese heritage, experimental menswear and artisanal clothing. After studying fashion design, he developed the Re-Lab project and founded Professor.E in 2017 as an independent alternative to conventional corporate design work.
Rao directs Professor.E within a deliberately collaborative structure. The label’s masked fictional persona places distance between the garments and the founder’s public image, while its collections combine historical research, deconstruction, manual finishing and relaxed contemporary silhouettes. He also helped establish Ura.219, the label’s shared showroom and cultural space on Taipei’s Dihua Street.
His work extends beyond fashion. Rao co-founded 0343 Conservatory, which specialises in caudex plants and succulents, and the casual clothing label 1dyll. These projects share an interest in slow growth, material ageing, everyday use and environments assembled through objects rather than a single decorative style.
Design ethos
Rao approaches design through the reconstruction of existing forms. Court dress, workwear, military garments and Asian clothing traditions are dismantled conceptually or physically, then rebuilt through asymmetric panels, lowered proportions, raw edges and adjustable fastening systems. The historical reference remains visible, but the final garment is designed for movement and contemporary layering.
Material treatment carries much of the authorship. Plant dyeing, cold dyeing, rust effects, hand-guided stitching, Boro repair and the use of scarce antique cloth allow fabric to record labour and previous use. Rao’s Forgotten Materials programme formalises this process by working within the limits imposed by found yardage rather than forcing those textiles into standard production volumes.
He resists the idea of a designer as an unquestioned icon. The Professor E persona and the studio’s masked imagery ask the audience to read differences in fit, texture and construction without relying on a celebrity narrative. This anonymity does not remove direction; it relocates attention from the individual to the collective process and the physical evidence held by each garment.
Disclaimer
Career history
2022
Professor.E co-founded Ura.219 in a historic street house on Taipei’s Dihua Street. The space combined the fashion showroom with Urayama’s Japanese antiques, 0343 Conservatory’s plants and a coffee programme, giving the brand a permanent environment outside seasonal imagery.
2022
Professor.E reworked its earlier ONE-OFF series into Forgotten Materials in 2022. The permanent line created a distinct place for antique textiles, scarce regional fabrics, hand dyeing, Boro repair and individually limited garments within the wider house structure.
2022
From 2022, Professor.E entered a more settled phase built around refined textile sourcing, quieter construction and a clearer separation between scalable seasonal clothing and scarce artisanal production. Forgotten Materials became a permanent line, Ura.219 gave the label a physical setting in Taipei, and international distribution expanded without displacing the studio’s anonymous collective structure.
2020
Professor.E began issuing highly limited ONE-OFF pieces alongside the seasonal mainline around Autumn/Winter 2020. The programme gave scarce fabrics, intensive handwork and small experimental runs a separate structure, becoming the direct precursor to Forgotten Materials.
2020
Professor.E introduced womenswear in Spring/Summer 2020, expanding a label previously organised around menswear. The new programme carried the same fabric research into waist articulation, drape, dresses and adjustable tailoring, establishing a lasting co-ed structure.
2019
From 2019 through 2021, Professor.E expanded its historical and fictional framework while developing a broader manufacturing vocabulary. The period moved beyond the earliest dystopian reconstruction, introduced womenswear, tested softer tailoring and drape, and established the small-run ONE-OFF experiments that preceded a permanent artisanal line.
2017
Professor.E’s first phase developed from Ken Rao’s Re-Lab experiments in dismantling and reconstructing traditional garments. Between 2017 and 2018, the studio established its raw-edge construction, damaged surfaces, masked fictional persona and early East–West garment synthesis before expanding into a more stable seasonal system.
2017
Ken Rao founded Professor.E in Taipei in 2017 after developing the experimental Re-Lab project. He established the masked Professor E persona and a collaborative studio model centred on historical reconstruction, textile treatment and complete seasonal wardrobes.
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