Decoding the Double Happiness Brand DNA
Double happiness starts with the character for joy, xǐ. Its oldest forms show a drum on a stand above an open mouth, the music and singing of people celebrating together.
Now write it a second time, right beside the first, so that one person’s joy has company.
Pressed into the space of one character, the pair becomes shuāngxǐ, double happiness. People put it on doors and windows, invitations and red envelopes whenever a couple marries.
The story goes back almost a thousand years, to a young scholar named Wang Anshi, who heard he had passed the imperial exam on his wedding day. With two joys arriving at once, he wrote joy twice on red paper and hung it on his door.
AnfuluMost people see double happiness and think of a wedding. Why build a brand around it?
Fang FangI love that it means a wedding, but to me it is bigger than that. It is one person’s joy beside another’s. That can be two friends, a mother and her daughter, anyone who feels lucky to have someone next to them. It doesn’t have to be romance at all.
AnfuluThe brand’s full name is FZ·H Within 囍. What do the letters stand for?
Fang FangThey are my family. F is me, Fang. Z is my daughter, and H is Hu, our family name. She was still very small when I started, and I wanted the two of us together in the pattern. 囍 means double happiness, so the name keeps my family within it.
AnfuluHow did it all begin?
Fang FangBefore all this I was a fashion buyer in Wuxi. In 2018 I sold my car and my house, left my job and moved to Shanghai to study textiles. Then I travelled to learn dyeing and weaving, and how cloth moves on the body.
AnfuluWhere do you find your characters?
Fang FangEverywhere I go, I look for them. In a village it might be a broken piece of glass with half the character still on it. In Beijing, Chengdu or Chongqing it might be an old sign or a door. I find them abroad too, and I bring each one home and draw it into the cloth.
AnfuluWho do you hope will carry a Double Happiness piece?
Fang FangAnyone, on any day of the year. You can take it to work, or give it to someone for a birthday or a holiday. I would like people everywhere to have a little of this luck.
