The two people behind every piece
Makers.
Every SENMOMO piece is made by one of two people. The other reviews. The archive entry tells you which. Neither piece is more or less the work — both are SENMOMO, both pass the same standard.
Every SENMOMO piece is made by one of two people. The other reviews. The archive entry tells you which. Neither piece is more or less the work — both are SENMOMO, both pass the same standard.
"I asked Wei whether she wanted to keep this page private. She said no — she said she'd been thinking, for a long time, that wearers should know whose hands had made what they wear. So here we are."
mo (lowercase, always) founded SENMOMO in March 2024 after nine years in a different career. She works at the east-facing bench, makes the morning's first piece before anyone else is awake, and writes the journal entries about the work. Approximately 70% of pieces still pass through her hands; the other 30% pass Wei's, with mo's review on most.
She learned hand-knotting in Osaka over two visits in 2024 with Akiko Yamamoto, a pearl-stringer in her sixties. She has tied somewhere in the neighborhood of nine thousand knots at the SENMOMO bench since piece #001.
"The knots are where I make the bracelet mine. Each finished piece carries a small physical record of my hand at work that morning."
— from "The knot." · June 2028If you've ordered a piece designed with the AI chat, mo has read the conversation and made the selection. If you've designed in the DIY workbench, mo has reviewed it. There is no order that has shipped without her hands touching it — at minimum, in review.
Wei arrived in Wenchang from Hangzhou in April 2028 with two small suitcases. Before SENMOMO, she trained for two years at Mrs. Yang's pearl-stringing atelier in Hangzhou — an older tradition than crystal-stringing. She is now 29, makes approximately 30% of pieces, and writes her own journal entries each quarter.
Wei's transition from pearl- to crystal-stringing took longer than either of us expected. Pearls forgive loose knots; crystals do not. She unlearned more than she learned, in the first months. "My hands had been trained to think about a category of wearer," she wrote in her first journal entry. "They had to learn to think about a specific person."
"This piece was made by hands that did not exist in their current form three years ago. The hands of the apprentice are not the hands of the master, and they are not the hands of the beginner; they are something specific in between."
— from "My hands." · September 2029The first SENMOMO piece Wei made without mo's review shipped in March 2029 (to Stockholm). Since February 2030, about half her pieces ship without review. Mo still reviews the unusually difficult ones — and Wei reviews mo's, on the days the disagreement seems likely to improve the work.
Your archive entry, on the card in your box and in your account, lists the maker's initial. M for mo. W for Wei. If your piece was a four-handed piece (we collaborate sometimes on unusual letters), both initials appear.
If you have an older piece — anything before piece #207 — your piece was made entirely by mo. The maker-marking convention began with Wei's first piece, after a six-month transition period in which we tested it on selected wearers.
If you'd like a piece by a specific maker, write to us before you order. We honor the request when we can. We will not honor it if the request is about distrusting Wei — Wei's work has passed the same standard since piece #207. But if you would like to be in mo's queue specifically because she made your earlier piece and you'd like the continuity, that's a request we'll always honor.
If you'd like to begin a piece, the AI chat is the front door. mo reviews every conversation; the piece itself may be made by either of us. The archive will tell you which.