About

Hahnji Jang (장한지) is an activist & fiber artist utilizing their skills to create anticapitalist styling and affirming costume designs.

Raised in South Korea Hahnji began combining art and activism at a young age and remembers believing at 9 years old that their anti-war protest sign would catch the most attention since it featured a cute dog. This drive was later translated to activism through theatre and they returned to the USA to earn a BFA in Drama from New York University. They continued their design training through assisting on and off Broadway including highlights such as SpongeBob the Musical and Jerry Springer: The Opera.

They have designed costumes for new plays with Theatre For One: Here We Are, a collection of virtual interactive plays written and directed by women of color, costumes for political tours with Pan Asian Repertory Theater, Men on Boats directed by Jenny Koons at Baltimore Center Stage, translated premiers of Korean plays such as Sister Mokrahn (목란언니), and The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington by James Ijames and directed by Taylor Reynolds, at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and was named New York Times Critics Pick by Maya Phillips, “Even the costumes, by Hahnji Jang, are sportively eclectic, with clashing patterns and colors — along with additional anachronistic details, like hoop earrings and sneakers.”

 In addition to costume design they utilize their passion for the fiber arts to upcycle garments, creating protest clothing and affordable styling outside the limiting gender and size binaries. This dedication to sustainable & gender-affirming personal styling includes not only the passion for thrifting that they gained at a young age, but a focus on the need to know where each dollar is going and center purchasing of any new items on Black and Indigenous owned brands. They are on a continual journey to decolonize the closets of the individuals and institutions around them. Hahnji is also available for intersectional & sustainable costuming consultations. They have collaborated with Broadway Green Alliance to create sustainable resource guides & consulted for theatrical & educational institutions such as the National Theatre UK, Women’s Project Theater, the Dalton School, and the Sharjah Performing Arts Academy. Their secondhand styling was recently featured in collaboration with the NYC Sanitation Department at ReFashion Week NYC 2022.