Ma Ke is perhaps the most successful female fashion designer in China today. Born in Changchun, Jilin province, she graduated from Suzhou Institute of Silk Textile Technology in 1992. In 1996, she and her university classmate Mao Jihong founded the fashion brand Exception de Mixmind in Guangzhou. In the next ten years, they turned it into one of the most successful home-grown fashion brand in China, opening 53 stores across China, with many Chinese celebrities as loyal clients, including the folk signer Mrs. Peng Liyuan (China's current First Lady). Her commercial success has given her the freedom to collaborate with graphic designers, photographers and film-makers, including Wang Xu, Stanley Wong and Jia Zhangke, to produce more one-off experimental projects.

Most critically, Ma Ke sees the role of the fashion design as part of 'society's conscience', retaining traditional skills and imparting 'cultural memories'. In 2006, she moved to Zhuhai to create a new fashion label, Wuyong (literally meaning Useless). In 2013, she resigned from the position of creative director and lead designer at Exception de Mixmind in order to concentrate on the development of her critical vision. For the Wuyong collections, Ma Ke employ a team of workers skilled in spinning, weaving, dying and sewing in traditional style.

This coat is part of an ensemble from the first Wuyong collection/the Earth. Here the artist deliberately chose to use several recycled pieces of polyester cloth to convey her concept of 'useless'. The ensemble was displayed along with two other Chinese fashion designers, Wang Yiyang and Zhang Da, in the V&A's China Design Now exhibition in 2008.