In the sunny little town of Asheville, North Carolina, a place of rivers, ridgelines, and slow quiet mornings, a young man named Lawrence was turning a question over in his mind one afternoon in 2017: why was it so hard to find a simple cotton shirt that truly fit the women he loved, his mother and his sister? He walked every store in town and came back empty-handed. Everything felt off — too stiff, too loud, too careless.

So he stopped looking.
And started making.

Lawrence sketched the silhouettes himself and partnered with a small local factory to craft them in soft cotton and responsibly sourced materials. A week later, he brought the first finished shirts home. When his mother and sister slipped them on and smiled, he understood he had made more than clothing. He had made something that felt right.

That small moment was the seed of a larger idea: if clothes made with intention could change the way two people feel in their everyday life, maybe they could do the same for thousands. To test whether others felt the same, he listed a few of those early pieces on Amazon. The response was immediate. Reviews came in, orders repeated, and what began as a gift for two people quickly proved it spoke to many. That first quiet success gave him the confidence to keep going.

He named the brand Gihuo after a river near his hometown and registered it as a trademark so the name could carry forward, unchanged, with that same sense of ease, care, and continuity. The brand has remained on Amazon ever since.

From the beginning, the point was never to dress people up, but to quietly make their days better — pieces that move the way they live, that soften with time, that do not ask for attention but eventually earn it.

Where We Are Now

Today, Gihuo designs for people who live between comfort and intention, people who want clothes that work all day without shouting. We use renewable fabrics, thoughtful cuts, and gentle processes. We like the feeling of things that last, that do not rush, that age with grace.

The world is louder now than it was in 2017, but our pace has not changed. We still make clothing the way that first shirt was made, with human hands, quiet care, and an insistence that ordinary things can be done uncommonly well.

Because that is still what we believe:
when clothes feel right, life does too.