– Moira Niu on Eight Years of Crescent Agency
Crescent Agency marks its eighth year in London, a milestone defined not by noise, but by endurance.
Over the years, the company has grown steadily alongside the evolution of its founder. There have been visible achievements: runway productions, cross-cultural collaborations, international store openings, and quieter moments of resilience that rarely make headlines.
In the midst of continuous ascent – building structures, bridging markets, navigating cultures – the eighth year arrives as a moment of greater clarity. A pause at altitude. A moment to examine the structures built, the bridges formed, and the clarity forged through persistence.
This anniversary is less about expansion and more about steadiness, about belief sustained, protected, and refined over time.
Moira Niu, Paris, 2024
Q: Over the years of living and working in the UK, how has your identity evolved? What have you never compromised on?
Moira Niu: My identity has evolved significantly.
I moved from being a student to becoming a founder, from answering only for myself to carrying responsibility for a company and a team. It shifted from proving my own capability to building structure and opportunity for others.
What I have never compromised on is direction. No external circumstance has ever altered my internal compass.
Q: As a foreigner, a woman, and single, building a business alone in a new country – what drove you forward?
MN: I wouldn’t describe it as strength. I would describe it as curiosity, a sustained curiosity about what is possible.
I am not driven by ambition alone. I am driven by possibility. Time is finite, and I have always felt compelled to explore how much can be built within it. Building a business abroad means constantly negotiating with systems, cultures, and one’s own limitations. Over time, that negotiation becomes clarity. And clarity, eventually, becomes peace.
Q: If you weren’t in PR or fashion, what would you most likely be doing?
MN: Perhaps I would have become an investigative journalist, or worked my way up within a media group.
But whatever I did, the essence would remain the same: I would still be telling stories.
Q: What led you to found Crescent Agency? Why PR? And why fashion?
MN: I never thought, “I want to start a business.” I simply walked step by step into this position. It was never part of my life plan.
During my second master’s degree in Media and Creative Enterprise, my professor encouraged me to attend an entrepreneur visa workshop. Around that time, I was wearing many independent Chinese designer pieces. People would often stop me – in school, on the street, asking where my clothes were from.
But I couldn’t find similar designs in the UK. Gradually, I had the idea of bringing Chinese and global independent designer brands to the UK and European markets.
PR became the entry point. It is not noise; it is narrative. And narrative is often the first form of market expansion. Strategy, sales, and data all follow once you move people emotionally. A brand must first connect with its audience before talking about retail, KPIs, and numbers.
Fashion felt natural because I’ve always been interested in how aesthetics operate within business systems. With a background in media and experience at television stations and Harper’s Bazaar, the direction felt organic.
Today, we are no longer a simple fashion PR agency. Our clients have extended beyond fashion into skincare and lifestyle, and we also provide event and production services to the brands and companies who are keen to share their stories with the community.
Moira (first from the left) with the founder of House of Sunny, Shoreditch, London, 2018
Q: Before Crescent Agency existed, were you trying to fill an industry gap – or a personal one?
MN: An industry gap.
At the time I started, there were virtually no agencies dedicated to helping Asian brands enter the European market. Even now, it remains limited. There are structural and cultural complexities behind that.
PR is not an accessible industry. It requires fluency, not only in language, but in systems, aesthetics, and market logic. Where there is a gap, there is opportunity but only for those willing to build patiently within it.
Entrepreneurship is not therapy. It is about problem-solving.
Q: Do you remember the moment you realised Crescent had truly gained a foothold?
MN: Interestingly, there wasn’t a dramatic turning point.
It happened slowly in everyday conversations. When I introduce Crescent and someone reacts “So, you are the founder?” that recognition feels more meaningful than any headline.
I rarely say “my company.” I prefer to say, “I work for Crescent.” Ownership, to me, is responsibility — not possession.
Q: Do you remember your first client?
MN: Of course. It was a Chinese designer brand based in Shanghai that I had admired for years.
That collaboration marked the true beginning, not just of the business, but of my role within it. It was the first time I realised I was no longer just a Chinese student living in the UK. I had become a business professional — a bridge between two markets.
Moira (second from the left) with her team at Crescent Office, London, 2021
Q: Looking back, what were the true milestone moments?
MN: Several moments stand out.
The collaboration between our first client and Christian Lacroix, particularly meaningful as it marked Lacroix’s first partnership with an Asian designer brand.
Producing RUE AGTHONIS’s AW22 runway show at Café Royal, followed by SS24 at The Fitzroy Hotel, projects that required not only PR execution, but structural coordination across teams and markets.
We produced the debut r.l.e London Fashion Week runway show at Banking Hall.
And Ann Andelman’s Paris store opening — a reminder that cross-border brand building is never abstract.
Each milestone represented more than visibility. They marked deeper integration into the European fashion system.
Q: In your most difficult and lonely moments, what carried you through?
MN: There were many difficult moments. What I remember most is the loneliness.
One vivid memory was a period right after graduation. I was between homes. All my belongings were in storage. I was staying temporarily at a classmate’s flat. I had a high fever and was too weak to get out of bed, while telling my family everything was fine.
Winter afternoons in the UK grow dark early. Rain tapped against a small window. Streetlights reflected yellow on the glass. The room was quiet, profoundly quiet.
Illness passes. What lingers is isolation.
There were days when no one knew whether I was succeeding or failing. No one knew how heavy the uncertainty felt. Building something alone in a foreign system is not loud or cinematic. It is repetitive, invisible, and often solitary.
I kept thinking of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, standing on barren land saying, “Tomorrow is another day.” Not because tomorrow would be easier. But because tomorrow still existed. As long as there is another day, you continue. So Scarlett’s belief in the future transcended time and supported me through countless difficult moments.
London Fashion Week, Corinthia Hotel, London, 2022
Q: When did Crescent become more than a job – more like a creative medium?
MN: I understood that before Crescent formally existed.
To me, a company is long-term creation. It’s about managing clients, operations, and people. All of it requires patience and clarity. It also requires working on the fine line between patience and tolerance, as well as the ability to balance internal communication with external presentation.
It’s difficult. But creation that endures always is.
Q: How was your aesthetic formed?
MN: Through personal interest and lived experience.
If I must name one city, it would be London.
Its grey skies, layered histories, cultural intersections, museums that quietly hold centuries of thought. London is restrained on the surface, but intense underneath. You need patience to understand it, and humility to belong to it.
As for artists, Vincent van Gogh’s life has influenced me — not only his work, but his ability to construct beauty within fracture. There is a quiet strength in that.
Q: Between business and art, how do you decide what to insist on and what to compromise?
MN: Outcomes, values, culture – those are non-negotiable.
If we forget to clean the office one day, that can be compromised.
Strategy is long-term. Dust is temporary.
London Fashion Week, Corinthia Hotel, London, 2023
Q: What makes a brand truly alive?
MN: Stability. Clarity. Care for its community.
Crescent feels like an eight-year-old child with an old soul expressive on the surface, but internally steady and considered.
Q: Has the brand shaped you?
MN: Absolutely. Building Crescent required me to slow down internally. To think in longer timelines.
I’ve become more patient, also more deliberate with where I place my time, attention, and energy. Leadership forces you to separate urgency from importance.
Moira Niu, Paris, 2025
Q: You once said hiring is like dating. What matters most in long-term collaboration?
MN: Consistency. Talent attracts, consistency builds trust.
Q: After entering the European fashion system, what changed in your understanding?
MN: The European system prioritises narrative coherence over celebrity visibility. Brands are assessed on internal logic, their history, philosophy, and consistency over time. The emphasis shifts from who is wearing it to why it exists.
Q: Has Crescent completed its original mission?
MN: In its early phase, yes. It achieved what a startup is meant to achieve.
But as a business? No. And it shouldn’t.
A company is not a destination. It is an evolving structure: constantly adjusting, refining, expanding.
Q: What does the next phase look like?
MN: The next phase is about building ecosystems, not projects. We are already working across lifestyle, culture, and brand consulting, but the real focus is integration. Growth for us is not about scale alone. It’s about alignment.
Q: What matters more now: scale, influence, or sustainability?
MN: Influence and sustainability. Scale can be misleading if it lacks depth.
Q: What would you tell yourself eight years ago?
MN: Back then I told myself: “Your desire will be granted, gradually, in time.”
Now I would say: “Trust the process.”
Q: Has your definition of success changed?
MN: Success for others might mean external growth, visibility, expansion.
But for me, it is more internal — the ability to remain steady when circumstances fluctuate. To face uncertainty without losing clarity. Even to sit with discomfort without reacting to it.
That is my definition of success.
Q: For the eighth anniversary, what would you most like to do?
MN: Return to where it all began. Visit my professors. Walk through the city where I studied. To stand in the same streets with a different perspective, and quietly recognise how much has changed. To measure distance not in miles, but in growth.
Q: Ten years from now, what kind of Moira do you hope to be?
MN: I hope I remain optimistic and curious. Shaped by experience rather than innocence. Serious in responsibility, but never rigid in spirit. I hope I never lose the ability to begin again, even if I am hurt along the way.
Q: And to a woman building a business alone abroad, feeling lonely – what would you say?
MN: Trust the process. Loneliness does not mean you are lost. Time works in your favour.
Moira Niu, Paris, 2026
Eight years is long enough to build a name, yet short enough to still feel the weight of the climb.
For Moira Niu, Crescent Agency has remained deeply rooted in the fields of fashion and art. It has always been about structure, narrative, and long-term belief. About building bridges where none previously existed. About choosing patience over noise. About trusting that when clarity moves in step with time, the path quietly forms beneath you.
As Crescent enters its next chapter, its mission remains clear and steadfast: to connect cultures through storytelling, to help brands enter new markets with depth rather than haste, and to continue evolving – as a living, growing system.
The climb continues.
About Crescent Agency
Founded in London in 2018, Crescent Agency is a cross-cultural PR and brand consultancy guiding fashion and lifestyle brands into the UK and European markets.
We operate where narrative meets structure – aligning creative vision with market logic.
From runway productions and store openings to strategic communications and market entry planning, our work supports brands in building presence that endures beyond a single season.
Crescent believes brand growth begins with clarity, not noise – and that lasting influence is built on consistency, cultural fluency, and long-term vision.
Modem Online: https://www.modemonline.com/fashion/mini-web-sites/press-offices/references/crescent_agency_press_office
