Xin Li (Xin Pipes)

Xin Li (b. 1980, per records) is a pipe maker working in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province in eastern China. Since 2018 he has run his own Xin Pipes line by himself. His output splits into two branches: plain shapes drawn from English-French classics on one side, and, on the other, experimental work that plays with the angles of familiar forms.

From Real Estate to the Bench

Pipes were not Xin Li's first pursuit. After studying industrial design at the China Academy of Art and art history at the University of Münster in Germany, he began working at a real estate company; handcraft remained a spare-time pursuit. In the small workshop he had set up himself, he mainly made furniture. The birth of his son in 2014 upended this arrangement; there was neither time nor space left for woodworking. Around the same time, a mutual acquaintance introduced him to pipe maker Yang Zhimin. That both had graduated from the same academy made the connection easier, and Yang took Xin Li on as his first apprentice.

Training began at Yang's bench in 2015. Xin Li left the real estate business entirely in 2016 to move into pipemaking full time, and within a short time reached a level where he was also producing for his master's brand, Zhiputang.

The Zhiputang Partnership

The Zhiputang name, which initially covered only Yang's own work, turned into the joint signature of the two makers between 2016 and 2018. According to accounts, during this period Xin Li traveled to Italy with Yang and had the chance to see and buy briar firsthand at one of its main sources. The partnership ended amicably; Pipedia and LePipe.it date the split to 2018, while Smokingpipes's product notes date it to 2019. After this, Xin Li began producing under his own name at the one-man workshop he had set up at home.

Color, Proportion, and Bamboo

The first thing that sets Xin Pipes apart at a glance in the artisan scene is color. In place of the standard trio of light tan, brown, and black, body staining runs to tones such as ochre, mint green, brick red, rose, and khaki. These are not bright but matte, neutral tones; even so, since they're rarely seen in the pipe community, they stand out immediately.

According to records, from the last months of 2022 onward, plain classic shapes such as the billiard, brandy, and pot gained weight in his production. Even so, Xin Li doesn't treat these with their usual proportions; he works them with wide, plump chambers and shortened shanks, and most often uses bamboo for the section of the shank left without briar. Enlarging the chamber's share while shortening that of the shank and mouthpiece reduces the pipe's weight and helps its balance. Bamboo, thanks to its curved structure, also allows the line running from chamber to mouthpiece hole to trace sharper curves, particularly in bent models.

Influences and the Experimental Branch

The Danish School's influence is clearly legible in the work from the Zhiputang period; the S. Bang duo Per Hansen and Ulf Noltensmeier, whom Xin Li counts among his favorite makers, is the sign of this connection. In the years of his own name, a simplicity comes to the fore that avoids unnecessary elements and rests on balanced proportions and clean lines. This attitude is considered kin to the principles of makers in the Sixten Ivarsson line, though the result looks quite different. The maker's second branch, meanwhile, rests on breaking the angles and curves of familiar shapes; the resulting forms carry recognizable names but step outside their accustomed silhouettes.