XXXXXXX

32 | october 2011

NYO

october 2011 | 33

NYOcHINA HAPPENINGS

Cthe DesignersGuo Pei is the reigning queen of fashion for China’s most-watched state events and galas, having even produced dresses for the hosts of the annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Fast Company named her one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2011. She started her design career following the end of the Cultural Revolution and has continued working in the Chinese fashion industry for more than 26 years.

Known for her extravagant, made-to-order couture creations, Ms. Guo has charted the course for the indigenous Chinese “haute-couture” with her unique fashion sense, steeped in historical references as well as a mod-ern imagination. Having never been educated in the West, she draws freely from classical Chinese embroidery techniques, a comprehen-sive visual vocabulary and Western inspirations. Fearless and highly imaginative, her works evoke the outrageous fantasy of Alexander McQueen—though with less of his dark energy and death instinct—while infusing China’s imperial glory with Elizabethan theatricality.

Her collection from 2009, “One Thousand and Two Nights,” embodied Ms. Guo’s Sisyphean desire for “that most beautiful dress.” Just as story-telling became a way to prolong life in One Thousand and One Nights, dress-making has become a way for the designer to prolong her search for the most beautiful dress. For an outrageously glorious gown with fur trims in her Arabian-nights inspired collection, Ms. Guo felt she needed a regal, over-the-top personality and reached out to Carmen Dell’Orefice, at the time in her late 70s and to whom Ms. Guo was a stranger. Without ever having met Ms. Guo in person, Ms. Dell’Orefice graciously flew to China for the opening of the show. When Chinese singer Song Zuying performed “The Flame of Love” in a duet with Placido Domingo

Style beast FROM THE

EAST China stretches its long legs and steps into fashion

By Chiu-Ti Jansen

hinese fashion from the last hundred years reveals a myriad of technical extremes. The dull, blue suits of the Mao era juxtoposed against the slavish subscription to Western brands in contemporary china leaves many onlookers scratching their heads. For some Westerners, a search for fashion requires transport-ing to a time of cheongsam, dragon-festooned robes or kung fu jackets. But The Observer recently explored four designers who make Beijing their deity of style inspiration, redefining the phrase, “made in china.”

at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she dazzled the crowd in a long

robe studded with 200,000 Swarovski crystals that she had a dozen craftsmen manually attach to the garment in

nonstop shifts for two weeks. And when Ms. Guo’s 40-pound crystal-beaded dress

arrived in Los Angeles, Lady Gaga discov-ered that she couldn’t move in it onstage.

The romantic garments of 37-year-old designer with Chinese roots Alex Wang (not to be confused with New

York-based Alexander Wang) employ fine beadings and luxurious materials to

illustrate restrained femininity. A graduate of the Central Academy of Design, now part of

Tsinghua University, Mr. Wang spent years working for a Chinese clothing company before he established his ALEX WANG Couture Studio in 2004. He explained that a bespoke fashion line is natural for a budding fashion designer because it requires less of an initial capital investment. He boasts a large range of clients, from teenagers to ladies in their 50s and 60s, coming from a variety of different professions and backgrounds.

Unlike Ms. Guo, who is perfectly at home with over-the-top designs, Mr. Wang’s signature style is much more subdued, though he has taken risks with his menswear line and bridal collections. A silver satin suit in his most recent collection features an open-chested, curvy, buttonless jacket coupled with a pair of low-cut trousers with a cutout and attached folded fabric. His white-powdered swooning brides, wrapped in lace or chiffon veils, are often Gothic and alluring.

Neither Ms. Guo nor Mr. Wang participates in the Beijing or Shanghai fashion week, choos-ing instead to stage their own trunk shows in settings of their own making. They are less concerned with media-assisted brand-building than direct connections with their custom-ers. The two other, younger designers that we

Sleeves and back like the pipes of an organ. Guo

Pei, 2011

HONG KONGModel showcases designs by Guo Pei during HK Fashion Week

ViC

TOr

Fra

ile/

GeT

Ty iM

aG

eS

34 | october 2011

NYO cHINA HAPPENINGS

interviewed were much more self-conscious about building their brand.

At the age of 28, Zhang Chi specializes in avant-garde menswear, with a womenswear line yet to come. He famously described his profession as “Change Your Life,” believing that his clothes can empower the wearer and further their lives. After Mr. Zhang studied fashion in London and Italy, he set up his eponymous studio in London in 2007 before returning to Beijing in late 2008. “I was born and raised in Beijing,” Mr. Zhang said of his reason to return to his homeland. “My studio is in Beijing, but my design enterprise is international.”

Known for his exaggerated jackets, Mr. Zhang focuses on Gothic elements, ornate decoration and unexpected twists in the cut. Some of his menswear even incorporates details tradition-ally associated with women’s clothing, such as ruched pants and puffy shoulders. His self-pro-fessed “look-at-me” and “in-your-face” designs appeal to a disparate group of clientele that includes heirs and heiresses and entertainers as well as business executives and government officers. “My customers are those who want to express themselves through fashion,” he told The Observer.

Vega Wang is the only designer among the four who is not a Beijing native. After spending seven years in London, she launched her own label in Xiamen, a coastal town in southern China. A fortuitous encounter with actress Fan Bingbing, who bought out her entire first collection, inspired the designer to move her design studio to Beijing in 2009.

Sporting her own designs of London-style nonchalance coupled with several eye-catching tattoos, Vega Wang is a confident 27-year-old who aspires to design for independent-minded women. “I want my clothes to inspire Chinese women to feel confident and free to pursue their own destinies,” she said. Vega Wang’s models are typically androgynous-looking and she favors fabric traditionally associated with menswear. Her cape-inspired special collection turns the 19th-century English cape into dresses, shirts and jackets.

chinese elementsHow have these four designers incorporated the “Chinese Elements” into their designs?

For Zhang Chi, the post-’80s generation does not view “Chinese Elements” as preconceived stylistic references immediately identifiable as Chinese by Westerners. Contemporary Chinese style can be fluid and eclectic, comfortable in its ranging references to traditional Chinese cultural elements and modern Western influ-ences. Similarly, Vega Wang believes that the

women she dresses—of whatever age group—are not as obsessed with the chinoiserie as many believe. “Why are there ‘Chinese Elements’?” Vega Wang asked. “Why aren’t there ‘English Elements’ or ‘French Elements’?”

Ms. Guo told The Observer that until 2009 she had purposefully avoided any “Chinese Element” in her early designs. During the pro-cess of restoring an old Chinese wedding gown intended to be handed down by a prominent Hong Kong socialite to her future daughter-in-law, Ms. Guo was blown away by the exquisite craftsmanship of the traditional Chinese designs. She came to a sad realization that today’s Chinese brides were wearing Western designs and China has not yet produced a bridal gown with international following. Two years in the works and scheduled to take place before the end of this year, “Chinese Brides” will be the theme of Ms. Guo’s next trunk show through which she will engage contemporary China.

Mr. Wang explained that when China becomes stronger economically, it will also exert great influences on fashion and style. He believes that Chinese designers have yet to suc-cessfully deploy the “Chinese Elements” with spiritual contents or contemporary sensitivity.

“ created in china” DesignsAre Chinese consumers helplessly chained to Western designers brands, as often perceived by the Western media? For Vega Wang, the previous obsession with cost-saving has led to the loss of quality now associated with China-made products. Lately, as all of these designers have found, their elite customers have harbored a fatigue of the uniform looks of the designer brands. They believe that in due time, many more Chinese would desire to dis-tinguish themselves with unique looks rather than head-to-toe outfits copied from fashion magazines. Guo explained to The Observer that Chinese luxury consumers are in love with beauty that transcends the purported dichotomy between traditional Western and Chinese brands.

While the designers are thrilled with the op-portunities accorded by a dynamic society that continues to stimulate them and their custom-ers, they admit that the Chinese fashion world still has a way to go before it has the proper infrastructure. Mr. Zhang wishes that in his lifetime he will contribute to making “Made in China” a symbol of quality. The world will be keeping their eyes peeled for their “Created in China” designs in the years to come. o

Guo Pei SEASON 2011

ALeX WANG SEASON 2011

VeGA WANG CAPE

COLLECTION

ZHiANG CHi SUMMER 2011 V

iCTO

r Fr

ail

e/G

eTTy

iMa

GeS

; CO

urT

eSy

VeG

a W

aN

G; C

Ou

rTeS

y C

Hi Z

Ha

NG

STu

DiO