The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Shanghai’s fashion community returns this evening to the tents at Xintiandi’s Taiping Lake Park for the first official show of Shanghai Fashion Week’s Autumn 2021 season, with catwalk shows scheduled until April 13.
Showing in Xintiandi will be established Chinese brands, including Comme Moi, Leaf Xia, Yes by Yesir and Dawei, while the Labelhood platform for independent designer showcases runs concurrently at the Tank Museum in Shanghai’s arts and cultural West Bund hub and features designers including Angel Chen, Shushu/Tong, Private Policy and Oude Waag.
Joining Labelhood on the West Bund will be Dior, which is showing its women’s pre-fall collection at the Long Museum there on the evening of April 12. Ermanno Scervino and Jason Wu are among other international names planning shows to coincide with Shanghai Fashion Week.
This season has been unusual in Shanghai because of the number of highly-anticipated designer showcases that have taken place off the official schedule. Staff Only, 8on8, Shuting Qiu, Xu Zhi and Ximon Lee have already shown their collections in the days and weeks prior to Shanghai Fashion Week’s official kick-off.
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Some of these events may have been planned to run in conjunction with Shanghai Fashion Week’s original dates, which were changed a few months ago as a small outbreak of Covid-19 cases emerged in Shanghai’s Huangpu District, which is home to Xintiandi and the mainstream catwalk shows of Shanghai Fashion Week.
Trade show, Ontimeshow, also began its run ahead of the official start of fashion week, kicking off on April 3 and running through to the 10th. Other trade shows and showrooms likely to be on the agenda for the army of domestic buyers descending on Shanghai this week will be Mode (the official trade platform organised by Shanghai Fashion Week), Not Showroom, Tube Showroom and Showroom Shanghai.
The French beauty giant’s two latest deals are part of a wider M&A push by global players to capture a larger slice of the China market, targeting buzzy high-end brands that offer products with distinctive Chinese elements.
Post-Covid spend by US tourists in Europe has surged past 2019 levels. Chinese travellers, by contrast, have largely favoured domestic and regional destinations like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.
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