Shenzhen Fashion Week is underway and its calendar features runway shows from 80 domestic brands, including Ellassay, Yinger and Kaltendin, as well as concurrently-running tradeshows, forums and fashion exhibitions. The event runs until April 19.

Compared with the commercial and policy-oriented China Fashion Week in Beijing and Shanghai Fashion Week’s focus on fostering China’s top design talent and building a business infrastructure for the country’s (still relatively young) fashion industry, Shenzhen Fashion Week, which first ran in 2015, is still exploring its own approach.

The city’s home province, Guangdong, has long been an important centre for fashion manufacturing in China and boasts a legion of commercial womenswear brands, which have always played a significant role at Shenzhen Fashion Week.

Recent seasons have also seen more independent designers join them, as Shenzhen grows its fashion spending power and multi-brand retail spaces have proliferated. Damowang, Vmajor, and Roaringwild, all of which also had showrooms in Shanghai, will also show in Shenzhen.

To this point, Shenzhen has only hosted one edition per year, but organisers say they are looking to expand to two seasons annually within the next few years.