FROM CHINA, WITH LOVE

Text by Caroline Issa

It perhaps crystallised for me last September in Milan as I was sitting at the Spring/Summer 2022 Prada show. It was mid-afternoon when the first model came out of the catwalk and we realised that on the screens the exact same show was taking place simultaneously in Shanghai and being live-streamed back to us. Same clothes, different models, different continent, seven hours ahead of Italy. A feat of production and teamwork, it was the first time I can remember seeing one of the biggest luxury brands in the world acknowledging the enormous power of the Chinese market. It was neither a recreation of the same show on the Bund several months later, nor a large billboard on the Great Wall of China for a press-release drone shot and a spot in the 24-hour news cycle. With Covid-19 still impeding travel to Europe for many, shows in Milan and Paris were missing many of the all-important Chinese press and buyers. On that afternoon in Milan, Prada was making a point by premiering its show as a simulcast in its hometown and probably its biggest growing market.

The power of the Chinese consumer can be denied no longer. It was finally established for good during the lockdowns, when the only real consumer activity was in a mostly-business-as-usual China that had been ahead of the Covid-19 curve and dealt with the virus’ impact with authoritarian efficiency. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many capsule collections as for this year’s Lunar New Year and my WeChat brand programmes from the Western luxury brands are a constant hum of content activity in comparison to their Western social-media platforms.

I believe that it is now that Chinese brands will finally find their footing and audiences in the West. While Ms Min, Uma Wang and countless others have been straddling the fashion space between Shanghai and Paris for years, they remain niche brands without stores on every shopping boulevard (yet). This is the story of many brands born in China, initially funded by Chinese investors, with global mega-ambitions and opening flagships, staging high-profile fashion shows and hiring creative directors based in Europe. Some of these brands don’t want to go on record about their Chinese ownership despite their flagships on Via Montenapoleone and their thriving Chinese businesses; others are more unashamed of their origins.

Labels like Shang Xia. Originally a concept designed to bring high-end Chinese handicraft to the world stage, this partnership between designer Jiang Qiong Er and Hermès was primarily focused on mainland China, with just a single small boutique in Paris across from the Hermès Saint-Germain flagship. With its porcelain tea sets, silk scarves, clothes and jewels, it celebrated the best of China and found a following for its craft-based pieces. A decade on and Hermès, which once owned 90% of the brand, has now sold a chunk of its shares to the Agnelli family’s investment fund Exor (its first foray into fashion if you discount Ferrari’s first ready-to-wear collection). The arrival of new investors was accompanied by the appointment of London and Shanghai-based designer Yang Li, who has been showing his own collections since 2010. “I couldn’t turn down this opportunity when Shang Xia approached me,” Li told me on a Zoom call after his debut runway show in Paris in September 2021. “It meant I could realise a personal dream of establishing a Chinese creative on the international stage. It was not a brand on my radar, but now to have the opportunity to put it on everyone’s radar is a great challenge. Plus, they told me, ‘We want to bring Shang Xia to the top table of international luxury fashion brands,’ which is an optimistic and ambitious dream I love because otherwise it’s not worth trying. It is important to put a flag at that table; imagine a United Nations Assembly of luxury brands, why isn’t there a Chinese brand sitting there? I guess subconsciously what we do is really personal, and as a Chinese-born person, I’ve always felt like we can’t just buy it all, we need to also create it. Now is the time and all it takes is a first one, and then five, and then more. Somebody’s got to start, so we’re starting.”

Brands such as Shushu/Tong, Angel Chen, Feng Chen Wang, Samuel Guì Yang, Yuhan Wang and others have raised their profiles with Shanghai and London Fashion Week appearances, yet Li is right that few Chinese-initiated brands have yet achieved global recognition. Icicle has opened shops in Paris to add to its multiple Chinese locations, but hasn’t yet cut through to Western consumers’ consciousness, while Shanghai Tang’s transformation into more of a Chinese souvenir shop than fashion label saw Richemont divest its holding in the brand. Which leaves Shang Xia, perhaps poised to accomplish what none have yet done.

Another label attempting to raise a flag at the high table of luxury brands is Anest Collective. Established in 2017 by a Chinese couple based in Shanghai who have never been “officially” revealed to the Western press – their names absent from the website and in the press – the label has a boutique in Shanghai and a showroom in Milan. Anest Collective’s spokesperson is instead its London-based creative director Brendan Mullane, who joined in March 2020 just as the first lockdown hit the world. Mullane is best known for his work at Italian menswear stalwart Brioni, and he brings his eye for Made-in-Italy craft to a collection of tailoring and knits that feels unisex in its approach.

“There was a spark from some of the words they used when they approached me,” Mullane tells me over Zoom. “The conversations were really quite inspirational. They are quite a bit younger than me and it’s completely a cross of cultures, two different worlds. I love that they don’t diverge from that honest vision, which they really do believe. The brand is not a money-making scheme; it’s a belief in having a different point of view. We are in a pandemic that makes us even more insecure and nervous, and yet the owners are even more driven in their point of view. They have an appreciation of talent – if I can call it that – for artists, artistry and craftsmanship. They have a beautiful perception of that. They’re not market-driven; they’re not saying, ‘Everyone is doing this, so should we.’ There is a sense of true luxury, in the idea that you take the time to reflect.” Despite Mullane still not having met the founders in person and not yet having been able to travel to China, he has produced two collections a year with a global outlook, even if they are currently only available in China and online.

“China is about relentless optimism,” says Yang Li. “It’s about vibrancy and colours. In my first collection, I tried to portray the Chinese feeling without a clichéd dragon or using silk. When you are in China, it’s the most colourful, urban landscape you’ve ever seen. Lights, LED screens everywhere and everybody’s also dressed extremely colourfully. It was very important to mimic the feeling I have when I take the plane from London and land in Shanghai – it’s really like an LSD experience, a feast for the eyes. That’s why this first collection uses lightness and bright colours.”

Despite the enforced lack of travel at the moment, Li retains a global vision for the brand. “I like to think of it as a Silk Road,” he says. “There are things to be exported out of China, and vice versa from the West into China. We are not going to change geopolitics or anything like that, but our humble and small creative world might spark something. Linking superstars or people with international experience with a 21-year-old Chinese digital artist might create something new. There are so many kinds of seemingly impossible meetings that we are trying to engineer with this brand. The nucleus is the working relationships between myself, the China team, and the people I’ve brought in; that then influences the shop staff, who influence the kids who come to the stores – and that’s how you create communities.” ◉