Neo-Chinese fashion shines on international catwalks

Asian fashion designers have ushered neo-Chinese attire onto international catwalks, marking the dawn of a new era in Eastern aesthetics.

Young Generation Z fashion designers, inspired by Chinese culture and with a global outlook, are unveiling their brands worldwide, opening a dialogue of dual heritage across cultures, bridging the new with the authentic, the rural with the urban, and the conservative with the avant-garde.

Fashion designers in New York are integrating their identities and backgrounds into their creations, enriched by their experiences of studying abroad and showcasing diverse interpretations and concepts of womanhood.

"I feel that as an international student and a fashion designer, my mission is to use my design language to express my experiences and my cultural value," Charlotte Shao, the founder of the fashion brand SISIO, told China Daily.

The logo for the brand, which was created in 2018, is rooted in traditional Chinese culture, incorporating elements of Buddhism and Taoism. "SIS" stands for "sister" and combines the design philosophy of yin and yang. The two "i" characters in SISIO represent the positive and negative aspects of the Chinese Bagua map.

"Every coin has two sides. In fashion, I find it very interesting that many contrasting ideas actually keep good balances, like scheming and true feeling, elegance and vulgarity, virtuality and reality, bright and dark," she said. Just like Chinese yin and yang, Shao said that such traditional philosophy is reflected in her design concepts.

"I compare fashion to the concept of yin and yang because the fashion industry is inherently quite vain. I believe that desire and vanity are inseparable truths of life, while beauty and dreams represent the other side of the same coin," she said.

"New York Fashion Week is the most commercial of the four major fashion weeks. Every year, the most fashionable people from all over the US come together for it. I want to use this chance to show everyone the Oriental aesthetics in my designs," Shao said.

Shao has showcased her brand on numerous catwalks in New York, Paris and Tokyo. She launched her spring-summer 2023 and SS24 collections at New York Fashion Week. Shao unveiled her fall-winter 2024 collection at Tokyo Fashion Week with a show titled Glacial Requiem, inspired by Iceland.

The new season focuses on environmental issues such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels and coastal submergence, blending nature and fashion.