Behind the Madness of China Fashion Week – WWD

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From March to April, from the international stage to China’s domestic market, from airports to trade shows, fashion weeks have become major events worldwide. With China International Fashion Week, Shanghai Fashion Week, Shenzhen Fashion Week, Xiamen International Fashion Week and a series of fashion weeks happening in low-end cities all over the country, what does this mean for the state of China’s fashion industry?

In the year In 2014, a New York Times report referred to Xiamen as the “Antwerp of China”, indicating the coastal city’s journey to attract the attention of the fashion world. The following year, the Xiamen International Fashion Week began, and with the support of the local government, it was held for eight years. Starting from 2022, Xiamen Fashion Week has launched a multi-point linkage model of “industry-city integration” involving all the city’s cultural symbols. From this year, it will be held twice a year according to international programs.

Starting from 2022, Xiamen Fashion Week has launched a multi-point linkage model of “industrial-urban integration” of urban cultural symbols. Courtesy photo.

Events such as Xiamen International Fashion Week, which bring together industry leaders and also seek to engage consumers, have become popular across China in recent years.

This is mainly due to the success of Shanghai Fashion Week, which has attracted the attention of the world. On the other hand, events like Shenzhen Fashion Week have the ability to serve the development of the industry. At the same time, it serves as a “business card for urban fashion”; Following the end of Fashion Week, the impact it has on the city and helps to boost the industrial economy.

As a result, there are more and more major events organized in the name of fashion all over China, and many cities are hoping to become fashion consumption centers.

Innovation through competition: How can fashion weeks lead the way?

The history of fashion weeks in China can be found in the last century. In the year In 1997, the China International Fashion Week was held for the first time by the China Fashion Designers Association.

At the inception of the National Fashion Week, it attracted attention with awards such as the Golden Top Award, Top 10 Designers Award and Top 10 Professional Fashion Models Award. The week served as a major catalyst for the growth of China’s fashion industry.

Four years later, the birth of Shanghai Fashion Week showed that fashion weeks are not just in Beijing. Shanghai Fashion Week It had a big hit in 2020, when the global fashion industry pressed the stop button due to Covid-19, introducing the first online fashion week. Adopting the motto “Fashion is not offline, meet in the ‘cloud'”, the move has raised the profile of Shanghai Fashion Week and positioned it as one of the leading global industry events.

Shanghai Fashion Week claims to create “Asia’s biggest shopping season” in fashion. With the theme “Chasing the Light,” Fall 2023 covers areas from apparel to accessories, domestic to overseas, and emerging to designer.

Following in the footsteps of Beijing and Shanghai, Shenzhen, home to major fashion manufacturers, launched its fashion week in 2014. Being home to major industry players could be the answer. “The most important feature of Shenzhen Fashion Week is technology development and being green,” Pan Ming, president of the Shenzhen Garment Industry Association, said in an interview.

As the organizer’s leader, she focuses on technological innovation and brand digital transformation and improvement, the incubation and promotion of young designers, and the global integration and diversity of Fashion Week.

In addition to other development strategies, this year’s Shenzhen and Xiamen Fashion Weeks emphasized the concept of “linked development”.

As Shenzhen Fashion Week, under the leadership of Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce, this year’s event will connect 60 major shopping malls and thousands of brands in Shenzhen to create the “Shenzhen Fashion Week Fashion Carnival”. These activities across the city have created an opportunity for the community to engage in fashion and art culture with the goal of generating fashion sales.

Home to many local famous sports brands, Xiamen is a fashion carnival concept that focuses on sports and fashion, connecting new Chinese-made products with new retail models. It also created the first domestic four-dimensional integrated service fashion platform, which can be viewed, experienced, discussed and consumed.

Xiamen Jianfa Xingguang Fashion Cultural Co. Ltd operator said in an interview that the concept of “traditional brand integration” will be implemented throughout the year to target the core 90s and Gen Z consumers. New sports such as table tennis, frisbee, skateboarding, street basketball and street dance will continue to be introduced after fashion week ends to keep Gen Z interested.

“Increased consumption” is the key word for the Chinese market in 2023, and fashion week organizers and participating companies are joining the push to generate increased fashion sales.

Industry-City Integration: The Fashion Industry Chain Behind Fashion Week

Looking at the big fashion events in China in the first quarter, there is a clear trend in 2023: coastal cities are gaining prominence in the global economy.

In addition to Shenzhen Fashion Week and Xiamen International Fashion Week, Hainan, the host city of “Haiti Fest” – a high-end lifestyle event with business jets and yachts as its main exhibitor – welcomed Michael Kors’ first jet set visit. in China in March, followed by Louis Vuitton’s first Hainan store in Haikou Mixxi.

Behind the coastal cities that host fashion weeks or major fashion-oriented events, a strong industrial chain is built.

Taking Shenzhen as an example, the city is “the fastest growing women’s fashion in China” and is not only home to leading companies such as Elssay and Eka Fashion, but also large and small trade shows such as Chic and Intertextile. The year. Ordering is not limited to transactions during fashion week, but takes place 365 days a year and in multiple showrooms, making the city a favorite for Chinese buyers.

Xtep at Xiamen International Fashion Week 2023.

Xiamen is known for its sports industry cluster. The fashion week held there naturally attracts local popular sports fashion brands such as Anta, Li Ning, Extep, 361°, Peak and Particle Fever. At the same time, there are new luxury women’s brands such as Jorya, Uooyaa, Mukzin, MSlan, JWB, Fengfei-Z, Mashama, Wanyifang and Chnyu and other new Chinese power brands.

Compared to the Shenzhen Universal Order Fair, Xiamen adopts the concept of “the city is a runway” and integrates the event with the rhythm of urban development, combining “fashion shows” with “the aspect of cultural tourism in the city”.

In addition to the participation of major brands, original designers are an integral part of fashion weeks and are often developed as a long-term strategy. So Xiamen works with Ji Wenbo, Zeng Fengfei, Masha MA, Wan Yifang, Chen Yu, Ye Qian, Zeng Qinger and other domestic designers.

60 percent of this year’s Shenzhen Fashion Week schedule, which opened Wednesday, includes designer brands, organizers said. The organizing committee established the AND Showroom and ShowBoom Showroom, a professional order meeting that brings together independent designers in the Bay Area with more than 1,000 international buyers for top designer brands from home and abroad. In addition, in cooperation with the Nanshan Designer Cluster, it has created a command meeting to cultivate local designers and enhance the voice, power and attractiveness of the industry through universal, joint and collective applications.

Editor’s note: China Insight is a monthly column from the editors of WWD’s sister publication WWD China that looks at key trends and developments in the important market.



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