A Fifth Fashion Week Capital? Shanghai Makes the Case for Itself

Fashion insiders like to talk about the next big thing. We’re less adept at looking for it somewhere other than the places we already know. As a first-timer at Shanghai Fashion Week, I can say that the Chinese city offers a fairly persuasive argument for widening the search, and not just because China is a market too large to ignore.

In Shanghai, the scene feels young, interconnected, and unusually close to the people who actually buy the clothes. At Labelhood, the independent platform that has become one of the week’s most compelling showcases for emerging talent, the distinction between industry insiders and the public is refreshingly porous. There’s an audience of editors and buyers, and then there is a second show for everyone else, equally enthusiastic about seeing what comes down the runway.

For Blake Abbie, the Canadian-born EIC of A Magazine Curated By, who has spent considerable time observing the Chinese fashion scene, this proximity is one of Shanghai’s defining assets. Here, he argues, designers are particularly conscious of the market. Elsewhere, that awareness may be left to marketing departments; in Shanghai, designers themselves seem to understand what people want to wear. “I don’t necessarily think that’s the case in Europe or New York, where designers often create clothes based on what they think people should wear,” he said.

The difference, Abbie suggested, has something to do with the fact that designers and customers belong to the same young community. Their relationship is less hierarchical, more of an exchange. Consumers support local labels, designers respond to them, and the resulting feedback loop encourages creativity rather than simply dictating what sells.

Tasha Liu, the founder of Labelhood, sees this consumer engagement as one of Shanghai’s greatest advantages. Shanghai operates on several fronts simultaneously: runway shows, showrooms, retail, and a digital ecosystem that allows consumers to follow new labels almost as soon as they emerge. Domestic buyers come in substantial numbers, she noted, making the city a genuine trading hub alongside its role as a creative showcase. Paris may remain the principal destination for international buyers placing orders, but Shanghai has its own commercial momentum.

That momentum is not accidental. Since 2015, Shanghai Fashion Week has been developing an ecosystem that brings together presentations, showrooms, and business opportunities, explained Landon Du, SWF Projects Director. The main venue generally requires designers to have at least two years of experience, with applications assessed by a committee comprising industry professionals, media, showroom owners, and buyers. Labelhood, by contrast, offers a more open platform for emerging names.

Showing a collection is hardly an inexpensive exercise. Production, models, styling, lighting, and public relations all have to be paid for, and sponsorship rarely covers the entire bill. Many of the designers on the calendar have therefore already established retail businesses in China, with some reaching multibrand stores internationally.

What makes this particularly interesting is that the business infrastructure supports creative independence. Liu pointed to China’s production capabilities and developed e-commerce channels as advantages that allow young labels to reach consumers without first having to build an elaborate international distribution network. Designers can grow through online sales and multibrand retail before opening their own stores. In other markets, that journey can be considerably more arduous.

The commercial awareness does not, however, mean that the clothes are merely an exercise in consumer appeasement. One of the most compelling developments, according to both Liu and Du, is the growing engagement with Chinese heritage, craftsmanship, and traditional techniques. Designers are looking beyond familiar cultural references to explore processes preserved by families and communities, including traditional dyeing and embroidery. The challenge is to bring these practices into the present without turning them into museum pieces.

Liu cited Kinyan Lam, which works with traditional dyeing techniques from rural areas in southwestern China, and Samuel Gui Yang, whose work approaches Chinese aesthetics with a contemporary sensibility. For Abbie, the appeal lies in the way craftsmanship is integrated into clothes that can actually be worn. He spoke of designers devoting months to intricate embroidery, sometimes at a level comparable to couture, while creating pieces intended for everyday life. The distinction matters: these are not necessarily precious objects designed to be admired from a safe distance, but expressions of craft that remain accessible to younger customers.

There is also a shift in attitude behind this exploration. Abbie observed that, after the pandemic, more designers returned to China from their studies abroad and began looking at their own cultural inheritance with renewed interest. Earlier generations had explored Chinese tradition, too, but often without the same everyday sensibility. Now, he suggested, there is a stronger sense of pride in where designers come from, and a desire to make that identity part of contemporary life rather than a decorative reference.

The relationship with international luxury is more nuanced than a simple story of local brands replacing foreign ones. Liu argues that the major fashion houses have helped educate Chinese consumers, introducing them to the importance of design, storytelling, and brand identity. Those same consumers are now developing their own tastes and discovering Chinese labels. A customer can appreciate Hermès or Louis Vuitton and still choose a local designer for reasons that have little to do with price alone.

That distinction is important in a market where consumers have become more selective. As Abbie pointed out, the economic slowdown has affected spending, but it has also created opportunities for younger labels offering a different proposition from international luxury, whose prices in China can be considerably inflated. Local designers may share customers with the established houses, but they are not necessarily competing for the same desires. The question is not simply which logo to buy, but what kind of design identity feels worth investing in.

For Du, another development worth watching is the growing involvement of Chinese designers in the creative teams and hubs of major domestic fashion companies. Rather than limiting collaborations to capsule collections, some groups are bringing designers into their businesses on a more sustained basis. International partnerships are also expanding, as demonstrated by Feng Chen Wang’s work with Under Armour and collaborations involving Chinese outerwear designers and Moncler. The question of whether Chinese talent will eventually lead major international fashion houses is therefore less fanciful than it might once have seemed.

Some names come up as possible candidates. Samuel Gui Yang, for instance, has built an impressive team and a distinctive brand between Shanghai and London. Feng Chen Wang has demonstrated an ability to operate at scale through her extensive collaborations. The artisanal intricacy of the embroidery and handwork of Kinyan Lam, the Hong Kong-based designer, and his sensibility might be translated to a house like Chloé. These are different creative profiles, but they share an understanding of how to develop a coherent identity around their work.

Still, the most resounding argument for Shanghai may be less about exporting a designer to a storied European house than about allowing a local fashion culture to flourish on its own terms. Abbie was struck by how consistently designers attend one another’s shows. The solidarity, he said, feels more organic than performative. People understand that a market cannot be built by individual ambition alone; it requires a network of designers, stylists, photographers, retailers, and customers who show up for one another. “It’s about people,” said Liu.

That sense of community is Shanghai’s most distinctive resource. Its designers are young, its consumers are engaged, and its business infrastructure offers routes to growth that are not always available elsewhere. Not every label will become an international name, nor does every promising designer need to end up at the helm of a Paris fashion house to validate their talent. The more immediate achievement is that a generation of designers is building businesses while developing contemporary points of view.

Fashion’s international conversation has long been conducted from a relatively small number of familiar addresses. Shanghai is making the case that there are other places worth listening to, and that the most promising thing happening here may not be who gets discovered next, but how the system is allowing so many designers to develop consistently in the first place.