Top 15 of 2015

2015 has been an amazing year for both the Chinese fashion industry and CFB alike. We now have over 20 past and present contributors, and we’ve collectively posted more than 1000 posts this year… we know that’s a lot, so we decided to bring you the top 15 posts of 2015 in one easy list. Enjoy!!

Met Gala: Chinese Fashion?

China: Through the Looking Glass was always going to be a tricky theme to pull off for a large crowd of mainly western-centric celebrities. I thought curator, Andrew Bolton, did a good job of framing the theme as not being specifically “Chinese”, but about how “Chinese” is perceived and re-appropriated by the western world as well, making yesterday’s red carpet another chapter in the long story of hits and misses in the fashion world’s love affair with chinoiserie.

One smart way to safely navigate the theme would be to collaborate with a Chinese designer, which is why it was a surprise to see so few of them represented on the red carpet.

See the full post here, or read more from Hey By Hong

Shanghai-based consultant Michael Laridan of DX Consulting shares his thoughts about the city’s efforts at rebranding.

Since the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, which was hailed as the greatest city rebranding event in a developing country, Shanghai has continued with its efforts to modernise and polish up its image. While the local authorities are working hard to create a brighter vision, a certain degree of dissonance has grown between Shanghai’s perceived image and the reality in one of China’s largest, most dynamic and culturally diverse cities.

See the full post here, or read more from Design China

This Guardian article validates my long-held belief that Chinese design talent is the next big thing.

See the full post here, or read more from China Daily

First off, this was a HUGE collection. I had high hopes for it, and amongst the many, many, many looks that were presented, I found a lot to love. This guy is so talented, but I think he lacks the ability to edit… I think he, like many other young designers in China, just has too many ideas.

Scroll down if you have lots of time, or try and find the time to find out more about this brand because it is certainly one to watch. He will be a commercial success, and I think he will also be a creative success. It’s unfortunate that he won’t produce his more creative or expensive pieces, but hopefully his brand will evolve to include all of his runway looks because some are too good to be lost to an archive that most people will never have access to. Some looks could go there and humanity wouldn’t be worse off for it… I don’t want to see what designers create that is mediocre, so please next time edit.

I wouldn’t say this was his strongest collection, but overall I have to applaud not only his commercial prowess but also creative endeavors. China needs more young talent like Ban Xiao Xue.

See the full post here, or read more from chinesepeopledoyoustyle

See the full article here, or read more from superwowomg

Mike Friton has an unassuming, quiet presence. He recently travelled to Hong Kong to teach a five day innovation workshop with Dutch footwear school SLEM, and attends to students in a careful and considered manner. Yet underneath this quiet demeanor, Friton possesses a stellar portfolio of footwear design work in career spanning thirty years. His journey started at the Bowerman Lab, an athletic think tank created by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, before he joined Nike in 1998. During his time at the company, Friton created iconic models such as the Nike Presto and the Nike Woven, before leaving the company in 2011 to establish his own company, Friton Design. We talk to the man about the future of footwear, why he loved (then left) Nike, and the reason athleticism isn’t everything anymore.

See the full post here, or read more from Daniel Kong

This year is Vogue’s 10th anniversary in China, and to commemorate the momentous occasion is a very special cover featuring ten of China’s most influential women. Mario Testino shot the cover, which features Zhao Wei, Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing, Li Bingbing, Tang Wei, Zhou Xun, Carina Lau, Li Yuchun, Du Juan, and Liu Wen, depicted as goddesses of the golden age.

See the full post here, or read more from Shanghai Fashion Week

See the full post here, or read more from Meijia S

See the full post here, or read more from Shanghai Express

See the full post here, or read more from TOUGHLOVE

there’s a tuxedo jacket. and then there’s this tuxedo jacket.

See the full post here, or read more from Hart

See the full post here, or read more from Tiffany Wang

A young fashion brand based out of Beijing’s ever hipper Dashilar neighborhood, Bi Fu by Chen Xing is a brand that appreciates Chinese history as well as cutting-edge technology and is not afraid to bring the two together.  Chen Xing’s creations are on exhibit in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing from now until July 9.

See the full post here, or read more from Stylites

Where is my letter?

See the full post here, or read more from Aron Lu

French Historian Fernand Braudel claimed fashion is “peculiarly a feature of Western history.” The New York Times in 1913 exclaimed “The fashions in China? It never occurred to you, perhaps, that there were any!”

Didier Grumbach, President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, more recently stated in Vestoj as stating “There will never be a Chinese fashion. There are no fashion designers in China.”

But all of these claims are based off of Western assumptions and standards. They believed that fashion didn’t exist in China because it appeared to them that sartorial practices hadn’t changed for centuries. But Chinese history shows that fashion has existed in China as early as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which is comparable to the (initially unconscious) Western inception of fashion during the Middle Ages… The Chinese fashion system has just existed and developed separately from the Western system until recently, so Chinese sartorial changes may not be as apparent to the Western eye at first glance.

So in order to prove that ‘fashion’ existed in China, we first have to define fashion. My personal definition of fashion is clothing that extends beyond the primary functions of protection or modesty. Initially, fashion gained three “emergent functions” in the West due to economic development: adornment, social stratification, and imitation. These emergent functions also existed in Chinese sartorial practices since at least the Ming for similar reasons, so fashion has existed on the Mainland for centuries.

This is a wonderful drawing from Chinese artist Maleonn, which demonstrates sartorial changes from the end of the Qing Dynasty (1880) until 1970, over 20 years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

See the full post here, or read more from Timothy Parent

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