Just a season ago, Shanghai Fashion Week positioned itself as a player in the fashion world with its “local” fashion week, which was limited to the native couturiers and a single famous Milano-based headliner, DSQUARED2. However, Shanghai seemed not to be at the same caliber as the four fashion week giants – Paris, Milan, New York and London. But after that season alone, it was still too early to judge how important Shanghai would be to the fashion world. However, Shanghai Fashion Week, returned for an 11th edition this year and did its best to rise to the occasion. The week was full of events ranging from the not-so-well organized and overcrowded DIESEL Grand-Opening to spectacular local designer shows and well-known Zac Posen, Lane Crawford, VERTU, Alberta Ferretti, and Giambattista Valli parties. Considering the variety of brands and fashion capitals featured, Shanghai tried to represent everyone at the same time, with designers falling everywhere on the spectrum from pret-a-porter to haute-couture. Shanghai was striving to be a fashion melting pot, universalizing fashion under one roof. Talented Chinese designers, seemingly on the path to taking over the reign of Phillip Lim and Alexander Wang (American designers with Chinese roots), were presented throughout the whole week. Some of those who stood out were Ban Xiaoxue, who was noticed by Vogue Italia and was the winner of various fashion awards, Kay Kwok, whose work featured a futuristic aesthetic this season, and Ji Cheng, who is popular among Chinese fashionistas. While Chinese designers presented their work during the daytime, international designers held their events at night. It was great to see familiar faces coming to Shanghai from every point on the globe. Zac Posen presented his new collection, a collaboration with Five Plus, a famous Chinese brand from Guangzhou. Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl, one of fashion’s power couples, were the faces of this collection and attended Shanghai Fashion Week this season. Posen’s dresses are absolutely gorgeous and worth to take a look at. Among other international designers represented here in Shanghai, English high-end phone brand VERTU presented a new phone collection, Alberta Ferretti came to Shanghai with her three latest collections, and Giambattista Valli presented his haute-couture creations straight from the Paris Fashion Week runway last month. The hectic period of fashion week is almost over here in Shanghai, the Paris of the East, but fashion life is not constrained by the fashion weeks here. Most notably, the Alexander Wang for H&M event is coming soon, and may eclipse the original event in NYC.

This article was written by Alina Kalintceva. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Alina Kalintceva