China Insight: Behind China’s Fashion Week Craze
From March to April, from the international stage to the Chinese domestic market, from runway shows to trade fairs, 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 in lower-tier cities happening all over the country, what does this mean for the state of the fashion industry in China.
In 2014, Xiamen was referred to as “the Antwerp in China” in a New York Times report, which marked the coastal city’s journey toward gaining the attention of the fashion world. The following year, Xiamen International Fashion Week was launched, and it has been held for eight years with the support of the local government. Since 2022, Xiamen Fashion Week has launched a multipoint interconnection model of “industry-city integration” involving all of the city’s cultural landmarks. Starting this year, it will be held twice a year, in line with international schedules.
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Fashion events like Xiamen International Fashion Week, which link industry executives and also try to engage consumers, have been popular in recent years throughout China.
This mainly can be attributed to the success of Shanghai Fashion Week, which has attracted global attention. 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 “fashion business card for the city”; has a residual impact on the city following the end of the fashion week, and helps drive the growth of the industrial economy.
As a result, an increasing number of major events are being organized in the name of fashion all over China, with numerous cities hoping to become fashion consumption hubs.
Innovation Through Competition: How Can Fashion Weeks Take the Lead?
The history of fashion weeks in China can be traced to the last century. In 1997, China International Fashion Week was held for the first time by the China Fashion Designers Association.
Upon its establishment, the national fashion week attracted attention by giving awards such as the Golden Top Award, the Top 10 Designers Award and the Top 10 Professional Fashion Models. The week also served as the major promoter of the development of China’s fashion industry.
Four years later, the birth of Shanghai Fashion Week showed that fashion weeks didn’t only happen in Beijing. Shanghai Fashion Week had a breakthrough in 2020, when the global fashion industry pressed the pause button due to COVID-19, ushering in the first online fashion week. Taking “fashion is never offline, see you on the ‘Cloud’” as its slogan, the move helped raise the profile of Shanghai Fashion Week and placed it among the global industry’s leading events.
Following in the steps of Beijing and Shanghai, Shenzhen, home of major fashion producers, started its fashion week in 2014. As a latecomer, what could Shenzhen offer? Being home to leading industry players might be the answer. Pan Ming, president of the Shenzhen Garment Industry Association, said in an interview: “The most important feature of Shenzhen Fashion Week is technology empowerment and going green.”
As the head of the organizer, she focuses on technological innovation and brand digital transformation and upgrading, the incubation and promotion of young designers, and the international integration and diversification of the fashion week.
In addition to other development strategies, both Shenzhen and Xiamen fashion weeks this year emphasized the concept of “linked development.”
According to Shenzhen Fashion Week, under the guidance of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce, this year’s event linked 60 major shopping malls in Shenzhen and thousands of brands to create a “Fashion Carnival of Shenzhen Fashion Week.” These activities held throughout the city provided an opportunity for the general public to engage with fashion and art culture, with the aim of generating fashion sales.
Xiamen, home to many local leading sports brands, focuses on sports and fashion with the concept of a fashion carnival, which links new China-made products with new retail models. It also has created the first domestic four-dimensional integrated service fashion platform that can be viewed, experienced, discussed and consumed.
The operator of the Xiamen Jianfa Xingguang Fashion Cultural Creation Co. Ltd. revealed in an interview that in order to target mainstream, post-’90s and Gen Z consumers, the concept of “cultural landmark integration” is implemented throughout the year. Emerging sports such as table tennis, Frisbee, skateboarding, street basketball and street dancing will continue to be promoted after the end of the fashion week to maintain the interest of Gen Z.
“Consumption boost” are the key words 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 large fashion events in China during the first quarter, there is a clear trend in 2023: coastal cities are gaining in popularity in the context of the global economy.
In addition to Shenzhen Fashion Week and Xiamen International Fashion Week, Hainan, the hosting city of the “Haitian Feast” — a high-end lifestyle exhibition with makers of business jets and yachts as the main exhibitors — welcomed Michael Kors’ first Jet Set tour in China in March, followed by Louis Vuitton’s first Hainan store in Haikou MixC.
Behind every coastal city that hosts fashion weeks or major fashion-themed events, there is a strong industry chain laid out.
Taking Shenzhen as an example, with the city’s reputation of “being the pacesetter for women’s fashion in China,” it is not only home to leading companies such as Ellassay and Eeka Fashion, but also has large and small trade fairs like Chic and Intertextile throughout the year. Ordering is not limited to transactions during fashion week, but happens 365 days and in multiple showrooms, making the city a preferred destiny for Chinese buyers.
Xiamen is known for its sports industry cluster. The fashion week held there naturally attracts domestic leading sports fashion brands such as Anta, Li Ning, Xtep, 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 Chnnyu, and other new Chinese power brands.
Compared with Shenzhen’s all-year-round ordering fairs, Xiamen adopts the concept of “the city is the runway” to integrate the event into the rhythm of urban development by combining “fashion shows” with the “cultural tourism landscape in the city.”
In addition to the participation of top brands, original designers are a crucial part of fashion weeks and are often set as a long-term strategy. So Xiamen also works with Ji Wenbo, Zeng Fengfei, Masha MA, Wan Yifang, Chen Yu, Ye Qian, Zheng Qing’er and other domestic designers,
According to the organizers, 60 percent of the schedule of this year’s Shenzhen Fashion Week, which opened Wednesday, features designer brands. The organizing committee established the AND Showroom, which collects independent designers in the Bay Area, and the ShowBoom Showroom, a professional order meeting for top designer brands from home and abroad, to invite more than 1,000 global buyers. In addition, it has created an order meeting in conjunction with the Nanshan Designer Cluster to cultivate local designers and enhance the industry’s voice, power and attractiveness by means of universal, shared and common applications.
Editor’s note: China Insight is a monthly column by editors from WWD’s sister publication WWD China looking at key trends and developments in that important market.
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