Sorry for the delay in getting these photos up.  I know the event was last week, but the exhibition is still on at Lane Crawford.

Above are make-up artist Tupper Bai and his friend, a fashion photographer.

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Tommy, the PR Director for fashion retailer Shine, shows us how to mix blue and hot pink.  Trousers are tailor-made, the shirt is vintage imported from the US purchased at Mega Mega Vintage and the sweater is Prada.

Photographer Wang Peng has evolved his own rather versatile way of dressing.  He has five tailored suits in this exact cut each in a different color.  They can be either worn as a suit or mixed and matched.  I will have to ask him next time if there are really are a total of 25 potential outfits or if some of the colors don’t really go together.  The fabric is canvass that he purchased at Muxiyuan.

Among the collaborative projects at the Lane Crawford and Modern Weekly ‘A Plus’ exhibition was a pop-up photo studio by designer Xander Zhou and photographer Trunk Xu.  Here is Mega Mengmeng being photographed.  Xander Zhou and Trunk Xu collaborated before on the famous Gay China issue of Hong Huang’s Ilook magazine.  Here are photos from that issue.

Drink sponsors for the Lane Crawford and Modern Weekly‘s ‘A Plus’ exhibition, Pommery might consider sending me and Joy Island a couple more bottles.

Former Hang on the Box frontwoman Gia (Wang Yue) is working on a tee-shirt brand called Bad Taste (more from the Global Times).

She was at the launch of Lane Crawford and Modern Weekly‘s ‘A Plus’ exhibition, which features collaborations between China’s fashion designers and international artists.

Photos: Suzy

Here is an interesting mix of rugged and rugged, cozy, and chic.

Jo Liu is a fashion photographer who enjoys vintage clothing and checks.

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This fashion design student is quite a successful taobao merchant.  Here is her shop.

Yesterday, despite the strong winds, a horde of hip retro kids migrated to northeastern Beijing for a vintage flea market.  The setting was the yard around 2 Kolegas, one of the city’s best known rock bars located in a former drive-in movie theater that never made it commercially.

Charmmy is fashion design student who also sells vintage clothes at markets like this and on Taobao shops for men and women.

Who would have thought?  Well-known photographer Gao Yuan is now in a creative directorial-type role at ihavu.com, a frenetically growing online commerce site that is the official web retailer for Rimowa and a growing roster of brands.  Many respected media people have recently moved over to this site.  I believe this is something of a mini-trend and suspect the other players in this arena have been attracting top editors and probably sales and marketing staff.  Expect to hear more about this here.

Other rising flash sale, discounting and other sites in the fashion realm include VIPstore, xiu.com, 5lux, and Shangpin.  They have all done major advertising campaigns in the subways, on TV and in magazines.  Investment is clearly flowing in this direction.

Hong Kong-based lyricist and a columnist Wyman has a major following in Beijing and counts among his friends designers like Xander Zhou.

Photo: Suzy
Tang Shuang is a senior fashion editor at Outlook Magazine in Shanghai. She is wearing a striped menswear inspired shirt under her leather-sleeve coat.

Photo: Suzy

GQ Editor Dan Cui is considered by many in the field to be one of the most talented editors of a men’s magazine. We also ran into him at the Burberry event back in April. He is wearing a coat by Dries van Noten.

Photos: Suzy

One can either compare last week’s Xander Zhou show to those of other Chinese fashion designers at Mercedes Benz China Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012. Xander himself would probably prefer to have his show evaluated for its own merits or alongside foreign designers like Rick Owens and Christopher Kane.  However, since I am not doing all that much coverage of Fashion Week here, I thought would use Xander’s show as a sort of foil for the other things I saw during this most historic week.

Of course, the first thing to point out is that Xander’s show is not part of the official schedule of Mercedes Benz China Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012.  He put on his own event in an off-site location, D-Lounge, and the sponsorship and production were not connected to the official Week.

At least one consultant who will be working on upcoming China Fashion Weeks has suggested that there may be an effort to incorporate younger, hipper, more sophisticated, designers like Xander Zhou in the regular program of the Week.

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Photo: Suzy
Xander Zhou.  What comes to mind?  A young, partying, larger-than-life sort of designer who gets a great deal of publicity.  Fashion events and bottles of champagne. The cover photo of the October 2010 “Gay China” issue of Hong Huang’s Ilook Magazine.  For me, the main memory is of that time I bumped into him on the streets of Paris.

In short, the hype around the man sometimes overshadows his fashion collections.  He may be young and not too many retail points actually carry his brands, but Xander Zhou is already a big name in China fashion – especially for foreigners watching this space.  Often, he is the only Mainland fashion designer that people from outside of Beijing have even heard of.

Due to scheduling conflicts, I had not actually been to one of his shows before and had only had the opportunity to see his creations hanging in BNC and on the man himself on one of the countless parties that we both attended.  Given how much he seems to be out and the time he must take being interviewed by fashion magazines, I was not sure how he ever had time to design.

We will have more on his show last night later this week.

Photo: Suzy

A fashion designer,  Zhang Huishan is a devoted Yohji Yamamoto fan. He was lucky enough to get his hands on this coat during a sample sale.  This coat was also on the runway in black, naturally.

Photo: Suzy
Also at the Lane Crawford event, fashion designer Even Xiao is wearing his own brand. His blue was quite outstanding in that sea of black and grey.  Here is his Weibo.

Photo: Suzy
Nicy (left) is a model, photographer and stylist. Her friend is Mo Si.

This young design student teamed up with Triple-Major to create some very elaborate buxie that take off on tradition.

City Weekend has more on the highlights of Design Week.

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