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

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.

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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Photos&Text: Suzy
A Stylites post was recently featured on a tumblr called Wearing the pants that collects pictures of women wearing menswear-inspired outfits. For women, such styles have long been fashionable, whereas the man-skirt still turns heads and seems a bit provocative. Also at the David Ubl event, fashion designer Xiao Qiao’s colourful number was created by a friend of his.

Photos&Text: Suzy

This past Saturday, German designer David Ubl presented his summer collection at Beijing rooftop terrace bar The Beach. Unfortunately due to rainy weather, the show was transferred inside. This did not stop the city’s fashion folk from dressing up as their usual chic selves. Here is Chictopia Designer Qing Yang who already appeared on Stylites during this summer’s festival season.

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Photographed two years ago on Stylites, Cecaa’s brand, Mon Cheri, has recently grown into something more major.  He was at the Initial Fashion opening party.  The first shop of this Hong Kong brand in Beijing is on tourist-overrun Nanluoguxiang, a somewhat unexpected location for such a hip shop.

Ding Xiaoyun is a graphic designer/illustrator/art director/artist who recently returned from studying in the UK.

Photos and text：Suzy

Roxanne is also at Central St Martins. I particularly like her skirt made from Miao minority embroidery and batik cloth. She found it at Beijing Muxiyuan fabric market.

Photos and text：Suzy

Momo studies fashion and textile design at Central St Martins and is back in Beijing for the summer.  Some of her collections are here.

Text and Photos：Suzy

Beautiful Fashion Designer Yang Shaojun was showing some of her designs during the Fly Tea fashion show at Seasons Place this Thursday.

Wang Yue is a freelance interiors designer.

Hats with ear covers have been quite fashionable recently, and not just when it’s cold.  By the way, both this fashion design student’s wristwatches were set to the same, accurate, time.

Up for the opening of the Kenya Hara show at the Beijing Center for the Arts was Stanley Wong, one of Hong Kong’s leading creatives.  A long-time advertising genius, multidisciplinary designer, and TV-commerical producer, Wong is also a visual artist specializing in photography.  He is known in the scene as anothermountainman.  Wong is a close friend of Muji Creative Director Kenya Hara, whose show, open till early July, is a must-see.

Having studied fashion design in Paris, Xiao Qiao has returned to Beijing for work.

Here is the final set of photos from the Chi Zhang fashion show.

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Photos：Suzy

I wouldn’t have quite expected this trend.

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She studies fashion design here in Beijing.