Natural style
- Source: Global Times
- [21:27 March 31 2011]
- Comments
The natural style collection from local Chinese brand G.M.X.Y. Photo: CFP
By Yue Hongyan and Jiang Wanjuan
The end of March has not yet seen much warm weather in Beijing, but the 14th China Fashion Week (CFW) Autumn/Winter collection, which wrapped up Thursday, seems to have raised the capital's temperature, as models, fashionistas, industry leaders and reporters flooded to the major shows.
The past seven days has featured 40 brands, 29 well-known designers and 300 emerging fashion talents in runway shows, fashion forums and design contests.
International cooperation is one of the highlights of this year's Fashion Week, from working with global fashion management company IMJ, to co-hosting a fashion forum in October with the Associazione Nazionale della Moda Italiana (Italian Fashion Association).
"There are no geographic borders, no language barrier. What we do is to bring investment from companies that benefit from fashion ultimately. It is hard to sell something if nobody sells something," Peter Levy, president of IMJ, told the Global Times.
Compared with the Spring/Summer collection in October, some of the big-name designers, such as Lea Seong and Gioia Pan, were missing, but the Autumn/Winter collection is an opportunity to offer a platform for new talents. Even Levy, who has been to fashion weeks all over the world, was impressed by how China "put focus on young talents."
Men's week
With eight menswear brands on stage including Notting Hill , Cabbeen and Septwolves, this year's leant towards more of a men's fashion week. From Notting Hill's foreign appeal and Cabbeen's return to nature, to Septwolves's nostalgic European style, the menswear offered quality above quantity.
Notting Hill opened Fashion Week last Thursday evening with three rounds of shows under the themes "Rebuild the World," "Future" and "Eternal Classical."
The collection saw Notting Hill's usual taste for mixtures, as a combination of casual and classical styles with grey and coffee colors overlapped with knitwear and leather, highlighting the unique style of each item.
New collection from Cabbeen. Photo: CFP
Cabbeen's show was set in a dim and spacious room without flashy decoration or lighting, instead just a pile of wood in the center. Cabbeen wanted to combine male sexuality and wisdom with a rough and natural environment to reach a harmony.
Italian designer Lorenzo Vircillio brought his Cadini designs to Fashion Week for the first time. The inspiration for Cadini came from the 1980s, an energetic, passionate and free decade. This season's remained classical, but with a more adventurous visual effect.
Women's wear: nature inspiration
Despite only having five brands of women's wear presented in their latest CFW collections, Cadini covered many different aspects of female style, including ready-to-wear, evening dresses, haute couture and wedding wear.
Multi-colored prints, ostrich feathers, soft fiber, fur decoration and retro chic style were all featured in their catwalk shows.
Many designers took nature as an inspiration to their new collections, as seen in tree and snow patterns in the Northern Wonderland and Winter Garden collections from Bosideng down wears as well as Hong Kong designer Dorian Ho, who presented his African Queen collection Saturday with leopard prints in soft and curvy silhouettes.
Ho's wedding dress collection, headlined by Hong Kong actress Sonija Kwok, enchanted the audience with their decorative flower prints, a perfect match for luxurious jewelry.
"[It's] called the Secret Garden series, and uses different fabrics instead of sequin; very simple, but stylish," said Ho. "And for evening dress, it is the first time for me to get my inspiration from nature. I think nowadays more and more people are."
Asahi Kasei China Fashion Designer Creativity Award winner Li Xiaoyan, meanwhile, brought a whole new collection, themed "Walk," in which she used environment-friendly fabrics, pure camel, white and earth colors, and in the wake of the global luxury rebound, bold but refined hand-sewn flower decorations.
"My inspiration comes from nature," said Li. "I want to express my love towards life, and showcase life's energy in my design."
