Re-shaping innovations in the contemporary fashion show: emerging Chinese designers in the global fashion ecosystem
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Date
31/07/2020Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
31/07/2021Author
Wang, Zhe
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Abstract
In the contemporary fashion system the number of Chinese designers has
increased dramatically: they have formed a ‘new wave’ of design power that is
changing China’s global fashion status. Some Chinese designers showcase
their collections at Paris, New York, Milan and London fashion weeks and
demonstrate their design capabilities and desire to promote the global image
of Chinese fashion. However, existing research on this topic does not fully
reveal the processes behind the rise in growing Chinese fashion dominance, particularly for a new generation of Chinese designers. This thesis
investigates how emerging Chinese fashion brands are reshaping Chinese
design power and how the international creative labour that is presented and
exemplified by emerging international-based Chinese designers dynamically
operates through the production of fashion shows at different international
fashion weeks to systematically bring innovations to contemporary fashion
shows within the global fashion ecosystem.
.To explore this growing phenomenon, an extended period of ethnographic
research was undertaken for 24 months between March 2016 and September
2018. Participant observation, interviews and case studies were used to
examine the youngest generation of UK-educated, internationally-based
Chinese designers showing at Paris, London and Shanghai Fashion Weeks. Further to this participation in show production was undertaken with Chinese
designers Youjia Jin, Xuzhi Chen and Victor Wong. This thesis finds that innovation in fashion show presentation is a key medium
that is employed in reshaping Chinese fashion while accelerating the
increasing dominance of China’s fashion power. The re-shaped innovations
are embodied in two main perspectives. The first perspective is the new aesthetics of visual innovation in fashion shows brought about by immersive
fashion performances featuring physical theatre. The second perspective is
the forming of a designer collective that advocates and applies this visual
innovation in the global fashion ecosystem, constantly changing the inner
mechanisms of this ecosystem. The self-identified independence of designers
is, in essence, a cultural identification and interpretation formed within the
emerging community of IBC designers who seek autonomy and freedom from
traditional Chinese economic, cultural and political constraints to better
engage with the multiplicity of global fashion culture. Shanghai Fashion Week,
in particular, has seen unprecedented maturation, combining socialist
characteristics with a carnivalesque atmosphere, resulting in mass appeal as
well as a professional event that is associated with rapid Chinese fashion
modernity, attracting Chinese diaspora designers to showcase their
iconoclastic work and, thereby, collecting and accelerating the accumulation
of aesthetic innovation.