Among the well-established houses on the Paris Fashion Week calendar, a growing number of new names hail from mainland China.
A coterie of young, China-born but internationally bred designers are choosing to work and show in Paris, driven by desire for exposure and customer base expansion. The trend comes a decade after a wave of Asian-American designers including Jason Wu, Philip Lim and Alexander Wang established themselves in New York with similar motivations, finding success with cool, contemporary and ethnically neutral collections.
Possessing similar ambitions – and multicultural upbringing – this generation of global designers are intent on similar critical and commercial recognition, defining themselves on a world stage rather than through distinctions around exotic heritage.