Shenzhen’s Home-Grown Design Community Rising In Earnest
Designer Deng Huanhuan
Absent Beijing’s world-famous arts scene or the cosmopolitanism of Shanghai, Shenzhen — the southern Chinese all-business-all-the-time boomtown — isn’t typically associated with China’s burgeoning home-grown, high-end fashion industry. Associated more with the low-end, mass-produced fast-fashion churned out at nearby factories, Shenzhen, to the surprise of many, is actually home to a small community of high fashion hopefuls, building their own labels in earnest far from the highly publicized runway shows and flagship openings taking place elsewhere in China.
So what characterizes Shenzhen style? Led by young designers like Qiu Zihao (邱梓毫) and London-trained Zhu Weite (朱威特), Shenzhen’s fashion scene is known for a low-key but distinctive flavor, with up-and-coming designers being idealistic in their aim to raise the city’s fashion cred while still leveraging Shenzhen’s advantages as a manufacturing base. Along with Qiu and Zhu, one of the most interesting young Shenzhen designers to recently hit the scene is Deng Huanhuan (邓欢欢), whose retro-infused designs have struck a chord with the city’s “post-80s” and “post-90s” generation fashionistas.
Influenced by everything from 1920s Art Deco to billowing ’50s skirts, ’70s disco wear and ’80s neon tights, Deng’s designs echo yet re-interpret retro mainstays while infusing them with her own, very Chinese aesthetic.
From China’s Fashion Times (服装时报) — translation by Jing Daily team:
Grace Deng: weibo.com/gracedengchina