Brand Aims To Present Home-Grown Design To Wider Audience
RafflesPrivato inaugural China boutique
After a successful showing at this April’s Shanghai Fashion Week, RafflesPrivato, the first fashion label designed and run by design students, recently launched its inaugural China boutique at Xintiandi Style mall in Shanghai. Established last year by students and faculty from Singapore’s Raffles Design Institute, the Shanghai outpost of RafflesPrivato will be completely run by local students from Donghua University‘s cooperative Raffles Design Institute program. As in Singapore, the label and boutique are aimed at supporting talented young domestic designers and encouraging entrepreneurship while presenting home-grown design to a wider audience.
At the grand opening event, the RafflesPrivato team was on hand for a brief fashion show, after which Xintiandi Style general manager Liu Mengjie remarked, “Every single design made by these students is unique and can be made to measure.” As Liu added, “These [young] designers have remarkable skills indeed.”
Jin Xu, assistant dean of the Raffles Design Institute and general manager of the RafflesPrivato project, pointed out that the first batch of student-designed pieces appeared at a pop-up shop on the second floor of Xintiandi Style earlier this month for market testing, garnering a “positive response” from shoppers.
According to the Raffles Design Institute, students will be involved in every aspect of RafflesPrivato’s operations, from product design and brand marketing to retail interior design and sales management. Students from all majors, including fashion design and marketing, graphic and interior design, and business administration, will take part in the running of the label, and designs will be rotated on a six-month basis.
In addition to designs by local Donghua University Raffles Design Institute students, RafflesPrivato will also stock creations by students from 38 Raffles Design Institutes throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong. With plans to expand the brand to other cities, the RafflesPrivato team announced this week that it will open future locations in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
Xintiandi Style Mall (新天地时尚)
245 Madang Lu near Zizhong Lu
Luwan District, Shanghai
上海市卢湾区马当路245号1楼147室, 近自忠路
Website
Crowd at the grand opening (Image: Huaue)
Fashion Show (Image: Huaue)
Grand Opening (Image: Huaue)
Ribbon-Cutting (Image: Huaue)