Why China’s fashion boom is still searching for its heart

Cameras flashed as sequins rippled like liquid light. A feather by the model’s ear lent a touch of whimsy to the opulence, her curls bouncing in perfect rhythm as she walked.

But this wasn’t a runway in Paris or Milan — it was Shanghai Fashion Week, which wrapped up in October. This year, over 70% of the showcased collections came from Chinese designers, signalling a confident new era for homegrown talent and the growing presence of China’s fashion scene.

TUYUE (涂月) is one of many Chinese home-grown brands featured at the show this year. Founder Yang Yingying told Lianhe Zaobao that compared with previous years, there were clearly more people taking street snaps and more buyers attending shows. “The buzz is back.”

With consumers more rational amid a chilly global luxury industry, Chinese designer brands are quietly gaining momentum, emerging as a rising force on the international fashion stage and drawing attention from major industry players.

When LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault visited Shanghai in September, he personally stopped by Chinese jewellery brand Laopu Gold and handbag label Songmont, showing strong interest in Chinese design.

At the same time, a number of Chinese brands such as Comme Moi, SHUSHU/TONG and RUOHAN have been actively stepping onto the global stage, participating in international fashion weeks, opening stores overseas, and expanding their global presence.

Yang thinks that the rise of Chinese designer brands in recent years is no coincidence, but the result of accumulated experience and growth across several generations of designers.

She said when TUYUE was founded in 2008, there was no concept of “Chinese designer brands”. But over the past decade, Chinese designers slowly found a way to express themselves, developing a design language and a sense of aesthetic confidence.

This year, Yang presented her latest collection, “Zenith”, at Shanghai Fashion Week, a reflection of her evolving design philosophy. The show opened with strobe lights mimicking the glare of the midday sun, briefly unsettling the audience. Yang said the effect was meant to disrupt conventional viewing habits: “When vision is weakened, hearing and other senses are heightened — people are brought back to the essence of feeling itself.” As the light softened, chant-like narration and electronic beats guided the audience into a calm, immersive space where the collection unfolded.

Meanwhile, Hugo Huang Junxun, founder of the functional fashion label TRIP&CO, unveiled “Ark of the Future”, a collection inspired by the outdoors. His avant-garde designs fused technical utility with a human touch, highlighting the emotional bond of care and connection.

After years of researching outdoor design, Huang founded the brand TRICKCOO in 2016, combining functionality with fashion. Facing fierce industry competition, he later launched a younger, more casual and more affordably priced sub-line, TRIP&CO.

Huang calls this “going with the flow”. “In this era of involution, we can only do our best not to be ‘involuted’.” 

According to a briefing released by the China National Garment Association in September, several key indicators in China’s apparel industry saw deeper declines in July, with investment growth slowing and the sector coming under heavy pressure.

In the first seven months of this year, enterprises above designated size in China’s garment industry recorded a revenue of 665.5 billion RMB (roughly US$93.3 billion), a year-on-year decline of 2.26%. Total profits stood at 25 billion RMB, a sharp 14.2% decline from the previous year, with a profit margin of only 3.76%, 1.15 percentage points lower than last year.

Huang said frankly that while some Chinese brands have attracted international investment, brands in the 3,000 to 5,000 RMB price range commonly struggle with insufficient funding.

He added that fashion brands operate under a well-established business model that relies heavily on capital support. From opening stores in shopping malls and building buyer networks, to exhibiting abroad and setting up international platforms — all this requires substantial financial input to achieve results.

He feels that Chinese designer brands are in no way inferior to international luxury labels in terms of material, craftsmanship or design, and even respond to market changes more swiftly and update their products more efficiently. “As long as a brand has a solid foundation, catching up with some major luxury houses isn’t out of reach.”

Over the past three decades, China’s apparel industry has seen exponential growth in production, sales and exports, evolving into the world’s largest clothing manufacturer and exporter.

Official data show that China’s garment output rose from 2.8 billion pieces in 1990 to 70 billion pieces last year. Apparel sales grew from 320 billion RMB in 1995 to 4.5 trillion RMB in 2023, while textile exports surged from US$13.92 billion in 1995 to over US$300 billion in 2024.

Chinese designers’ emergence on the international stage can also be traced back to the 1990s. As early as 1997, renowned designer Liu Yang held three major fashion shows in Europe. That same year, the Leipzig International Fair in Germany even featured him on a full-size poster — a sign of the growing global attention to Chinese design.

Now serving as vice chairman of the China Fashion Association, Liu told Lianhe Zaobao that from the first generation of Chinese designers represented by Li Keyu, to the second generation (to which Liu belongs), and then the third and fourth generations that followed, a steady stream of new Chinese designers has emerged. While the overall design standard in China now rivals that of the West, only a handful of Chinese designers have truly made a name for themselves internationally.

Liu thinks that this stems from the West’s long-standing dominance in the fashion industry, forcing Chinese designers to survive within established rules. A classic example, he said, is that “a brand named ‘Cuihua’ might not sell, but call it ‘Anna’ and it could do very well.”

Meanwhile, Chinese designers cannot escape being swept along by market forces too. Liu pointed out that throughout the development of China’s apparel industry, the market has often dictated everything. As clothing entrepreneurs like to say, “No matter how beautiful a garment is, it’s never worth more than a solid order.”

As a result of this trajectory, although decades of manufacturing have given China strong technical capabilities, its fashion industry still lacks a distinctive brand culture — and designers’ dreams often remain out of sync with reality.

Liu understands the difficulties of fashion companies — they need to survive and must also support their employees. However, he pointed to a deeper issue: many Chinese entrepreneurs would rather spend money on celebrity endorsements or nurturing successors than building long-term partnerships with designers as Western brands do.

“Designers leave after only a few years — how can a brand develop its own soul like this?”

Liu thinks that for Chinese brands to grow stronger internationally and gain a real voice, the key lies in talented designers finding management teams with both financial resources and operational strength, and forging deep, long-term collaborations.

In the process of brand development, Yang also received offers of investment. However, rather than pursuing rapid expansion, she hopes her brand embodies cultural and philosophical values. “A brand grows together with its people; I cannot demand it to grow too quickly.”

She added, “When the overall environment is tough, we focus on getting the basics right. In the grand scheme of decades, three to five years is nothing, so I’m not in a rush.”

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中国时装品牌崛起 变美路上灵魂待塑”.

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