On 17 November 2021, the closing ceremony of the 10th Shanghai Haute Couture Week and brand launch of “Dongjia Guarding Artists” were held at the main venue on the 5th floor of the Bund Financial Center along the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, young designers and craftsmen gathered at the event. What a magnificent party showcasing Oriental Aesthetics!

As the grand finale of the 10th Shanghai Haute Couture Week (hereinafter referred to as "Haute Couture Week"), the brand launch of "Dongjia Guarding Artists" brought finishing touches to "Oriental Aesthetics", the theme of this year's Haute Couture Week.

As Xu Xiaoliang, Co-CEO of Fosun International and President of Shanghai International Fashion Federation, said, “Oriental Aesthetics is the ‘beauty of life’ discovered by the Chinese in different historical eras, different classes and different dimensions. It is the aesthetics and beautiful way of life in the East.”

New heights, new opportunities and newlandscape of the China Haute Couture Industry are unfolding.

NewHeights

“Chinoiserie” with elements of Oriental Aesthetics is rising globally. In contrast to "hard power", Chinese "soft power", which takes culture as its vehicle and "Oriental Aesthetics" as one of its cores, is gaining more attention around the world.

Over the years, Shanghai International Fashion Federation has been exploring and working on ways to help Shanghai improve its soft power and build it into an international cultural metropolis, and promote Chinese elements to the world, and introduce global trends to China, thereby establishing a two-way fashion channel and cultural corridor between China and the world.

Xu Xiaoliang said that, “Oriental Aesthetics”, the theme of this Shanghai Haute Couture Week is Shanghai International Fashion Federation's future development strategy and solution to the construction of Shanghai’s soft power.

To this end, the 10th Shanghai Haute Couture Week held from 12 to 17 November this year has been fully upgraded, whether it is the new product launch of haute couture brands, the conference salon with industry experts, or the new brand launch of "Dongjia Guarding Artists", the consumption trend brought by "Oriental Aesthetics" at this year’s Haute Couture week has paved the way forward for the development of China’s haute couture industry.

Yin Zi, Executive Vice President of the Shanghai International Fashion Federation and Co-founder of the Shanghai Haute Couture Week, said that Oriental Aesthetics is the best aesthetic interpretation of lifestyle in the contemporary way, which will become a new definition of Chinese high fashion. With this Haute Couture Week platform, we strive to bring in oriental wisdom and exquisite craftsmanship and turn haute couture into a new consumption lifestyle for people who pursue premium lifestyle.

Compared with the well-known clothing brands on the fashion show, the brand launch brought by Dongjia at the closing ceremony of the Haute Couture Week demonstrated Oriental Aesthetics in lifestyle more comprehensively.

Meng Wenbo, President of Yuyuan Cultural Creative Group, Co-chairman and CEO of Dongjia, said that we aim to build a world-leading Oriental Aesthetic brand with the launch of Dongjia’s own brand "Dongjia Guarding Artists" at the closing ceremony of this year’s Haute Couture week. We hope that, through model innovation, while maintaining the original advantages of the Dongjia platform, we can enrich the brand identity and incubate the “Dongjia Guarding Artists” self-operated brand and attempt to present and give more importance to everything related to "ingenuity", "art", and "oriental" with practical actions, and combine that with traditional culture and craftsmanship to design products according to the needs of specific consumer groups.

NewOpportunities

This year's Haute Couture Week provided Dongjia with a stage for innovation. Similar to Dongjia, there are other companies, brands and designers that also acknowledge the "Oriental Aesthetics" trend. This year's Haute Couture Week upgrade aims to provide new development opportunities for the industry.

The first domestic group standard on haute couture of apparel and lifestyle products - "Shanghai Haute Couture Week Brand Standard Regulations" was published before this year’s Haute Couture Week. The group standards were put forward to establish basic conditions in areas such as brand resource standards, scope, crafts and materials, and sales scale, which have high reference value for the haute couture industry. In addition, it will also lay a foundation for the full implementation of Oriental Aesthetics in the fashion industry.

It is worth mentioning that Shanghai International Fashion Federation and Shanghai International Service Trade Industry Association have entered into a strategic cooperation at this Haute Couture Week to jointly create and promote the haute couture service platform.

Leveraging on the chairman units of both parties, Yuyuan Inc. and Donghao Lansheng, the platform will form a full-industry chain service function that covers upstream, midstream and downstream, gathering resources such as overseas procurement channels, overseas designers, and reducing procurement costs and policy costs, and ultimately benefiting enterprises in the haute couture industry, thereby turning "haute couture” into a widely acceptable and affordable lifestyle.

NewLandscape

This year’s Haute Couture Week marks a new beginning, and after this, the transformation of China's haute couture industry may far exceed everyone's imagination.

With the help of the haute couture industry service platform, Shanghai Haute Couture Week will strive to incubate and cultivate young Chinese designers and bring in overseas designers.

Cost reduction, talent emergence, standard establishment, technology improvement, resource gathering... When the bottlenecks in the development of China's haute couture industry are broken one by one; when haute couture industries, brands and practitioners have a broader and more suitable development space, it will give rise to a newlandscape for China's haute couture industry. "Haute couture" will no longer be a luxury, but an haute couture lifestyle for all.

Xu Xiaoliang pointed out that, this Haute Couture Week is just a small step. In the future, the Shanghai International Fashion Federation will establish footholds in Shanghai, in the whole nation, and all over the world, and continue to make contribution in areas such as improving the soft power of Shanghai, connecting with industry talents, platforms, and funds, promoting “Oriental Aesthetics” to the world and bringing in global trends.