Shanghai Fashion Week presents China's sustainable fashion design with "Youliao" overseas exhibition
London, September 16, 2023 On the first day of the London Design Festival, the exhibition "Youliao--Shanghai Fashion Week" focusing on China's sustainable fashion design debuted overseas for the first time. As a special presentation unit of the WDCC2023 World Design Capital Conference-Overseas Exhibition£üLondon's "Design Shanghai Plan", "Youliao--Shanghai Fashion Week" was officially launched at the ChinaExchange2F exhibition space from September 16 to September 29, presenting representative works of Chinese designer brands in the field of sustainable creative exploration to audiences around the world.
"Youliao"--making good use of materials, making a lot of articles--is a test field created by Shanghai Fashion Week in the field of sustainable fashion industry since 2019, focusing on energy conservation and carbon reduction, recycling and other fields, exploring green supply chains and brands, showcasing sustainable and innovative works of Chinese fashion designers, and promoting inspiration exchanges with global design talents. This time, "Youliao" specially invited canU as the curator to jointly select sustainable clothing from more than ten designer brands including 8ON8, HUISHANZHANG, NANKNITS, PRONOUNCE, PROSPEKT, RAXXY, SAMUELGUÌYANG, SansPeng, yuhanwang, MEMORYREPRODUCE, and BORNINNATURE.
Behind each piece, there is a rich and three-dimensional environmental protection story. They show the exploration of Chinese designers in the field of sustainable fashion from different paths. The first one is "turning waste into treasure" - knitting genius NANKNITS disassembles old clothing yarn and sample cloth pieces, simulates the texture of trees to make knitted dresses; Samuel Gui Yang uses vintage items and 1920s beads found in West London to combine the charm of the East and the West on the dress; PRONOUNCE repairs and improves the brand's classic gown; 8ON8 uses the remaining surface accessories and discarded fabrics from second-hand stores to hand-sew 9 hats; MEMORYREPRODUCE also gives the fabrics of previous seasons clothing a second life, sewing them on eco-friendly bags, and each one becomes unique. When technology blesses fashion, RAXXY uses modular thinking to make each part of the clothing easily disassembled and replaced, extending its service life. In addition, the use of innovative materials is also a highlight: PROSPEKT cleverly integrates grass and recycled cardboard into the upper to make shoes; HUISHANZHANG makes recycled polyester fibers made from waste plastic bottles come alive on the dress.
These clothes traveled across the ocean to London and were quietly displayed beside the exhibition wall made of environmentally friendly materials. BORNINNATURE Studio also used discarded wood frames and recycled silver yarn to create a shoe and hat display rack, which closely echoed the theme of sustainability. Vivid patterns, delicate textures, special materials, clever tailoring...are all vividly spread out in front of the visitors. At first glance, it is a visual impact and aesthetic enlightenment. If you look deeper, you will find that they each carry the designers' unique environmental protection concepts and cultural insights.
Looking back at the origin of Shanghai, the younger generation of consumers has gradually established the cognition and consumption habits of sustainable fashion items, and many designers have already regarded sustainable development as part of the core DNA of the brand at the beginning of the brand. Shanghai Fashion Week is committed to cultivating this green soil. Over the years, through various activities under the Youliao project, it has grafted cutting-edge and high-quality green supply chains to designers; carried out exhibitions and retail for the consumer end, and guided the public from unfamiliar to familiar with sustainable fashion design, from viewing to entering.
The language of connection and transformation in turning the concept of sustainability into an artistic product that is both ornamental and wearable is design. "Design is a broad field. Among them, we have been thinking about the entry point of fashion design and expression. In addition to the integration and reinterpretation of cultural backgrounds, sustainability may be a more future-oriented perspective with infinite possibilities." Ms. Lv Xiaolei, Secretary General of the Shanghai Fashion Week Organizing Committee, shared with the guests the original intention of participating in the "Design Shanghai Plan". "Chinese fashion designers have not been in the field of sustainability for long, and have rarely received important international attention, but their concepts and expressions are very innovative, emotional and practical. We hope to use these exhibits to show their sustainable design concepts and achievements in a subtle way, and use design to link Each other, create a sustainable future together."
It is reported that in addition to the "Youliao--Shanghai Fashion Week" special presentation unit, the "Design Shanghai Plan" also set up sustainable craft installation exhibition area "Fresh Land", retail experience exhibition area "Set Collection", Chinese aesthetics exhibition area "East and West" and other units, to explore the "design" in industrial innovation, quality of life, and the driving force of innovation in urban and social development, pay attention to the brand growth ecology, sustainable development environment and cultural aesthetics revival, empower the fashion consumption industry with "design", integrate into the global development ecosystem, and connect the global design wisdom.