LONDON — The fall 2024 edition of Shanghai Fashion Week, the eight-day national fashion trade event encompassing runway shows, trade shows, panel discussions, and dinner parties is set to start on March 25, going head-to-head with Art Basel Hong Kong, slated March 27 to 30.
Local fashion heavyweights Le Fame and Mithworld — the younger sister brand of Mithridate, which just celebrated its capsule launch with LuisaViaRoma in Paris — will open and close the local showcase, respectively, at the official venue in Xintiandi.
Other key brands to watch on the runway include top model Lu Yan’s brand Comme Moi, as well as successful designer brands like Xiao Li and Louis Shengtao Chen. At the same time, Yueqi Qi, Samuel Gui Yang, and Australian label Dion Lee will show off schedule during Shanghai Fashion Week.
At Labelhood, the emerging talent showcase platform and retailer, some 16 young brands — seven of them brand new (Aubruino, Tension Archive, Ray Dots, Kinyan Lam, Weiraen, Yanyan Knits, and Chyeese Zhou) — will present their fall 2024 collections at Rockbund, a regenerated neighborhood by the Bund behind The Peninsula Shanghai.
A project featuring four designers repurposing traditional Chinese craftsmanship techniques as conceptual fashion pieces will be unveiled. Casetify will also present a phone case collaboration with Labelhood with a pop-up, marking its second foray into Shanghai Fashion Week.
“It’s our responsibility to discover new talents,” said Tasha Liu, founder of Labelhood. “Especially in tough times, it showed that our core customers value creativity more than anything. Supplying the market with something similar and mediocre would be suicidal.”
Men’s designer Xander Zhou will reveal his futuristic pro range at Labelhood. Shushu/Tong, Mark Gong, Yirantian, Chen Sifan, Oude Waag, Ao Yes, and WMWM are some of the brands showing with Labelhood as well.
As with global players, German luxury etailer Mytheresa will unveil its limited-edition capsule with Courrèges at Fotografiska Shanghai, the Swedish photography arts center’s first outpost in China.
It will be accompanied by a panel conversation between Michael Kliger, chief executive officer of Mytheresa, Nicolas Di Felice, artistic director of Courrèges, and artist Menthae Yu, as well as a public-facing exhibition titled “The heritage & future of Courrèges: how to reinterpret the codes of the past,” detailing the timeline of the French fashion house, now owned by Artémis, French billionaire François Pinault’s family holding company.
On the trade business front, it’s understood that Ontimeshow, the largest fashion trade show in Shanghai, will unveil a partnership with Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
A new bridal-focused showroom, called Bridal Moda, will join other major players like Mode, Shanghai Showroom, Tube, Not, DFO, Dadashow, Lab, HCH, Tudoo, Xin Showroom and Wave Showroom to offer a diverse range of brands for buyers from around China with different needs.
Building on Shanghai Fashion Week’s commitment to sustainability, a new edition of the M Space forum on March 25 will see speakers including Mulberry chief executive officer Thierry Andretta, and senior executives from local power players like Esquel Group and Youngor Group share their recent sustainable developments.
On March 29, the sustainable lead at Microsoft and LVMH digital innovation in Asia will exchange ideas about how the fashion industry should embrace the age of AI at M Space. It will be hosted by Shaway Yeh, veteran fashion editor, sustainability advocate, and founder of consultancy practice Yehyehyeh.
This season, Shanghai Fashion Week will also relaunch The Next, a trio of fashion graduate showcases for students from Donghua University, China Academy of Art, and Sanda University. Istituto Marangoni will also stage a special presentation for its 10th anniversary in Shanghai.
