China's Top And Emerging Designers Showcase At NYFW

Trained at Alexander Wang and Vera Wang, designer Angel Chen was inspired by maritime aesthetics and a female pirate from the late Qing dynasty. From models carrying lanterns down the runway to fish-netted sun-hats, Chen wanted to infuse the East with the West.

How would you describe the aesthetic of your brand?
"We always specialise in using colour and mixed materials, which you can see in every collection," Chen says. "No matter what age or generation you are, we love to try new things and really become creative and brave and that’s what I want to represent."

What's your take on the emergence of Chinese designers?
"They're booming these past few years. After I graduated in 2014, there have never been as many as there is now. They'll continue to grow in terms of their concepts and products."

Boasting contemporary womenswear in sleek and oversized silhouettes, design director Li Lin has attempted to avoid the mass market and fast fashion trends overtaking the industry since helming the brand in the '90s. For the Spring/Summer 2019 show, Lin cast 70-year-old recent Cover Girl ambassador Maye Musk to make a greater statement about her collections transcending age, gender, and identity.

What was the inspiration behind your designs?
"The theme of my brand has always been no boundaries, especially when it comes to fashion," Lin says. "I had a lot of different visual elements in my clothes in order to go against tradition and to bring modernity to the designs. I wanted there to be that contrast between order and the disordered in the show."

Established in 2015, Particle Fever made its NYFW debut for Spring/Summer 2019 and seeks to pioneer breaking traditions in sportswear through avant-garde designs and fashion-forward engineering.

What was behind the show concept?
"We are a very unique team and 80 percent of our brand is not from a fashion background, and we love niche sports," says founder 9Jin. "We drew inspiration from all kinds of life: cross-country running, marathons, or just shooting. We just present it in a very natural and real way. You can see many different shapes, body types and races."

What's your take on diversity in fashion?
"Sports can conquer all. For me, I'm Chinese and my partners are Chinese designers, but we all got education from very good schools here in the United States so that is an advantage for us to establish our brand in our home country and then export it to other cultures and present it in such a great way at NYFW."