London Fashion Week seems to be the go-to place for Chinese designers to show their collections. Yifang Wan is another example of this growing contingent of strong designers with an affinity for the UK.
This dynamic between emerging Chinese design talent and London seems apt since LFW itself has recently emerged as a city that can once again churn out top-notch creativity consistently enough for the international press, buyers and editors to deem it worth their time to stop over. It also seems surprising, given the top schools in other fashion capitals, New York, Paris, Milan, that many of the most promising Chinese designers are choosing to study instead at one (or more) of London’s prestigious design schools: Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion.
And among the designers who choose not to return home to work on their own brands, they often opt to build their brand in London. Below, an non-exhaustive list of Chinese designers, where they were educated and where they’re now based.
Designer: School (Based)
Huishan Zhang: Central Saint Martins (London)
Kim Kwang: Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion, Instituto Marangoni (London)
Yang Du: Central Saint Martins (London)
Vega Zaishi Wang: Central Saint Martins (Beijing)
Uma Wang: China Textile University, Central Saint Martins (Shanghai)
Yirantian Guo: London College of Fashion (London)
Qiu Hao: Central Saint Martins (Shanghai)
Alison “Mary Ching” Yeung: King’s College, Central Saint Martins (Shanghai)
Masha Ma: Central Saint Martins (Paris, Shanghai)
Yifang Wan: Central Saint Martins (London)
Fei Wang: Oxford Brookes (London, Shanghai)
Xander Zhou: Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (Beijing)
Chi Zhang: Instituto Marangoni (Beijing)
Ji Cheng “Jenny Ji” (La Vie): Instituto Marangoni (Shanghai)
Liu Lu (LUVON) Parsons (Beijing)
Photo: Yifang Wan
