CNN Fashion Season Paris with Angelica Cheung
Angelica Cheung, editor in chief for Vogue China was at the heart of the revolution her country experienced in the fashion industry. In a society where luxury was banned, fashion took more and more importance in the past ten years with a new wave of Chinese designers responding to more and more enthusiast customers. Learning from French and Italian fashion histories, China is now ready to make its own thanks to personalities such as Angelica who catapults young designers and put her country onto the international stage.
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The changing face of Chinese fashion
To have a better understanding of the report, please find its transcripts below:
This is Huishan Zhang, a rising young star in the fashion industry and here he is meeting Angelica Cheung, the most powerful player in Chinese fashion.
Angelica launched Vogue China nine years ago, it has become the brand's most successful publication outside of America. Four additional issues have to be published each year to cope with the volume of advertising.
As editor in chief, Angelica has helped catapult young Chinese designers like Zhang onto the international stage.
"The fact that we are successful in China is great but still it just felt that in China you should do well- great time, great place. What I am particularly quite proud of is the fact that we really gained the respect from the international fashion and creative community."
Chinese style has undergone a revolution in the past ten years. Under the austere communist rule of the Mao era, luxury was scorned and expressions of individualism where suppressed in favor of uniformity. But with the first flush of economic reform, fashion began to flourish.
"Well I always say when someone has been starving for a long time, the moment they see food, you don't pick and choose right? when the country opened up and luxury products started to flood in, people were not sophisticated or educated enough about luxury, about fashion."
"They went for something they could easily understand which was symbols, logos. Now suddenly they feel hold on a second- I want to actually decide what suits me"
As Chinese style evolved so too did the industry.
" In 2005 I was struggling to find three or four Chinese designers whose work would not look too awkward next to the Dior's Chanel's and Prada's in the magazine- and now we have so many Chinese designers."
"Ten years ago, everything everyone wanted was modern, western. What I find with the young generation of designers is that now they are increasingly more interested in our heritage"
In the early days, she fought to be taken seriously. Now the fashion elite flock to Beijing to see her. Everyone it seems wants to discover the tastes of the world's luxury market.
"Most of the international brands they have one campaign for the whole world, the advertising campaign featuring some blonde model or celebrities in a creative crazy style that would look very avant-garde or chic or cool but would not speak to the Chinese consumers. So one big argument that I've started to push is that you should have a separate campaign for China especially."
"I can understand my Italian colleagues and French colleagues, they are looking for something new and different all the time. For us in China, I’m very conscious of our role in educating our readers about something that is classic, something that is traditional, something that is not practically new to the western world but it’s quite new to the Chinese."
When this education is complete,the Chinese will begin to make their own fashion history and Angelica, as ever, will be on the front row watching.
MYLEENE KLASS, CNN, PARIS
Septembre 2014
By La rédaction
