Fanning fashion's cultural flame
Plenty of homegrown fashion houses look to China's rich history for design inspiration, but a few, like Yaying, are finding ways to continue a cultural legacy.
On the first day of November, Chinese womenswear fashion brand Yaying launched its 2020 haute couture collection in Beijing.
Set against the backdrop of the city center, on the rooftop of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the capital's Wangfujing area and overlooking the Forbidden City exactly one month after National Day celebrations, the show was a testament to the grandeur of the brand's vision and the global relevance of its exquisite Chinese culturally-inspired fashion.
This season, Chen Xi, the creative director of the brand, draws inspiration from the Forbidden City as not just a tribute to the finest Chinese aesthetics and craftsmanship, but also as a celebration of the Forbidden City's 600th anniversary next year, with a focus on the private collection of Chinese fans housed within the palace's museum.
With the theme of "Chinese Fans (Hua Shan)", the show and the collection seeks to renew tradition and reshape it for the present.
Fans are the epitome of Chinese culture with a long heritage, and are an excellent witness of time with many symbolic meanings in Chinese culture and tradition, especially among the former royal family as well as within art and culture－as seen in Xu Yang's classical painting Emperor Qianlong's Southern Inspection Tour.
