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Strawberry Field

Photos：Suzy

The Strawberry Festival might be the most popular music event in Beijing and is quite the catwalk. Perhaps the key street fashion event of the year, this past weekend’s Strawberry at Tongzhou Canal Park brought 130 artists and Djs to six stages over three days together with thousands of quirkily dressed revelers. Here on Stylites, the next ten or so posts will show off all their colors, while noting some key trends that emerged.

by stylites -

In Newsweek提到了我在Newsweek

Newsweek Beijing Bureau chief Melinda Liu mentioned Stylites and me in her latest piece called “Chinese Fashion Empire”, which gives a nice overview of the development from Mao Suits to Diane Von Furstenberg.

Thanks to CHART Contemporary for putting me in touch with Melinda.Melinda Liu这偏文章“Chinese Fashion Kingdom”在美国Newsweek 提到我。 她采访我的时候我讲了关于中国时尚界最近的个性化。我的意思是现在中国时尚消费者现在已经不是名牌簇拥者。非常感谢Chart Contemporary的安排。

 

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I.T Girl and Boy

Stephanie Chu is Hong Kong I.T’s Senior Buyer. Wearing a Comme des Garcons scarf, she agrees with my assessment that people living in HK might be more fashionable than their Mainland neighbors but sees this as the result of historical developments. Mainland customers are now shifting from glamour and brand-obsession to a more individual style. She also explained that I.T customers are from the “younger generation” that uses the internet a lot, therefore I.T is concentrating on creating a strong identity concept involving music and web presentation and an original shopping experience in each branch.

To understand the history of I.T, have a look at this interview with brand founder Sham Kar Wai from the WSJ.

Originally from Taiwan, Homer Chou is Chief Stylist of Beijing’s IT Store. Wearing a Junya Watanabe hat, Thom Browne Shirt, Acne Jeans and N.D.C. shoes with Fred Perry dotted socks. He believes that Chinese customers are very intrigued by Japanese style and labels and that they are slowly turning towards a more avant-garde, designer-esque, and individual style of clothing. However, he acknowledges that bigger and more traditional brands like Burberry and Prada still have a larger influence and will continue becoming more popular with Chinese customers, even though their mainland prices tend to be very high due to import taxes and shipping costs.

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Questioning the Showiness

Also at the IT event, Aviva is the senior editor of p1.cn
. Originally from Chongqing, she loves to travel and shop vintage – everything she is wearing is from secondhand shops. She commented that many international and foreign brands are prioritizing the Chinese market and “people and brands in Beijing’s fashion circle love to show off, but most in her country remain very poor”. While most in the circle think expensive is better, Aviva likes a more personal approach to style and as well as fashion that those who “are not so rich can also enjoy”.

She seems to be a bit of a leftie. To me, it always seemed a bit inconsistent that fashion types aren’t more on the right.

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Hint of Square手帕的一交

Modern Media’s genius Li Mengxia shows how a pocket square can work with a shirt-suit.

@李孟夏 的穿着是值得学习。夏天可以穿一套薄的西服加上手帕。他这个其实有点工人范儿加一点优雅的细节。

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A New Style Icon?一个新的Style Icon?

If Weibo (China’s twitter) is any gauge, the real style icon of the Lane Crawford x Opening Ceremony event this past Saturday was less Chloë Sevigny than aspiring actress Xin Yuan. I posted this photo on Weibo on Sunday and it has already been passed on (@ed) 103 times. This is, of course, just one of many photos circulating on Weibo of this young actress. Her dress is designed by a Beijing-based brand called Chictopia.

by stylites -

In Burberry


Photos：Suzy

Many people were wearing the latest threads from Burberry. The Vogue EIC Angelica Cheung was wearing the exact same coat that night.

Many items seemed to be from the now available Spring 2011 collection, the theme of which was “heritage biker”. For this collection, designer Christopher Bailey was inspired by biker gear created by Thomas Burberry in the early 1900s. We will try to find out how many of these items are purchased at the full Mainland price. For the time being, have a look at this piece our friends at JingDaily have on the price discrepancy between the Mainland and abroad.