Blog, Consultancy, Shop
The American Rag store at Crystal Galleria in Shanghai is in its soft opening phase. It’s near Jing’an Temple on Yuyuan Road. Go in this weekend and say you are friends with Nels to get a 20% discount on all purchases.
Click below for more photos of this new retail concept that is sure to change how the Shanghai style crowd shops and dresses.
If you’ve been in China for any significant amount of time, you should be sick of discussions comparing Beijing and Shanghai. And of course Hong Kong can also creep in. Which city is the best, most fun, most stylish, least fake, etc., etc.? I borrow the answer of my friend Charlie Ducane, who says “the ideal Chinese city runs like Hong Kong, is peopled by Beijingers, and looks like Shanghai.” Beijing has rockstars, artists, and their admirers. Shanghai has beautiful art deco buildings and tree-lined streets. Hong Kong is efficient.
When it comes to which one is the fashion capital, there’s also lively debate. My friend Tim Parent analyzes this question in this article for Business of Fashion. The HUB founders Peter Caplowe and Richard Hobbs, with quite a bit of input from me – I’ve been working with Asia’s leading fashion trade fair for nearly two years – have decided to put their bets with Shanghai now after four shows in Hong Kong.
Stylites contributor Crystal Xu caught up with Chen Xing, the designer of Bifu, now exhibiting at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing, to talk about making the transition from architecture to fashion, the experience of working with a luxury hotel and the impact of traditional culture on his work.
Stylites: What inspired you to transition from architect to designer?
Chen: In China, architecture is all about money, politics, and power.  There are not many choices for architects.  I transferred to a different career to express myself.  I want to be creative and free.  When I was in Italy, I saw so many [foreign fashion] brands and that most of the costumers were Chinese.
China has so much culture I want to show it in my designs.
A young fashion brand based out of Beijing’s ever hipper Dashilar neighborhood, Bi Fu by Chen Xing is a brand that appreciates Chinese history as well as cutting-edge technology and is not afraid to bring the two together. Â Chen Xing’s creations are on exhibit in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing from now until July 9.
Just in are more pics from American Rag Cie in LA. These are taken by Stew.
Georgian/Parisian designer Irakli Nasidze showed his Spring/Summer 2015 collection for the first time in Asia at a pop-up with Wuhao at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing in May 2015. Jing Daily has a good round-up on this event.
Quite a bit of coverage has come out on our Made in China shop-in-shop including from the LA Times, WWD, Jing Daily, Apparel News, Style by Asia, and Racked LA.  You can see a brief interview with me on CCTV as well.  Click on this link and go to 11:33.
Beijing-based blogger Lady Liaoliao got her post on the event syndicated by a wide range of meida: the Lady Liaoliao Wechat Platform, Sohu mobile, Zaker, 163, Phoenix Mobile, Haibao, Rayli, Sina, Weibo, and Wechat. Â What we are waiting for is the youku coverage resulting from her visit.
As summer begins, The Four Seasons Hotel Beijing collaborates with Wuhao a third time, this time to celebrate Wuhao’s fifth anniversary.  The first Wuhao pop-up in the lobby area was in Spring of 2014 and the second one was in October.
American Rag Cie founder Mark Werts and I were having dinner at Beijing’s Opposite House almost a year ago and we came up with the idea for a shop-in-shop that would transform a section of his giant fashion emporium on La Brea Avenue in Central Los Angeles.  The theme would be rising Chinese fashion designers who had never before been sold in the US.
After a few trips across the Pacific, tricky international bank transfers, and some trade fairs like Showroom Shanghai and The HUB, the Chinese shop-in-shop is opening on May 14.  Media from across the US and from China will attend the event.  WWD has already done a piece that you can see here or by clicking more – there are more pictures as well.
An incredible installation from Ryan Carter. Here is the press release:
Spring is the season of new life, of seeds bursting open beneath the ground to grow into gorgeous flowers or delicious vegetables, of a fresh energy that heightens the senses and excites the heart. At Four Seasons Hotel Beijing guests will find the ultimate spring art installation that captures the essence of spring, specially timed to coincide with the equinox, when the Earth’s axis tips from one season to the next.
The Dutch Design pop-up, spearheaded by shoe brand O’Quirey, is one of the very best ones that we have organized yet. Please select more to see more pics of the event.
The HUB Hong Kong will have its forth edition on March 12 and 13. Register here.
Time: 11am to 7pm
Address: D2 Place, 9 Cheung Yee Street, Lai Chi Kok, Kowloon. Hong Kong – it’s right by the D2 exit of at the Lai Chi Kok MTR station
Brands: Check here for a partial listing
The HUB blog also looks in-depth at some of the brands and multi-brand stores that will be attending.
The split will go three ways between furniture, decor, and footwear.  Coming up on March three is a new pop up at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing.  Dutch shoe brand O’Quirey has teamed up with Ubi Gallery and Studio Henny van Nistelrooy to present a sampling of Dutch design today.  The opening event will be high profile with quite an impressive list of magazines attending – everything from Robb Report to Esquire – as well as TV stations CCTV and Phoenix.  Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, H.E. Mr. Aart Jacobi will also make an appearance.
The image that will probably stick in everybody’s mind is that of the series of specially commissioned paintings that put bold O’Quirey shoes into familiar works of Van Gogh.
Here is more in Chinese on their wechat platform and you can click more to see the press release.
Harrod & Ji (instagram here), the newest multi-brand boutique to open in Beijing specializing in heels and bags, is now presenting a pop-up shop at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing. Designers featured include Ruthie Davis, Chrissie Morris, Crisian M London, Thale Blanc, Andrea Mabiani, Oscar Tiye, Maison Duposh and Henri Lepore Dezert. Check out more pictures of the pop-up and the special sales event that they did in the tea garden of the hotel.
Mark Werts, the founder of American Rag Cie, one of the most interesting multi-brand retailers in the world, founded in Los Angeles in 1984, visited Shanghai recently and attended Showroom Shanghai (æ—¶å ‚ï¼‰, a rising trade fair in that city. Stylites works quite a bit with The HUB, a Hong Kong-based trade fair, but there are several events somewhat like this rising in the region to try to capture the boom in local designers, the rise of multi-brand stores, and the increasing appetite of local customers for small and medium sized foreign brands. Another interesting fair in Shanghai that is also gaining in strength is On Time, organized by Thomas Thompson and others.
