Women Chinese designers shine at Paris Fashion Week with ‘expressive and experimental’ looks
- Ruohan Nie, Caroline Hu and Rui took the opportunity to make a mark on Paris Fashion Week amid more muted showings from established fashion houses
- ‘There is a lot of creativity in China with deep roots,’ says Pascal Morand, executive president of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode
The most recent edition of Paris Fashion Week saw Chinese buyers and editors return to the French capital for the last leg of fashion month after years of Covid-enforced absence, but the spotlight was firmly on the country’s emerging women designers.
Ruohan, a brand born during the pandemic in 2021, appeared on the line-up for the second time already, but this season it was a more accomplished production.
“Last year was a more DIY presentation at a little gallery in the Marais,” founder Ruohan Nie says.
The autumn/winter 2023 show, on the other hand, took over the iconic Palais de Tokyo for a 30-look collection that showed off staples such as wool coats and dresses. The ambition was a “timeless wardrobe that explores form”.
Nie, 24, has formal musical training (she started playing instruments at the age of three) and cites this grounding as a major inspiration.
Rachmaninoff’s preoccupation with themes and variations, and Haydn and Bach’s sense of linear temporality, are all here on the runway: garments that act as developments of a single concept, be it through shape or tone.