I am very happy to have contributed partially in these images that Anna is presenting here today.  The story dates back to 2016 when our fashion showroom was seeking someone who could help with onsite designs and photography during Shanghai Fashion Week, the largest biannual fashion event in China.  Because I had known Anna’s professional and commercial work for years, I thought she would be the best person to who can help us.

For 3 fashion seasons, Anna flew with us to Shanghai to take part in our sales campaign, where we showed about 4,000 clothing and accessories samples from around the world to over 1,000 customers who flew to Shanghai from all over the country.

Our showroom usually lasts for 10 days, spans over 1,500 square meters and spreads across many wings, so during each working day I don’t get to see Anna much.   Therefore I am very excited to see that she has been producing a great body of work during this time.

From her body of work here, I feel Anna is expressing how Mandarin Chinese women express themselves and their sense of beauty through fashion today.  They are individualistic, bold, and vivid, but still speak to many traditional themes of femininity.

Universally, fashion is a set of dress codes one adopts to express him or herself in his or her community.  In the fashion industry, before designers create their new collections, they look at trend forecasts for fabric, color, and pattern inspirations.  Trend forecasting is an amazing field where professionals study political, economic, cultural, social, and anthropological aspects, and interpret how people will be expressing themselves through fashion in the near future.

When I think about how Chinese women dress and express their sense of beauty today, I feel they dress with PRIDE-- Pride mainly in the areas of wealth, nationalism, and individualism. 

China has seen incredible poverty and political humiliation since the 1900’s.  Shanghai’s European concessions still remain important historical landmarks today.  Rise in national wealth and world status over the last 30 years due to market reform have lured companies from around the world to China to build their market share.  

Since fashion is still a key a status symbol in most societies, wealth has brought along both national and individual pride.  The logic is universal, ““I have money, I show it through what I wear, and this is my status.”  Chinese consumers have the ability to spend on fashion and proudly express their beauty through fashion, just like with cars and real estate. 

With more relaxed travel policies, Chinese now can travel and study abroad easily as well.   Many of those who have lived abroad bring back to China new lifestyle and trends in terms of how one can express him/herself differently.

It is interesting to note that while most follow international fashion trends, the physical and cultural aspects of Chinese women remain intrinsically different from Western women.  For example, which areas of the body to cover or reveal, which colors compliment Asian skin color, and which silhouettes compliment Asian body proportions.  

Savvy fashion brands from around the world consider these aspects when creating their collections; they are aware Asian women would wear short skirts and hot pants, but would not wear anything that shows too much cleavage.  They are aware that due to our average height, maxi dresses are less popular than minis or midis.  They are also aware which shades of red are preferred by Chinese customers, and that certain shades of green, yellow, and purple are not preferred as they make the Asian skin look more green and pale.

Anna’s body of work here presents many ideas that I have briefly tried to describe through my own experience in fashion trade and cross-cultural communication between the West and East.  I hope this exhibition can bring to the audience a different visual sensation and insights about how Chinese women express themselves fashion today.

Thank you.