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co-incident 10?
on the left, it is the burberry storefront in beijing. on the right it is a ‘buebelly’ storefront in shenzhen. really? ‘buebelly’? plain wrong.
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co-incident 9?
on the left, it is an art installation in the past from an unknown artist. on the right, it is the spring ’12 louis vuitton window display. both the window display and the installation are great.
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co-incident 8?
on the left, it is a look from deacon (yes, that’s me) fall ’11. on the right, it is a look from versace spring ’12. on the left, it is another look from me fall ’11. on the right, it is a look from prada spring ’12. ok, it is almost certain that they are…
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co-incident 7?
on the left, it is a celine ad spring ’11. on the right, it is 10 crosby derek lam resort ’11. so maybe derek just really like what phoebe did. like everyone else. (if i am lucky enough to have a brand, i would hope it’s not like everyone else)
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traditions
the wrong: competing from weakness last month, the latest intertextile was held in shanghai. textile mills (and their agents) all over the world were exhibiting their fall / winter 2011 fabrics collections and competing for share in the fastest growing market. bucol carries the best fancy silk. for lace, you just go to soltiss. solbiati…
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italian does it better
the right: take initiative, even when you are at the top of the food chain for a designer, it is important to be able to see, feel and experience different cultures. yves saint laurent’s pioneering spanish collection (1976), russian collection (1976) and chinese collection (1977) were good proofs of this. with the internet, the world…
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east meets west?!
being in hong kong in the 80’s, all the cool magazines were talking about east meets west. it seemed like an interesting concept back then. i was thinking maybe that was hong kong, a place where all the westerners would wear cheongsam (qipao), all the chinese would drive their mercedes benz in suits, and all…
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prison break
the wrong: imprisoned by our own long history 5 years ago, i was throwing around an idea of building a chinese fashion house. all the feedbacks from china were 1) copy, copy, copy, 2) make it look like a western brand, and 3) give it a european name. no one said anything about the actual…
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(printed) deacon
i was shopping a month ago at givenchy and found a pair of pants i like. after i realized it’s over us $500, i decided to sample some printed pants that i can’t find anywhere else. then, i was thinking maybe i would make some allover prints tees as well. why not printed shirts? eventually,…
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stop copying!
the wrong: copy blindly & stupidly once upon a time in new york, all you had to do to build a fashion business was to copy the french couture houses. you took the ferry across the atlantic ocean, tried to get into the shows, found the exact knockoff patterns, went home, and raked it in.…
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heroes & the time
the right: being creative… in the business side the heroes shape the time, or the time shapes the heroes? in the case of fashion, i would definitely say it is the latter. coco chanel once pronounced: “i set the fashion for a quarter of a century. why? because i knew how to express my own…
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reflecting the time
thai film ‘uncle boonmee who can recall his past lives’ won the top prize palme d’or at cannes today. it is a story about a dying man who engages in a conversation with an apparition of his late wife and his son who has reappeared in the form of a red-eyed monkey. i am sure it’s a pretty…
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pucci and missed opportunities
the wrong: paralyzed by heritage designers stephan janson, julio espada, christian lacroix and mathew williamson all swung and missed. currently, poor peter dundas is still just looking for the bat. we are talking about a game of pucci. to many, pucci is a colorful retro-print house. i suspect that such a strong but narrow identity…
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co-incident 6?
on the left, we have past tees from junk food. on the right, we have the summer ’10 ut all stars by uniqlo. i am pretty sure that’s not a co-incident. but uniqlo never claimed to be original. indeed, their mission statement is ‘to continuously provide fashionable, high quality, basic casual wear at the lowest…
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a single man
the right: once in a while, people should be a bit selfish and follow their hearts. success sometimes would follow as well i am probably the last to write about this tom ford directorial debut. and i am the first to admit that i hated all those gucci collections. but i love this movie. to be expected,…
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alexander mcqueen, 1969-2010
mcqueen is dead. when he was establishing himself in the global world of fashion around the time he got chosen for the gig at givenchy by bernard arnault himself, i was in school learning the craft of making clothes. every one of my classmates that was hip and cool admired him for his obvious talent.…
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to fashion designers everywhere:
last time we talked about the troubles of fashion design in china. now, let’s look at the universal problems of fashion design in the world. charles frederick worth is widely considered to be the first designer to have his label sewn onto his garments in the late 1800’s. that means the existence of fashion designers…
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to fashion designers in china:
think about picking the new beijing olympic stadium back in 2003, if my design were just with bricks and cements, would i have gotten the project? let’s say you are driving a bmw. a newer model comes out and it looks great. very modern. but then you find out that the horsepower didn’t change. no…
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a view on mens fashion
the wrong: using the same idea on the wrong context product design, music, fashion, architecture, and movies. which one of the above does not belong in the same group? (hints: music is about emotions. movies are about experiences. product design is about function. architecture is about belonging. fashion is about cash.) the answer is…. fashion.…