Talents Of Tomorrow

Yirantian Guo’s structured minimalist designs won praise even before she graduated from the London College of Fashion. After swapping the British capital for a tranquil studio in Shanghai, the young designer launched her own label Yirantian in 2014 to high acclaim. She is now focusing on creating the Spring Summer 2016 collection, which will fuse hints and flashes of daily life with the neon of 1970s and 1980s sportswear.

Known for blending artistic design with technological processes (she has been known to melt materials down to fit her vision), Guo hopes one mind-bending invention will make work a tad easier in the future: a fabric-making machine.

“You would put in the materials and a drawing of the fabric or texture you want and the machine will create it.”

Such out-of-the-box thinking might seem extreme today but will come to define the coming decades. “Being creative will become one of our most important values,” she says.

Founder of WMWM, Mushroom Song only graduated this year, but her first MA collection was a true standout at London Fashion Week. Presenting a series of looks that embrace androgyny in its purest form – with oversized cuts and blunt black bobs blurring gender lines – she is thrilled to become part of a new generation spearheading the future of fashion in China. Song’s architectural pieces display precision technique and were inspired by daydreams, especially “the moment we wake up or before we fall asleep.”

Summing up how the future will look, Song’s thoughts turn to “texture”, “contradiction and commixture” and "cold romance" – these are just a few of the visually rich phrases that sound like they could be titles of her future collections. Watch this space…

Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang didn’t just marry design inspiration and entrepreneurial spirit when they launched their label; they also paired their names. “It’s made up from our nick names, Shushu and Tongtong,” says co-founder Lei, the Shushu to Jiang’s Tong. They met as girls in high school but bonded at university in Shanghai upon discovering their shared love for Japanese pop culture, a passion that continued to inspire them through BA and MA degrees at the London College of Fashion and still manifests itself in their collections today. Their version of smart school uniforms gets decorated with bows and frills, in a collection that adds an urban edge to even the most nostalgic of looks.

The designers look to emerging fashion retail hubs in Hangzhou, Xiamen and Chengdu to predict how China’s fashion landscape will evolve in the next 20 to 30 years. The retail scene, they think, will be immense. The duo predicts that Shanghai will be at the heart of China’s fashion industry with a full supply chain emerging, enabling fashion brands to design, produce and distribute. “I think Shanghai will be comparable to other fashion capitals like New York, London and Tokyo,” says Lei.

“In the future, we will be proud of the term ‘Made in China’, Lei says.”

Trust history’s most dramatic icons to turn the head and heart of jeweller Nathalie Melville. Greek goddess Hera, Russian Tsar Nicholas II and 19th-century authors the Brontë sisters are a few of the bewitching figures that have enchanted the artisan designer and her pieces. “I get wrapped up in a character and it permeates the design process,” she admits. But history and literature’s darker sides are just half of the Central Saint Martin alumna’s story. Equally compelling to her work is the issue of sustainability, and as the proud holder of a Fairtrade Precious Metals license, ethical sourcing is key to her sense of integrity.

While the designer more often references the past, she does predict a massive consumer migration to independent design and craftsmanship in the next two to three decades that will see a sea change in the value hitherto placed on creative careers. Elevation cannot come soon enough to Asia, says Melville. “Too many talented individuals are being diverted into ‘traditional’ jobs in the belief it is a more stable option,” she says, but “if the 2008 financial crash taught us anything, it is that no industry is bullet proof.”

If Angel Chen had followed her original plan, she’d be an illustrator now. It took a major fashion wunderkind to draw her into fashion. She was inspired by John Galliano while in middle school and this forever altered her path. “He enlightened my way of design,” she says. That enlightenment took her all the way to London’s Central Saint Martin’s and back home to Shanghai to start her eponymous brand. There remains in her free-spirited, fluid clothing an echo of her artistic roots.

To celebrate Lane Crawford’s 165^th anniversary, Chen reworked some of the signature pieces from her much-heralded graduate collection with a fresh eye. Through complex handmade processes and many different textures, Chen layered found materials almost like a collage onto the existing designs, giving them a new lease of life.

The vibrant results are made to catch the eye, and Lane Crawford is proud to exhibit three of Chen’s key pieces in stores across Hong Kong and China. Refreshing, spirited designs, expressed through a bold use of colour, Angel Chen is one to watch.

“Consumers are paying more attention to original creativity, pertinence and personality. They want to get in touch with products that have character.”

A woman of few words, Carina Wong of Heting reveals that jewellery making has allowed her to reveal her true voice. The artisan continues to make connections through collections of beguiling handmade pieces inspired by nature that she hopes bestow a similarly transformative experience for those handling them. “As if their senses have been awakened and they’ve activated their imaginations,” she says.

Despite an increasingly digital, fast-moving world, Wong predicts that craftsmanship will play a unique part in linking the future with our past.

“Artisanal work has the power to connect people with memory and inspire the spirit of heritage. Craftsmanship is not just about knowledge and skill; it’s about soul.”

Such intrinsic values will remain cornerstone values to society. “I think our core values as humans have never changed – it’s just the way we express and deliver those values which is changing,” she says.