On the evening of September 14, as the grand closing show “Hui’an Women: A Blossom of Prosperity” by Chen Yu, coupled with the Hui’an Fashion Night – 2025 China International Fashion Week Awards Ceremony, came to a splendid end at the 97 Tank in the 798·751 Art Zone, this season’s China International Fashion Week officially drew to a perfect close.
A Spectacle of Global Fashion and Cultural Fusion
The closing show, “Hui’an Women: A Blossom of Prosperity” by Chen Yu, a recipient of the prestigious “Golden Top Award”, was jointly presented with Hui’an County in Fujian Province. It focused on the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of Hui’an women, a treasure of local culture, creating an ICH-themed fashion show. This show perfectly embodies the core values advocated by China International Fashion Week: the integration of tradition and modernity, local and international elements, craftsmanship and technology, as well as the connection between China and the world.
On the runway, Eastern aesthetics intertwined with a global perspective; outside the show venue, cultural roots resonated with future imagination. Centered around the theme of “Radiance”, this season’s Fashion Week created numerous dazzling highlights: the industrial charm of the 798·751 Art Zone collided with creative design; the solemn elegance of the Beijing Exhibition Center complemented fashion trends; and the scenic beauty of the Yanqi Lake International Convention and Exhibition Center harmonized with fashion art. It brought together over 230 brands and more than 400 designers from nearly 20 countries, presenting over 180 fashion shows and exhibitions. Among them, world-renowned brands such as the Chinese-American designer brand Vera Wang HAUTE and the French designer brand IRO Night showcased their latest collections for the first time at China International Fashion Week, injecting new international trend vibes into the event.
This season’s Fashion Week garnered widespread attention and enthusiastic discussions. It attracted over 120,000 offline visitors in 10 days. Since the official launch of the new season’s promotion in August, it has received continuous coverage from major mainstream media outlets, including People’s Daily, CCTV’s Xinwen Lianbo (News Broadcast), Xinhua News Agency, Guangming Daily, and Beijing Television. Multiple topics related to the event made it to the trending lists on Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou. The total view count of the hashtag #ChinaInternationalFashionWeek across various social media platforms has exceeded 600 million, and the WeChat Index has surged by over 1 billion. These achievements have significantly driven both online and offline consumption, further enhancing the industry influence of China International Fashion Week, which is the only national-level fashion week in China and one of the first batch of “Global Premiere Centers”.
Tradition Meets Modernity: ICH as a Living Source of Creativity
In today’s world, fashion is no longer just about “what to wear”; it is about “who I am”, “what I believe in”, and “how I connect with the world”. This season, over 50% of the fashion shows incorporated ICH elements. Traditional crafts such as Miao embroidery, Yi embroidery, Song brocade, Xiangyun yarn, and Lu brocade were featured, telling stories of rediscovering cultural roots and building cultural confidence from a global perspective.
The opening show of MISUITY SS26, a high-end Chinese fashion brand, kicked off this season’s China International Fashion Week. Held at the Yanqi Lake International Convention and Exhibition Center in Beijing, with the theme “Seeing Oneself”, the show traced back to the grandeur of the Tang and Song dynasties. Hu Bing, the Global Promotion Ambassador of China International Fashion Week, opened the show with the “Mastery of Heavenly Craftsmanship” segment, demonstrating the contemporary confidence of high-end Eastern fashion.
Hongdu, a century-old brand with a rich historical legacy, reshaped its brand narrative with the theme “Meridians of Mountains and Rivers”. It combined fashion shows with exhibitions and launched a brand matrix. By integrating digital design, 3D printing, and other technologies with ICH, Hongdu continuously refreshed its brand image and turned ICH workshops into tangible, experiential aesthetic classrooms for the audience.
Starting from the mulberry fields in Bama, Guangxi, Southern Silk Nest combined original silk Zhuang brocade, plant dyeing, and the “butterfly” symbol of designer Lü Yue. It integrated traditional techniques such as plant dyeing and roe valerian with 3D printing technology, telling a story of innovative inheritance of ICH “from the land to the runway”. Chuxiong Yi embroidery, which originated from the mountains of Yunnan, arrived on the international fashion stage with the theme “A Lifestyle Called Yunnan”, achieving a cultural journey of “an epic created by fingertips”. Wanyue, in collaboration with the COLORO Color Application Research Institute, launched the “Only This Yellow and Green” collection. With traditional Chinese colors as the theme, it extracted the philosophy of yellow and green from The Book of Songs and Song Dynasty porcelain, using ICH fabrics such as Song brocade and Yun brocade to let the colors “speak for themselves”. Shangjiukai combined the thousand-year-old ICH Song brocade with high-tech fibers and reinterpreted Zhuangzi·Shanmu Chapter, making Chinese style a lifestyle more integrated into contemporary life. Diman integrated ICH elements of the Blang people from Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan with lifestyles such as outdoor camping and art painting, creating a new type of outdoor clothing that combines functionality and artistry. SOME ZEAM responded to the pursuit of the origin of Zhuangzi’s aesthetics with the theme “Tracing the Image”, conveying an aesthetic expression rooted in traditional philosophy. Xiangyu Creation drew inspiration from traditional Chinese fabrics and fabrics from ICH-producing areas, including Xiangyun yarn, Bai people’s tie-dye, and original village hand-woven cloth, breathing new life into old fabrics and reuniting the warps and wefts. Gu Axin·Yang Chunshan echoed the splendor of blooming azaleas in Guizhou with the theme “Perfection·Melody”. Through the use of hand-made flowers, three-dimensional embroidery, and gradient dyeing, Miao embroidery was able to shine even on the streets. Another children’s clothing show by Gu Axin featured children from 56 ethnic groups in China wearing their respective ethnic costumes on the Fashion Week runway, dazzling the audience.
In the DPARK Apparel ODM Exhibition, the “Chinese Style ICH” exhibition area and the “Intangible Cultural Heritage Apparel from Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province” exhibition area gathered brands such as Dejin·Zhoujin, China Textile·Lijin, Shibadong Miao Embroidery, Rose Appointment, ARTIIQ, Wangu Cang, Bifu, and Foxiaoban. These brands integrated contemporary design with handcrafts from Qiandongnan, such as Su embroidery, Lu embroidery, Shu brocade, Song brocade, Miao embroidery, Miao silverware, and printing and dyeing, bringing a fresh look to Eastern aesthetics. Additionally, ZAIDI SHOWROOM presented ICH works of Colombian tribal handcrafts, creating a dialogue between Chinese and foreign ICH.
All these instances jointly confirm a trend: the revival of ICH is not about nostalgia, but a creative transformation based on cultural confidence.
China’s Fashion Goes Global: Making Its Mark on the World Stage
Successful fashion brands do not just sell a piece of clothing or a bag; they sell an identity, a concept, and an entryway to an idealized world. This season, both well-known local commercial brands and international designer brands told such stories at the Fashion Week.
The world-famous Chinese-American designer brand Vera Wang HAUTE led the opening at the Beijing Exhibition Center, China’s first large-scale comprehensive exhibition hall. Its 2026 SS collection premiere was enhanced by the cultural heritage of the venue. The brand invited its spokesperson Qi Wei and a number of celebrities to attend the event. Meanwhile, Vera Wang flagship stores in seven cities simultaneously carried out online and offline promotion and order linkage, declaring that high-end customization is no longer out of reach.
Jeanswest, a national casual wear brand, set trends through competitions and promoted sales through shows. It successfully concluded the 34th Jeanswest Cup Casual Wear Design Competition, co-created the “Apparel Premium Day” with JD.com, and showcased an all-scenario fashion ecosystem through innovative forms such as a dance battle between hip-hop champions and robots and fashion shows by bloggers. Moreover, it collaborated with Huang Gang, the Best Menswear Designer, to create a menswear collection that integrates ethnic ICH with technological and trendy elements, presenting a new brand image.
Xtep, a professional sportswear brand, made its fourth appearance at the Fashion Week. With the theme “Looking Forward to Taking a Step Further”, it focused on women’s sports transformation and used high-tech fabrics and multi-functional designs to support every “step forward” for women in sports. SNOWFLYING, a Chinese down jacket brand specializing in winter sports, made its debut at China International Fashion Week. While strengthening the functionality of its products, it enhanced the brand’s value and style through fashionable and trendy designs.
Mark Fairwhale, in collaboration with Zhang Zhaoda, a “Golden Top Award” designer, staged an “Unfinished” high-end customization show. Using clothing and digital technology as media, the show conducted an experiment on the boundaries of fashion. Winzsun made its first appearance at China International Fashion Week, exploring the diverse aesthetic contexts of workplace fashion through a design language of flexible coexistence, combined with digital patterns, intelligent manufacturing technology, high-end fabrics, and innovative craftsmanship.
Brands such as ELLASSAY, IRO Night, Beautyberry, CHEN.1988, YES BY YESIR, MAGGIE MA, and Rongzimu used fashion to express the “emotional independence” of contemporary urbanites in the East.
The shows of brands including CHNNYU & ZAKER·Chen Yu × Arata Arizuki, LIU HONGCHAO, must bloom, and Shanye Qingzhi conveyed an understated elegance derived from the energy of nature.
In addition to the warm light of ICH inheritance and the renewed glow of renowned designers and brands, we also witnessed the vibrant light of pioneering forces and the cool light of intelligent technology. The theme of “Radiance” this season allowed these lights to no longer overshadow one another, but to refract, interweave, and overlap with each other.
Veteran “10+3” designers, emerging “Future Star” designers, and returned overseas designers… The emerging forces remained an unignorable creative voice this season. They dared to deconstruct traditions, play with technology, and engage in cross-border art, posing questions through design: Can fashion be more free? Can it be more responsible? Can it tell more people’s stories?
Bronze Lucia created a girl’s adventure that transcends reality and fantasy. Every piece seemed to say: Fashion is a dream, and you can live in it. YOUYILIN constructed a love fable between humans and AI with the theme “In the Name of Love”, which was full of romance and deep reflection. WOAVE presented a light and flowing Eastern philosophy through exquisite woven fur technology and digital intelligent manufacturing technology. CHENGGUANG WANG extended its focus from “the beauty of nature” to “the protection of nature”. MoeHo collided subculture with Eastern aesthetics under the theme “Teenage Journey”, interpreting “the spirit of youth” through bold color matching and deconstructive tailoring. FUMENGKE used recycled materials to engage in a dialogue with the Eastern philosophy of the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth), reflecting on circulation and renewal. Band 尼尔 (Bandeer) engaged in a dialogue with nature and integrated its lazy and casual designs into the daily lives of young people today.
Furthermore, the China International Fashion Forum brought together “masters” from various industries around the world, cross-border experts, field specialists, and opinion leaders. With the theme “Breaking Boundaries·Coexistence”, this season’s forum held 13 brainstorming sessions covering global topics such as cultural cohabitation, environmental protection, feminism, gender-neutral design, AI in fashion, and multicultural coexistence. These global topics were no longer just labels at this season’s Fashion Week; they became practical practices integrated into design language, brand spirit, and industrial development. Among them, events such as the China-Colombia Diplomatic Relations 45th Anniversary Fashion Forum, the Amazon Cross-border New Power Private Sharing Session, the JD.com Brand Online Cooperation and Co-construction, the Women’s Influence Salon, the PANTONE Color Trend Release, as well as discussions on 3D printed clothing, fully degradable materials, and AI in fashion, which are both practical and forward-looking for the industry, received a warm response from the on-site audience.
Local Regions Go International: Becoming Sources of Creativity
Industrial clusters such as Keqiao, Shengze, Guangzhou, Haining, and Xiamen are no longer “manufacturing giants” hidden at the back end of the industrial chain. Instead, they made collective appearances in the form of “Theme Days”, releasing fabric trends, collaborating with designers, and showcasing supply chain innovation capabilities. From wool and chemical fibers to denim, they demonstrated the design discourse power behind “Made in China”.
For example, Shengze, the “Millennium Silk Capital”, took the lead with its regional brand “Shengze Weaving”. It joined hands with four local enterprises – Yuanquan Silk, Liufu Textile, Yashidi, and Longquan Xili – to present a trend show. The show demonstrated the in-depth integration of Shengze’s weaving industry strength and fashion aesthetics, interpreting “how a piece of cloth becomes a work of art”. Meanwhile, designer brands such as ZIFEI WANG, LIQINGWEI, and URA-MON also carried out in-depth cooperation with enterprises in Shengze, bringing high-quality designs full of avant-garde Eastern styles.
This season, multiple fabric enterprises in Keqiao collaborated with a number of middle-career and emerging designers, as well as “10+3” designers. The integration of ICH by FENGSANSAN, the restrained elegance of LIU HONGCHAO, the avant-garde personality of K+ BY YUKANG, and the cyber-Eastern style of Dongfang Jibai all demonstrated Keqiao’s efforts and strength in design upgrading, digital upgrading, and sustainable technology upgrading.
Zhongfang·Lijin from Haining joined forces with Zhejiang Sci-Tech University to establish a Fashion Fabric Innovation Center, dedicated to integrating traditional ICH brocade weaving techniques with innovative fashion patterns. This season, as a featured brand of “Haining Day”, Zhongfang Lijin made another appearance at the Fashion Week. With “art + ICH brocade techniques”, it vividly presented tulips on jacquard brocade clothing, empowering the research and development of modern fashion Chinese-style fabrics. Y2FREEDOM upgraded Haining’s traditional advantageous fur category to better meet the aesthetic needs of urban fashionable women, covering all product categories and making people feel the vigorous design vitality of the fur city.
NUNU NONO, a brand under “Guangzhou Fashion Day”, continuously used world-class fabrics and inherited traditional craftsmanship to explore the gentle connection between natural objects and the human body, folding the aesthetic light and shadow of thousands of years of Eastern culture. The Wushui Yuntai & Jinxi Grand Show brought by designer Huang Gang combined Guizhou Miao ICH with ICH Xiangyun yarn fabrics. On the basis of inheriting traditional Miao embroidery techniques, it used digital technology to innovate craftsmanship.
“Xiamen Fashion Day” not only featured well-known national professional sports brands like Xtep but also presented a collaboration between Chen Yu, a “Golden Top Award” designer, and renowned Japanese designer Arata Arizuki. They invited two core members of the Taiga band to join the creative team, using music to inspire the designers’ creativity. Additionally, they collaborated with Jia Ke New Materials, an enterprise specializing in the research and development of water-based and bio-based sustainable materials, and used materials such as water-based artificial leather and plant-based leather to set a new benchmark for green fashion in the industry.
Similarly, the “Hui’an Women: A Blossom of Prosperity” IP from Fujian Province also brought the national-level ICH and the thousand-year-old Hui’an women’s costume culture to China International Fashion Week. In collaboration with Chen Yu, a “Golden Top Award” designer, it created the closing show “Hui’an Women: A Blossom of Prosperity” by Chen Yu and the Hui’an Fashion Night – 2025 China International Fashion Week Awards Ceremony, presenting a cultural feast that integrates the charm of southern Fujian’s coastal areas, the spirit of stone carving, and contemporary aesthetics.
In addition, Jiangxi Institute of Fashion Technology, as one of the leading design institutions, has nurtured emerging talents such as Chen Long, the newly crowned “Golden Top Award” designer, and Sui Zhenchong, the Best Womenswear Designer. It also has Cheng Hao, a designer who has dedicated himself to Miao wax printing for many years and won the China Top Ten Fashion Technology Award. Zou You, Vice President of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, and Professor Liang Yan, through their own thinking and designs, staged wonderful shows to set a benchmark for students about to enter the industry. The cooperation between Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and the Sanmen County down jacket industrial cluster also bore fruit at China International Fashion Week. Professor and designer He Huazhou, together with Blueway, an outdoor brand from Sanmen County, released two seasons of wonderful designs in a row, refreshing the fashion sense of outdoor sports equipment design. The multi-dimensional collaboration between China International Fashion Week, well-known design institutions, and important industrial clusters has become increasingly close.
Craftsmanship Meets Technology: Digitalization as Another Form of Reality
Huafeng Millennium, a leading Chinese fiber brand, presented a super show with the theme “Green Dynamic Fiber Peak”. For the first time, “digital supermodels” wearing Millennium’s spandex clothing made a stunning appearance on the big screen. These “digital supermodels” demonstrated “breathable fibers”, creating a blend of virtual and reality, and a dance between materials and data, redefining “elasticity” and “lightness”.
In the DPARK Apparel ODM Exhibition, the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) Sustainable Innovation Zone showcased the industry’s green practices and breakthroughs in circular design under the “dual carbon” goal. Cutting-edge achievements such as the LCAplus carbon management platform, DPP digital passport, and Fashion Forest Project made their first collective appearance.
Dishang Workwear, a leading enterprise in Shandong Province’s high-end, intelligent, and green development, significantly shortened the design and sample-making cycle through an AI trend analysis platform and artificial intelligence design software, realizing real-time visualization of design effects. Moreover, by jointly establishing the Kaiyuan Workwear Innovation Research Institute with Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, it focused on the research and development of key generic technologies in the workwear industry, standard-setting, achievement transformation, and brand cultivation, gathering intellectual resources in the industry to promote the faster development of the workwear industry.
Jingsifang presented the theme “Blue Sky Overlapping Realm·Song Dynasty Style East”. It juxtaposed Song Dynasty kesi (a type of Chinese silk tapestry), Yun brocade with 3D light-curing technology, and also launched ICH filigree cloisonné jewelry, using technology to carve Eastern aesthetics. siyun huang® burned bamboo to make bamboo-woven copper, used algorithms for embroidery, and engaged in cross-border cooperation with porcelain and AI artists in its collection “Virtual and Real Danqing”, demonstrating the philosophical tension between “man-made and natural”.
The digital fashion sector of the Fashion Week continued to expand. This season, nearly 30 digital fashion pioneers expressed themselves in a more sustainable way through innovative forms such as AI design. The DPARK Apparel ODM Exhibition also brought together digital enterprises such as Amazon and Linkee Style3D, showcasing AI pattern making, virtual fitting, and blockchain collection, breaking the limitations of physical space for fashion shows.
Traditional craftsmanship is also evolving with each passing day. At the Yunshang Town·2025 China Fashion Technology Award Winning Works Exhibition, visitors could see that fashion technology practitioners combined the “precise, ultimate, and innovative” craftsman spirit with digital pattern-making technology. From “manufacturing” to “intelligent manufacturing”, and from “following” to “leading”, breakthroughs in the field of fashion technology have laid an irreplaceable foundation for the high-end development of Chinese brands.
Strong Consumer Power: Zero Time Lag Between Runway and Shelves
As the core business interface of this season’s Fashion Week, the DPARK Apparel ODM Exhibition gathered more than 110 brands and leading supply chain enterprises. It linked the 10+3 showroom and the emerging “Future Star” forces to create the “strongest supply source” for the entire industrial chain. During the four-day exhibition, more than 20 precise business matchmaking sessions were successfully held. In response to Beijing’s strategic positioning of building an international consumption center city, the exhibition also introduced the “Qideng Fashion Creative Market”, bringing a wealth of novel and interesting original products and experiences. It endowed the 798 Tank with a more diverse ecological connotation through the warmth of handcrafts, turning it into a “fashion ecological tank” that integrates design, manufacturing, technology, channels, and new consumption.
On the runway, in collaboration with Taobao Apparel, the innovative “Taobao Apparel Super Launch” IP was created. It selected Taobao original brands such as Qixiangjin, ACDY, and Yimo Weilan, combining brand shows with Taobao live broadcasts. Viewers could place orders while watching the shows, achieving a high level of brand-image and sales integration. The three live broadcasts finally achieved a transaction volume of 22 million yuan, exceeding the target and breaking the annual peak or historical peak records.
Outside the show venues, the Fashion Week continued to cooperate with channel partners such as China Resources Mixc Commercial. At the same time, it launched pop-up shows featuring nearly 30 domestic and foreign brands, including EXCEPTION, UMA WANG, and NEXY.CO, in two high-end commercial complexes – Taiyuan Mixc and Zhengzhou Zhengdong Mixc. This built an all-domain “see-now-buy-now” model covering both the runway and commercial venues.
In addition, the fully upgraded DPARK official live broadcast room also enabled “see-now-buy-now” for multiple brands such as MAGGIE MA, Disimanling, YES BY YESIR, ELLASSAY, and IRO Night, each achieving a GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) ranging from millions to tens of millions of yuan. The DPARK Exhibition connected brands, live streamers, and social e-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu, converting the popularity of the Fashion Week into market “seeding power” in a timely manner. It truly realized the zero-time-lag switch between “runway and shelves” and promoted the in-depth integration of fashion consumption and industrial business.
The End Is a New Beginning: Chinese Fashion Takes the Initiative to “Illumine” the World
From Yi embroidery needlewomen to digital supermodels, from fields to runways, from industrial cluster factories to independent designer studios, from Chuxiong in Yunnan and Panzhou in Guizhou to Beijing, the capital, and from keyboards to virtual runways, fashion is becoming more inclusive, interconnected, and exciting than ever before.
At the establishment ceremony of the Returnee Designers Club of the China Fashion Association and the matchmaking meeting between returnee designers and fashion brands held on September 12, returnee designers in attendance, including Wang Haizhen, Ma Sha, Hu Nan, Wang Zhixian, Wei Lai, and Chen Peng, exchanged ideas with well-known fashion brands such as ELLASSAY, Septwolves, Li-Ning, Anta, Vicutu, MISUITY, JNBY, UR, Zhuoshang, and EP. The words mentioned most frequently in their conversations included “cultural identity”, “cultural awareness”, and “supply chain advantages”, and they all held strong confidence in the growth of the global influence of China’s fashion industry.
We are no longer chasing the light; we have become the light ourselves. The theme of “Radiance” was fully realized this season. It is the light of cultural awareness, the light of technological innovation, the light of industrial collaboration, and the light of every individual’s expression.
China International Fashion Week is no longer just a release platform; it has become a co-creation site: where culture is inherited, technology is tested, business takes place, and young talents make their debut.
We are not just here to “watch” a show; we are here to “participate” in a ceremony of light generation. Together, we witness and experience how Chinese fashion vibrates with its unique frequency, ultimately resonating with the world and illuminating the path forward for each other.编辑分享
Source: China National Garment Association
Article Link: https://cnga.org.cn/cngahtml/xwzx/hygc/20250918/1537.html