Shanghai Fashion Week (SHFW) was brought to a close as usual on Thursday night by the city’s star label Shushu/Tong. The show was a feast for the eyes both on and off the runway, thanks to the legions of KOLs and clients decked out in the brand’s embellished and tailored dresses on the front row.
Shushu/Tong is one of many Shanghai brands celebrating their 10th anniversary this season, alongside Xu Zhi, Short Sentence, WMWM, Staff Only and Samuel Gui Yang. Markgong, 8ON8 and Oude Waag are not far behind, all eight years into their journey. It’s a testament to the growing influence of Shanghai Fashion Week, as the city’s maturing labels, having built strong foundations in China, explore opportunities across Asia and in the West.
“One of the biggest highlights this season is how we’ve managed to bring together brands at very different stages of growth and present such a rich, diverse ecosystem,” says Madame LV, secretary-general of Shanghai Fashion Week Organizing Committee and executive vice chairman of Shanghai Fashion Designers Association. “This season feels especially dynamic — you can really sense the layers, the different energies coexisting. That’s something I’m very proud of.”
Each 10-year-old label on the SHFW schedule paid homage to their history and underlined their brand DNA in different ways this season, from Short Sentence’s roller disco show at popular birthday party destination Riink Roller, to Markgong’s Thelma Louise show, which references the designer’s heavily cowboy-inspired debut runway collection. Guests sat in one of three rooms inspired by scenes from the movie (editors sat on a plastic chair in “the desert”, while friends and family sat on the mattresses stacked in the “motel”).
Will Zhang, founder of retailer SND, which operates 12 stores in China, noted Samuel Gui Yang’s 10th-anniversary show as a highlight. “It wasn’t only a celebration for the brand itself but also part of a broader sentiment this season — many independent designers and showrooms have reached important milestones,” he says. “Samuel’s presentation balanced emotion and precision beautifully, proving how a designer can evolve over a decade while staying true to their DNA.”
Despite their years of experience, Spring/Summer 2026 was a challenge to pull together for some of Shanghai’s most prominent designers. The fashion week, which ran 9-16 October, fell just two days after the close of Paris Fashion Week this season because Paris moved its dates back, and it was too late for SHFW to change. “I only had six days between coming back from Paris and the show. It was crazy,” says designer Mark Gong, who, like Shushu/Tong, holds a Paris showroom for sales.
Many of these labels are scaling healthily, despite the challenging economic backdrop in China and a broader luxury slowdown in the West. Markgong’s sales grew 40 per cent this season, taking him to 72 global stockists (50 of which are in China). Shushu/Tong doesn’t yet have figures for SS26, but grew 5 per cent to 60 stores last season, and Xu Zhi didn’t share numbers, but when asked how sales were going, grinned from ear to ear. “Very, very well,” he said. It’s in part due to the brands’ competitive price points, which are attractive to buyers right now, showroom founders say. Most Shanghai labels are in the lower-end luxury or premium price range, with products from $100-$2,000, because they can manufacture domestically and save considerable funds on shipping to and from suppliers.
Of course, the shows only tell half the story of SHFW. It’s in showrooms Lab, Tube, Not and On Time, plus trade show Mode that you understand the nuances of the local market. After a few seasons of softened demand, the Chinese market is making a gradual recovery, according to showroom founders, designers and the Shanghai Fashion Designers Association (SDFA). Traffic was up 20 per cent in the Mode trade show, and showroom executives like Not’s Muyuan Ma noted stable numbers, up marginally from last season.
The K-pop effect
Following SHFW, retailer and brand incubator Labelhood’s Tasha Liu was heading straight to Seoul to open a pop-up with major department store Hyundai, featuring brands Shushu/Tong, Markgong and AO Yes. “It’s because of the Korean celebrities and influencers,” she said ahead of the Shushu/Tong show on the final night of SHFW, gesturing to the front row. “[Blackpink’s] Lisa’s stylist is over there!”
It checks out. K-pop stars like Lisa and Blackpink bandmate Jennie have been wearing Chinese brands increasingly over the last year and a half, since Shanghai-based PR and creative agency BOH Projects branched out to Seoul to help connect brands and talent across the two Asian fashion hubs. It’s prompting major sales growth in Korea for Shanghai labels, says BOH Projects founder Bohan Qiu. Alongside Shushu/Tong and Markgong, which are both soaring in the market, other labels like AO Yes and Short Sentence are building resonance, too. Each designer picked up several stores in Korea for SS26.
“Korea is such a community. It s kind of collective thinking,” says BOH Projects Korean executive producer Jeffrey Jin, who was responsible for Markgong dressing Lisa for the Oscars. “It’s very trendy. Once a group of people do something, everybody wants to be part of that. Mark really understood the trend of what Asian girls wanted to dress like, and the persona they wanted to create.”
There was an influx of Korean, Japanese and Thai talent at Shanghai Fashion Week this season, brokered by BOH Projects, including creators Minjin Park, Yeon Ji Park, Rin and Tae Eun, and teams from Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire Korea, further propelling Shanghai brands. “Before, people didn t really think about working with Korea or Japan here; everyone was a bit separated,” Qiu says. Since November last year, there have been no visa requirements between Korea, Japan and China, making it easy for travel between the two, and making it easier for Shanghai designers to fit a custom look on a K-pop star very quickly. “You can produce quickly in China, fly the garment back and forth for alterations, all in a matter of days,” Qiu says.
Korean brands are also finding success in Shanghai. DFO showroom, within the SFDA’s Mode trade show, featured an “International Brand Premiere Zone” this season, which organisers say received a warm response, “attracting numerous clients with deep investment potential”. South Korea’s MIK fashion showroom returned to Shanghai with several independent brands, achieving multi-regional and multi-brand transactions from buyers from key retail markets such as Sichuan, Shandong, Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Shanghai, organisers say.
Refining collections and distilling vision
Like in Paris for SS26, shows in Shanghai tend to be very (very) long, with lots of colourways and styles to entice a broad range of buyers in a tough climate. But some labels refined their offering this season, reducing the size of their collections to focus on their DNA and make it easier for buyers to select.
“Many brands are streamlining their SKUs. While previous seasons often featured 80-100 styles, the number has now been reduced to around 50-60,” says Renee Zheng, buying manager at Shanghai’s renowned multi-brand concept store Dongliang. “This refinement allows brands to communicate their design philosophy and key highlights more clearly, making it easier for consumers to grasp the story the brand wants to tell.”
Roger Miao, managing director of RoomRoom, a premium and luxury showroom within the large-scale On Time showroom, concurs. “We are encouraging designers to reduce the number of SKUs and really refine their vision,” he says. “Buyers want a clear DNA, a clear identity, and you can’t do that with hundreds of [styles].”
Eschewing trends and retaining uniqueness
Sometimes the brands in Shanghai, like emerging brands across the globe, can be a little derivative. Last season, lots of brands aligned with trending labels like Miu Miu, or toned down more creative showpieces to boost the commerciality of their collections. For SS26, Chemena Kamali’s Chloé effect has certainly taken hold, with several designers across the week leaning into the boho aesthetic. While some of them were already aligned with boho and it makes sense to play up trending parts of your DNA, designers in Shanghai broadly should focus on their unique design languages to stay ahead, rather than following trends or chasing what’s selling, this season has demonstrated.
“The commercial brands we have, they are stable, but they didn’t see sales increases,” Miao says. “But the brands with strong narratives, with smaller collections and a clearer image, saw increases, even in this economy. The volumes aren’t big at these brands, but seeing an increase in this kind of market, you’re on to something.”
As Chinese market demand slowly recovers, buyers didn’t play it as safe as they did last season, says Zemira Xu, founder of Tube showroom, which features several of Shanghai’s most prominent labels including Xu Zhi, Markgong and Shushu/Tong. “I feel more positive than last time. [Buyers] told me that last season, they didn’t want something exciting; they were very conservative,” she says. “This season, they told me they want something different, something interesting, something creative — things are getting better!”
Foggy Ma, editorial director at Madame Figaro, is hoping for even more creativity next season. “It’s starting to feel a bit uninspiring. Fashion shows are increasingly driven by commercial interest. Commercial doesn’t mean bad, but when a show becomes purely about selling clothes, it loses the passion of what a show is meant to represent, especially for fashion editors.”
International brands adopt a new playbook
From Moncler’s major Genius event a year ago to last season’s Nike show, international brands often use Shanghai Fashion Week as a vehicle to drive resonance within the Chinese market, and/or across the world. On Thursday night, Adidas staged a blockbuster show in Shanghai’s Old City Hall to celebrate 20 years of its Shanghai Creative Centre, a local design lab that designs products exclusively for the Chinese market. Centred on the three stripes, the show featured dance battles and several collections, ranging from gorpcore to tailored suits, only available for the Chinese market.
Earlier in the week, French heritage accessories label Moynat unveiled a collaboration with Labubu creator Kasing Leung in its IFC luxury mall store. Leung did a signing of the products, including leather Labubu bag charms and bags with various characters from the Monsters series Labubu is part of. For international labels coming to Shanghai, this project is a good example of getting it right, says BOH Projects’s Qiu, who worked on the event.
With the rise of Chinese consumer power over the last decade, “everything was suddenly ultra localised” when it came to international brand activations. “Everyone was doing a Chinese New Year campaign, Chinese Valentine s Day, it became overly Chinese, and that felt a bit weird,” says Qiu. In the past two or three years, a new playbook has emerged. “It’s enough of paying tribute to our culture and then selling us our culture. Now it’s thinking, there s so much fun and creativity happening in China or Asia — how do we share it internationally? The Moynat collaboration took something from China that’s cool and creative and brought it to the world.”
To balance the international and maturing labels on schedule, Madame LV is seeking the next generation of talent. This season, the SDFA launched a new creative talent initiative, bringing together Labelhood’s Youtopia graduate talent competition (this year awarded to young designer Jaden Li) and the New Wave Fashion Awards for more established creatives in China. “Fashion Week is a biannual highlighted event platform, but the growth and development of designers and brands is a continuous process,” she says. “By providing consistent guidance, resources, and opportunities for exchange, the association ensures that talent is not just a fleeting presence, but can truly take root, grow, and ultimately flourish.”
With additional reporting from Yiling Pan.
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