This article first appeared on Vogue Business.
Driving 40 minutes outside the sprawling city of Guangzhou in China to a modern studio building, you might not expect to be greeted by British designer Daniel Fletcher. Nor a mood board of images from the UK of Mick Jagger, Hugh Grant and preppy 1940s university-goers in pinstripe suits and hats.
We’re here because Fletcher has been appointed creative director of Guangzhou-based luxury label Mithridate, as the company announced on Wednesday. Fletcher’s vision will come to life with a show at London Fashion Week on February 21. To mark the appointment, Mithridate is releasing a campaign starring British It-girl Alexa Chung in a fluffy cable-knit jumper, a crisp striped Oxford shirt and cotton shorts — a taster of the collection Fletcher is developing between both London and Guangzhou.
It’s an unexpected move for Mithridate, which was launched in 2018 and specialised in extravagant eveningwear, prints and embellishments under Chinese creative director Demon Zhang. Originally, the label was conceived as a creative outlet to sit alongside the company’s high street concept Mith World, which has over 200 stores across China. (Mithridate, by comparison, has seven standalone stores across Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou; the company does not disclose its revenues.) But as the Chinese luxury market meets continued headwinds, the hope is to scale Mithridate as a luxury brand by taking aim at the Western customer.
Mithridate has shown in London for the past eight seasons, making its official calendar debut during Spring/Summer 2025. After Zhang exited in late 2024, Mithridate founder and CEO Tina Jiang turned her eyes to the UK to find its new direction. “London is such a centre of creativity, and British designers are also running some of the biggest houses in Paris, so it made sense,” Jiang says. She was introduced to Fletcher via a London-based contact, and says she instantly understood his vision for a more pared-back design language, focused on quality, that differs from the current offerings in China.
For Fletcher, who founded his London-based menswear label Daniel W Fletcher in 2015, it presented a fresh challenge. Fletcher also serves as creative director of horse racing event Royal Ascot, mainly working on the annual lookbook to guide attendees on what’s appropriate to wear in various enclosures. (He previously served as creative director of Fiorucci from 2019 to 2023, and has held design roles at JW Anderson and Louis Vuitton.)
“When I first came to China to meet Tina and the team, I didn’t really have an idea of what I was coming into,” Fletcher says, walking me through his vast studio space, with mood boards and fabric swatches lining the walls. Upon arriving in Guangzhou, his first port of call was a mall, where he noticed many Western brands had produced similar lines for the market (a lot of boxy skirt suits and heavy embellishments). “I asked myself, what is it that I do, and where does it fit into this? I was certain I didn’t want to come in and just do what so many European brands in China are doing. I wanted to create something that spoke to my heritage, but made use of the resources and expertise Mithridate has, that’s not already in the market.”
Fusing British inspiration with Chinese manufacturing
Jiang is keen to establish Mithridate as a British-Chinese label, fusing the creativity of London’s fashion scene with the production capabilities of Mithridate’s atelier and its local suppliers. Close to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a major Chinese textile manufacturing hub. Inside the Mithridate atelier, around 30 artisans are hard at work, cutting patterns, hand-embroidering sweaters and embellishing toiles by hand based on Fletcher’s designs (for big orders, production will be outsourced to local factories).
It’s a far cry from the studios of most independent brands in London, Fletcher notes. “After working for myself on a young brand in London without as much resource, or working in a major house where you perhaps don’t have the sway, here, I’ve been able to redefine the logo, the visuals, the branding, with so much support.”
Fletcher’s first collection for Mithridate speaks to his background in menswear and is decidedly British, with collegiate, preppy influences like rugby, cricket and sailing. From Oxford shirts and cotton shorts to tailored wool coats, drop-waist, casual evening dresses and relaxed cashmere sweaters, it’s intended to form the basis of a buildable, high-quality wardrobe. As we talk in the studio, emissaries from the atelier come in to show Fletcher embroideries or fabrics for approval. There’s not much time to spare, as Fletcher was appointed in November (though not to public knowledge), and has revamped every aspect of Mithridate, from the logo to materials, graphics to the design.
Such an abrupt change in creative direction carries risks of alienating or confusing existing customers. It also comes at a time when Chinese consumers are showing a greater appreciation for homegrown brands that tap into the country’s heritage.
Fletcher says he felt confident, having been given Jiang’s blessing to try something different that could attract an international crowd; he also argues that the brand’s design handwriting isn’t yet well established. “Mithridate is a young brand, and the main thing that I’m taking from what has already been established is not as much the design, but the infrastructure, the set-up, the craft and the capabilities that they have to realise a vision,” he says. Nonetheless, to keep hold of the brand’s Chinese roots, Fletcher has incorporated nods to local craft, like a striped jacket where each stripe takes eight hours to embroider using a traditional Chinese technique.
Jiang believes the fusion of British design and Chinese heritage will appeal to China’s consumers. “Chinese consumers are more [price-sensitive] today and aren’t spending the way they were,” says Jiang. “We must give them a reason to buy. They need stories. They need strong design. And they need emotion.”
She also notes that the scale of Mith World offers Mithridate a “strong foundation and financial flexibility, allowing it to thrive as an incubated brand within this ecosystem”.
Adapting to the global consumer
Jiang began putting the wheels in motion to appeal to a discerning global audience before Fletcher even joined, including via reducing the use of polyester in collections. Mithridate is also expanding its relatively limited size range to XXL in knitwear and jersey, and 44 in tailoring, to suit the Western shopper (it previously only carried 38, 40 and 42). And in the backend, Jiang has been improving the brand’s CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities and e-commerce operations, ready for Fletcher’s debut. The aim is to secure its first Western wholesale partners after the AW25 show, the duo agrees.
Fletcher and Jiang’s teams have also found new local suppliers to not only improve or maintain quality, but reduce prices slightly so they align with contemporary labels like Acne Studios and Jacquemus as opposed to high luxury players. Current prices range from £100 for a T-shirt to £3,000 for eveningwear and outerwear. “It’s important to me to establish where Mithridate sits in the market when it comes to price point and brand alignment and comparisons,” Fletcher says. “That was slightly unclear before as it was founded as a creative outlet, whereas now there is a much stronger focus on who we want to see wearing the clothes and where it sits in the market.”
His hope is to help redefine the ‘Made in China’ label and challenge misconceptions that it is synonymous with cheap, low-quality clothing; something Chinese knitwear brand PH5 also set out to do with its Selfridges pop-up in 2023. “The product is made in China, and while many European brands do the same and don’t talk about it, we’re not trying to hide that,” he says. “What I’m trying to do with it is show the level that can be achieved with Chinese manufacturing.”
To communicate the brand’s new direction globally, Jiang will invest in marketing across Western and Chinese platforms — from YouTube to Red (Xiaohongshu) — to communicate the new collection and share the Chung campaign. “As a turning point for Mithridate, we aim to increase brand visibility domestically and internationally, attract more fans, and expand our global presence and market share,” Jiang says. “We anticipate 30 per cent growth by 2025.”
There are big ambitions. But for now, ahead of the show, the Chung campaign is the only signal of what’s to come. With resonance in China and the West and a relaxed approach to dressing, Fletcher feels Chung is the perfect person to model his Mithridate for the first time. (The two connected when Chung presented Next in Fashion, the 2020 Netflix series in which Fletcher was a contestant).
“Alexa embodies the kind of woman that I see wearing these clothes. She’s also very inspired by British heritage, but she has a very interesting way of putting clothes together,” he explains. “I love the idea that you might go and take a nylon button-down from the rail, put it with a cashmere jumper wrapped around your shoulders, then a little denim Harrington jacket over the top. It’s about building a wardrobe and feeling free and empowered to wear it however you want.”
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