Fashion Designer Yu Xiangqi: Attention Should Be Paid To The Potential Value Of Clothing.

"In view of the current Chinese style design tide, I think there are still some things to remind me."

When she saw Yu Xiangqi in the studio, she first said such a sentence.

Yu Xiangqi is the director of the design management department of Shanghai international fashion design service center and a visiting professor at the Paris International Fashion Institute of Shanghai Univer.

This means that in addition to the role of fashion designer, Yu Xiangqi is more of a "mentor".

Teaching hundreds of designers, whenever anyone starts to follow suit and try to design new Chinese clothes, Yu Xiangqi always asks, "what do you want to say?"

From satisfying "play addiction"

Hot sale to Tmall

Many people think that Chinese clothing has become the trend, starting with Peng Liyuan and her fashion designer Marco.

On the Beijing APEC, the appearance of Chinese clothing seems to add fire to this "Chinese craze".

On the "Taobao", input "Chinese clothing" several characters, the page has more than 100 pages.

Among them, most of the flagship store products have not sold to middle-aged and old people in the past, but instead, the "improved suit" for young white-collar workers has become the mainstream.

In fact, before Mark was noticed by the public, Chinese clothing had already started up in the circle of young people.

The earliest is a group of COSPLAYER (role playing) who love anime games.

Many of the game anime is the role of ancient costume.

In the early stage, in order to fix ancient costumes, the actors often had to make their own handwork.

Gradually, some people on Taobao smell business opportunities, specializing in the sale of animation role of a full set of Costume Outfit, tailor made from head to toe.

Then, the photo studio launched the art picture of ancient costume. Young people who did not play anime began to join in the "play".

The red hot of ancient costume drama is one of the big promoter.

What kind of drama is the photo studio pushing on, such as "Zhu Zhu Ge" series of artistic photographs, "princess married to" series of artistic photographs, and then some original costume style, popular in the market.

At this stage, the exaggerated middle life can not be worn out, and it can only be used for young people to play a role addiction on specific occasions.

The turning point appeared after the rise of the Sinology class and traditional culture course.

A group of associations that study "Hanfu" also come to prominence. They appear frequently in various fields to promote Hanfu and Han Li.

Some teachers and students of Sinology class suddenly feel that wearing such a dress ceremony and class is the best way to complement each other.

Since then, Chinese clothing has stepped out of the category of "play" and comes to life.

A group of thoughtful young designers joined the Chinese costume design, and finally ignited the popular fire.

The "outfit" can be modified into a daily suit for modern people in the designer's hand.

For example, the diagonal collar of Hanfu is still there, but the hem has the lightness of modern clothes.

The plain clothes of cotton and hemp are still there, but the elements such as melted and knitted knitted fabrics are more close to everyday knitted sweaters and T-shirts than modern knitted fabrics.

Today's "Tmall", independent designer's original brand, mushroomed.

Among them, there are some brands of "Chinese style" route, and begin to stick up a large number of young fans.

Fashion prices range from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars, and they are not cheap.

It is obvious that their target customers are.

Chinese culture

It's not for show.

Yu Xiangqi took out a typical embroidered cheongsam.

At first glance, it does not have any "western" elements until the reporter has touched the fabric.

"This cheongsam is made of Italy jacquard fabric.

It's not Chinese hand embroidery.

But judging from the effect, there is little difference from embroidery. "

Yu Xiangqi explained.

Nowadays, the Chinese style in the design field is divided into two categories according to Yu Xiangqi's understanding: one is mainly cotton and linen, the other is manual embroidery.

Foreigners feel that manual embroidery is very great, so many Chinese designers frequently use heavy embroidery to win praise in the international arena.

But this tactic is becoming more and more useless now.

Yu Xiangqi even felt that it was pointless to embroider heavy embroidery.

Modern machines have been able to achieve similar results.

The emphasis of designers should be placed on heavy embroidery.

I do not object to heavy embroidery.

But apart from heavy embroidery, what else do you have in your design?

I assume that embroidery is a modern design.

What can I do if I can embroider a complete retro?

This is not a costume. "

Yu Xiangqi himself is making a Chinese costume for a folk band.

As a matter of fact, it is all right to return to the ancient world, but she still made some minor changes in her costume, such as the sleeves and necklines, following the style of Qipao, with the cute modern clothes, which makes modern girls like it at a glance.

Besides, cotton and linen.

In general, wearing such a dress is all right, but it is obviously inappropriate for a lawyer to wear it to work.

It is even more inappropriate for some to wear them.

"A lot of young people are sitting there without sitting. Do they look good in Chinese clothes?"

Yu Xiangqi asked rhetorical questions. "It is cotton and linen. The makeup on the face is very thick. The hair is hot and curly, with all kinds of jewellery on it, and it is completely out of line with the cotton linen."

After the end of APEC, a large number of designers began to make the so-called "APEC clothing", completely ignoring the particularity of the banquet.

Inappropriate people wear and walk on the road. It looks like a nightgown.

"Chinese culture is not for show, but for feeling."

Yu Xiangqi said.

No cultural kernel

Beautiful clothes are also broken.

Western culture has had an impact on Chinese aesthetics.

Today, many designers turn around and think, why do I always follow others?

Traditional culture has been picked up again.

After many years of impetuosity, tradition has become a spiritual return, so that the soul can return to peace.

And clothing is the external expression of this trend of thought.

More and more designers are moving their brand ideas to the classical artistic conception of "Zen", "Tao", "element", "tranquility" and so on.

Some of them may have found souls, but others are just following suit.

People in fashion even talk about the cool words: "cotton and linen stitching, these are not all things that foreigners have played ten years ago?"

Yu Xiangqi, from time to time, has designers to ask her how to design Chinese clothing that is popular in the market.

"On the one hand, Chinese clothing has begun to have a market, but on the other hand, some designers have not found the way consumers pay for them."

Every time, Yu Xiangqi will ask these designers first a question: "what kind of lifestyle do you want to import?"

Clothing is the expression of life.

A healthy lifestyle, a healthy aesthetic outlook, and a need for life from the bottom of the heart are finally pformed into outer garments.

Once, a customer brought a piece of fabric to Yu Xiangqi and asked carefully: "can you take this custom-made cheongsam for everyday wear?"

Yu Xiangqi looked at it, this is the ordinary shirt fabric, but she was very happy to interface and said, "what's wrong with that?

Who stipulates that cheongsam can not be made into "shirt money"?

She even thought that the customer wearing this shirt cheongsam, wearing a knitted sweater outside, going to the supermarket or shopping, is a scenery in itself.

"Clothing is life oriented.

The highest level of design is not the beauty of the clothes themselves, but the beauty of the people who wear them.

Yu Xiangqi asked rhetorical questions, "is a person dressed in heavy embroidered Qipao full of rude words?"

For today's "new Chinese" craze, Yu Xiangqi feels that he must have some sober thoughts.

"Shanghai people in the past did not worship foreigners.

Any foreign culture to Shanghai will be pformed and innovating. "

Yu Xiangqi said, "Shanghai people combined their local life with foreign culture, and they created the Shanghai style culture.

In its bones, it is also a local thing in Shanghai.

Today's "new Chinese" needs cultural confidence as well.

Don't think that you will be recognized internationally. "

So even though the Chinese design community is enjoying the "return" of traditional elements, Yu Xiangqi believes that what we lack most is "aesthetic education" or "thinking about life style".

"Chinese traditional culture should be in the bones, in truth, goodness and beauty."

Yu Xiangqi said that if the human heart lacks traditional beauty and the way of life is divorced from the true, the good and the beautiful, the outer clothes will be exposed to flaws, not beauty.