He dressed Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andy Lau - now he's guiding Chinese fashion’s Made in China 2025 makeover
Born of a contest to find outfits for Xi and fellow Asia-Pacific leaders to wear at 2014 Beijing summit, xinzhongzhang is Chinese traditional fashion for a new age. Fashion veterans heading the brand talk about their global ambitions
With national leaders dressed in traditional clothes of the host country, the group photo session at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) powwow always sends journalists into a photo-taking frenzy.
At the 2014 Apec summit held in Beijing, the photo op also served as a coming-out party for xinzhongzhang, or Chinese-style outfits, a new fashion concept endorsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Tasked with promoting xinzhongzhang, the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology in 2015 established the Oriental Garment Innovation Centre, which conducts research and development for the new style of Chinese fashion.
With different terms like hanfu (Han clothing) and tangzhuang (Tang garments) describing traditional Chinese fashion, a former president of the institute, Liu Yuanfeng, who heads the centre, said xinzhongzhang was coined to describe the new clothing concept as the other terms are restrictive.
“Fashion reflects the times,” he says. “The term tangzhuang is confined to Tang dynasty style. Hanfu refers to the Han dynasty. Such terms cannot show the fashion of contemporary people. Contemporary [Chinese] clothing must involve traditional and international fashion elements. Xinzhongzhang can represent the new age.