The designers did not hail from global capitals of couture; instead, the show brought Hong Kong and Chinese fashion designers together with counterparts from Iceland, Tanzania, and Panama.

These countries may not have international status in the fashion world, but, like Zhuhai, they have signed up for the promise of economic development and cooperation as part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” – a plan to grow global trade – or, like Iceland, are economic partners of China.

For Panamanian designer Tony Vergara, who took part in January’s Belt and Road-themed fashion show in Zhuhai, the global project could help forge the international ties his country’s fashion industry needs.

“No one knows who Panama is [in the fashion world]. In my country, fashion is not a big business, but it is growing up,” says Vergara, who makes colourful and flowy luxury ready-to-wear clothing.

“It’s a great opportunity [for the fashion industry] to grow up.”

The Panamanian was one of 13 young fashion designers brought together for the show last month, which, despite its official-sounding name, Belt and Road International Young Fashion Designers Showcase Tour, was not a government-sponsored cultural exchange.

Nor was it affiliated with a state-sanctioned Belt and Road International Fashion Week, which opened in the western Chinese city of Xian on January 12.

Rather, the show was the vision of veteran Hong Kong businesswoman Annie Wu Suk-ching. The 70-year-old brushes off the suggestion that the US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative – launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 and now involving more than 65 countries – is about “just the infrastructure and the money”.

“Belt and Road is an idea, and you can use it to do lots of different things,” Wu says.

Cultivating creativity and cross-cultural connections between young people should be among the principal aims of the project, she says.

“The real benefit depends on young people, how they can maintain friendships and share culture,” says Wu.

Central to this idea, for Wu, is her hometown, Hong Kong, which she believes could become a global creative capital and an intermediary between China and other Belt and Road countries.

With this in mind, Wu bankrolled a six-month-long project under which a carefully selected group of up-and-coming designers, including four from Hong Kong and five from China, went on group trips to Iceland, Panama and Tanzania, where they presented their designs, before landing in Zhuhai for the final show.

“These are future places that our young people can put their feet [in] and [where they can] make themselves famous. If you go to New York, how can you crack the ceiling? If you go to Paris, you don’t even get in the door … You have to go to places where the [industry] is less established,”  says Wu, who selected the participating countries and is honorary consul of the United Republic of Tanzania in Hong Kong and Macau.

The project’s launch last year coincided with the 40th anniversary of the launch of China’s reform and opening up, a process in which Wu played her part as a young businesswoman.

The idea of making connections across borders was embraced by many of the designers who took part in Wu’s international tour. Each representative designed two pieces with the Belt and Road theme in mind.

On the catwalk, the geopolitical Belt and Road took the form of structured jackets and sequinned trousers, a Shanghai-designed overcoat inspired by Panamanian terrain, and a cheongsam patterned with symbols of China's ancient Silk Road and modern-day Hong Kong. Dresses made of a traditional Tanzanian material hand-wrought from tree bark were emblazoned with dragon iconography, while patterns on a modern Mandarin-collared suit played with intersecting lines, symbolising connection.

The designers, most of whom launched their domestic labels in the past few years, say that the experience was more about international exposure than the fashions on the catwalk.

Kenny Li, a Hong Kong-based casual wear designer, says that seeing the inner workings of fashion industries in Tanzania, Panama, and Iceland opened his eyes to how business-oriented the Hong Kong fashion scene can be.

“I tried to learn to slow down and focus on my design and details,” says Li, who has shown collections in major international cities in the past.

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The tour had a similar impact on Mountain Yam, who has couture and ready-to-wear womenswear labels in Hong Kong. “After going to those places, I have another point of view to look at my business model, and [as a result I have] started to rebrand and [will] launch a mass marketable design in the next few months.”

For the designers coming from outside China, the takeaways from the Zhuhai event were more practical.

Hildur Yeoman, of Iceland, says that she was often bouncing from country to country in Europe for different stages of the manufacturing of her line of whimsical women’s fashions.

“We can’t produce anything in Iceland, there are no factories,” she says, and noted that, in this visit to China, which included a Zhuhai garment factory tour, she saw “more opportunities for sourcing in one place”.

Kemi Kalikawe, from Tanzania, says she was able to see “the other side of Chinese manufacturing”, which went against the stereotype of packed sweatshops. Now, she is beginning to think about how she can partner with Chinese manufacturers for her budding line of modern, Afro-urban womenswear.

Kalikawe says she is quite familiar with the Belt and Road Initiative, as Tanzania was an early African partner in the project, and also has a large Chinese population. “I thought, ‘Yes, I would definitely want to work with people who are already … investing in our country and making things better’,” she says.

Though the designers took their final bow of the showcase tour on the Zhuhai catwalk, Wu hopes they will continue to use these ties and the international initiative to benefit their individual careers.

“It’s not hardware, it’s really software,” she says of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Or, in this case, ready-to-wear.