Chengdu's first fashion week a dazzling success

CHENGDU, China, Nov. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2018 Chengdu Interna­tional Fashion Week, co-organized by Chengdu Media Group, opened on Nov 13 in the Tianfu New Area of Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Representatives of nearly 100 fashion-related com­panies, education agencies and design centers from regions including the four major fashion capitals of New York, Paris, Milan and Tokyo attended the opening cere­mony of the first international fashion week to be hosted in Chengdu. Distinguished guests gathered from such prominent organizations as the Europe Design Center, Goldman Sachs, the Univer­sity of Tokyo, the Internation­al Management Group and the Parsons School of Design, among many others.

A forum was held as part of the opening ceremony, in which luminaries from the industry held a dialogue on the topic of "What can Chengdu contribute to world fashion?" and offered their observations from a variety of perspectives.

Elliott Foote, IMG plan­ning supervisor and special envoy of the New York Fash­ion Week, said in his speech at the opening ceremony that Chengdu is a beautiful city with rich cultural resources, and he feels eager to invite many international designers and top brands to bring their designs and products here.

Chengdu should make full use of its unique cultural offerings, such as Sichuan figured satin and Sichuan embroidery to attract more brands and talent to settle in the city, he added.

Simon Collins, former head of the Parsons School of Design, plans to open a design school in Chengdu. He thinks Chengdu is a city that cares a great deal about fashion, and young local designers need to make every effort to educate themselves on fashion design and to pay keen attention to the development of the fash­ion industry.

Doug White, a philanthro­pist from the United States, pointed out that Chengdu can maintain its own cultural essence while pursuing inno­vation-driven development, and Chengdu is a good repre­sentative of Chinese fashion.

Federico Boselli, special envoy of the chairs of both the Europe Design Center and Milan Fashion Week, was impressed by Chengdu's fash­ionable atmosphere as soon as he got off the plane. He thinks that fashion is an atti­tude of life and a life style that is closely linked with human existence, and so this can be extended to a city's cultural texture.

Zhang Qinghui, chairman of the China Fashion Association, said in his speech at the opening ceremony that Chengdu has never been short of traditional culture and fashion genes, and that fashion can build a bridge between a city and the world.

Jerome Scola, chief strat­egy officer of Slush, an international tech event, said Chengdu has left an amiable impression on him, because Chengdu reminds him of Paris, in that it is a place where people can enjoy life to the fullest and are full of vitality. It is hard to com­bine traditional culture and modern fashion, but Cheng­du achieves this in its own unique way.

Lyu Yan, a model and fash­ion designer, said Chengdu is a city that hums with energy, where the young people here love new things, and where many young women know all kinds of very special and even obscure brands.

The six-day event attracted nine world-leading fashion agencies to Chengdu for com­munication and exchange. Additionally, some international brands, including Chloé, Stella McCartney, Blue Erdos, Etro, Play Lounge & Self-por­trait and Sportmax, hosted fashion shows on Chengdu's landmark Taikoo Li business street.

A fashion industrial chain convention on China's design in Chengdu was also staged during the event.

Chengdu is a world famous cultural city with more than 4,500 years of history and civ­ilization, and has been called a "land of abundance" since ancient times. It is famous for a local culture that promi­nently features "innovation and creation, elegance and fashion, optimism and inclu­siveness, friendliness and public benefit".

The Globalization and World Cities Research Net­work, a think tank created by the geography department of Loughborough University, published a ranking of world cities titled Classification of Cities 2018 last week, which listed Chengdu 71st in the world in terms of the concen­tration of service industries — banking, insurance, legal, consulting, advertising and accounting.

New Weekly magazine ranked Chengdu the first among all Chinese cities in terms of fashion attraction, because of its inclusiveness to foreign talent and new sci­ence and technologies, as well as local citizens' strong sense of belonging.

Statistics show Cheng­du now has nearly 10,000 teahouses and about 3,500 bookstores and 2,100 pubs, which ranks it first, sec­ond and third, respectively, among Chinese cities. This shows the city's characteristics as a place to enjoy life and share knowledge.

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