A Chinese John Galliano? Award at Shanghai Fashion Week aims to help new labels go global
- The inaugural BoF China Prize was presented to Caroline Hu, a New York-based designer who impressed with a crafts-intensive collection
- Winner’s US$100,000 award, and mentoring from top companies, intended to help her label succeed globally
Does the world need another fashion prize for young designers, wondered Imran Amed, founder of The Business of Fashion (BoF), an online fashion publication, hours before the awarding of the inaugural BoF China Prize, created by his company and investment group Yu Holdings.
Wendy Yu, of Yu Holdings, supplied the answer: “Imagine if you could support John Galliano at the start of his career.”
The prize, presented during Shanghai Fashion Week, is open to Chinese citizens, including those educated abroad. Both The Business of Fashion and Yu Holdings hope it will offer a new platform for the country’s emerging creative class. Yu, for one, believes the next global design superstar will come from China.
“We’ve had prominent designers like Guo Pei, but this generation is definitely booming,” says Yu. “This generation understands what the next consumer wants and knows how to communicate in a global language to their consumer, the press and buyers.”
