As of November final yr, South Korean residents can enter China visa-free. Why is that this info related in a style present evaluation? As a result of, per the founding father of one among Shanghai’s most outstanding showrooms and as confirmed by the designers, the Shushu/Tong retailer in Shanghai is a hot-spot for a lot of Korean vacationers: “They go straight from the airport!” the previous reported.
This yr Shushu and TongTong—Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang, respectively—are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their label. One among Shanghai’s greatest success tales, the duo maintain beating expectations. It’s not simply the dwindling foot visitors and low spending in China that they’re defying. They’ve constructed an internationally famend label, and helped to vary Chinese language style for-export within the course of.
The designers are completists. From the set to the styling to the garments themselves, there are not any particulars left to likelihood. Take the best way they stuffed their purses with contemporary flowers, baguettes, and newspapers or books: That the paperback of selection was Sally Rooney’s Lovely World, The place Are You was a genius instance of realizing one’s viewers. ShuShu and TongTong perceive that their prim, fairly, and unabashedly girly garments are as a lot of a uniform to some as they’re a covetable aesthetic to others.
“She’s simply carrying these garments, going to the grocery retailer, going again house,” stated ShuShu, including that the intention was to make the lineup really feel “very plausible.” At occasions previously, the rigor of the designers’ imaginative and prescient has left their designs feeling like impenetrable shields. This time round, there was a brand new friskiness and a wider vary of choices—sporty Shushu with capri pants and simple knit twin-sets; horny Shushu with midriff-baring tops and micro shorts.
The designers stated backstage that they designed the gathering across the concept of two buddies who’ve grown collectively and constructed their identities round one another—they’re one another’s reflections, but expertise the world on their very own particular person phrases. “Similar however completely different,” is how a colleague put it after the present. What the theme allowed for was a extra expansive exploration of the Shushu/Tong identification. It’s an train they need to carry additional, it served them to nice impact.
