Shiatzy Chen: the ‘Chanel of China’ showing at Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week has long been about the classics, but there is an emerging fashion alliance between East and West that is bringing a new perspective and energy discovers Fleur Britten

Shiatzy Chen’s pieces have been wowing those at the week-long fashion event (AFP/Getty)

Think of Paris Fashion Week, and most likely it’s Dior, Chanel, YSL and similar brands that come to mind – those historic French houses with ateliers and les petites mains (their highly skilled seamstresses), and a long tradition of craftsmanship. But there’s a new guard in town – an influx of Chinese and Taiwanese high-fashion brands who are showing in Paris this season, and they have more in common with France’s heritage brands than you might think.

First on the scene was the so-called “Chanel of China” – the fashion label Shiatzy Chen, the first Taiwanese designer to land a place on Paris’s official schedule (2008), and the country’s first member of French fashion’s governing body, the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM), in 2009.

Its front row this year was a hot ticket. Oscar-winning Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh and Chinese It-boy Liu Yu led the celebrity phalanx that descended upon Paris’s dramatic Art-Deco Palais de Tokyo for its S/S24 catwalk collection. They were joined by hundreds of black-clad fashion editors as well as the sunglasses-indoors street-style crew, all cooling themselves off with Shiatzy Chen white paper fans, as models glided through the vast curved hall in exquisite caped cheongsams and monochrome tulle-hemmed dresses.