On the dark border between beauty and danger
By Emily Ford |
April 13, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SHEGUANG Hu knows how to make an impression. The creature that emerges from a dark doorway to appear before the audience at China Fashion Week is a terrifying spectacle. Six feet tall, dressed head to toe in black leather coated with metal spikes and sporting what appears to be a kind of gas mask, she glares menacingly down from the catwalk, as the entire front row recoils visibly in their seats.
Hu is not your typical fashion designer. The first time the celebrated Mongolian haute couturist has shown his creations at the Beijing shows, amid the lineup of straight-laced domestic clothing brands, it is bona fide fantasy. The apparition is followed down the runway by a model barely visible for her giant black ball-gown, her Rapunzel-red hair flowing around and her arms akimbo.
While other designers take inspiration from more conventional topics such as "romantic seaside theme," Hu prefers to use his clothes to express somewhat grittier concepts. This collection, Dark Side, is about natural disasters and Europe's economic crisis.
"It is showing the dark side of the human. This is why I used black and green. Cashmere and leather. Yes, it is an unusual inspiration for a fashion collection," he says.
In comparison with his outrageous, violent designs, Hu in person seems surprisingly shy. Forty years old but looking younger, with punkish short hair and a purple jacket, he speaks in hesitant English, breaking into fluent Dutch when his assistant walks past.
A native of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (where his parents still live), Hu moved to Holland 25 years ago and talks about his adopted land with affection. His favorite style is Baroque - he loves the cut of 18th century clothes -and has his own royal connections: for 10 years he designed the evening gowns for Holland's royal family. The two countries may not appear to have much in common, but Hu disagrees. "Because I come from Inner Mongolia I think they are the same. Holland has a lot of cows, windmills, not many people."
The love of fabrics
He loves not only the colors of Mongolia's clothes but also the fabrics - its celebrated goats and cows produce some of the world's best leather and cashmere, which Hu uses extensively, in addition to silk. "Leather is hard and strong while cashmere is soft so I wanted to use those two kinds of materials to influence the emotions. I think the combination of the two textures can express the atmosphere of economic crises that the bright side may be hidden in the black."
One dress is studded all over with crystals and metal. "It looks very luxurious and beautiful from far away but when you go up close and see the details you can't touch it. It is about the border between beautiful things and dangerous things," he explains.
After studying painting in China, Hu moved to Holland to learn more about painting. He ended up studying fashion in Amsterdam at the Ritfeld academy, then moved to Antwerp where he started his own label.
"For me it's the same - fashion or painting - you just don't use the same tools. For painting you use paintbrush, for fashion you use fabric. It's all about emotion."
Having been out of China for two decades, he is getting acquainted with fashion in another context. He cites British designer Alexander McQueen, Japan's Issey Miiyake and Vivienne Westwood as his biggest inspirations and describes his style as falling somewhere "between East and West" but says he feels he is now more a European designer than Chinese.
"It's new for me here ... there's a big difference," he says. In Europe designers try to tell stories; Chinese fashion is more prosaic. "In China it's more like ready to wear and lacks artistic quality."
Haute couture is the high art of European fashion, calling to mind the costumiers of Parisian maisons, the opposite of China's expertise in factory-produced garments. Hu loves haute couture because of the one-on-one relationship between designer and customer and the opportunity to pour detail into intricate designs.
A major problem for China's nascent fashion scene is that talented native designers who go to Europe to study at prestigious colleges - such as Central St Martins in London - rarely return.
But after 15 years of two shows a year in Holland, Hu says he is ready for a change. This month Hu will go to Hangzhou city, near Shanghai, to open his first design studio on the Chinese mainland.
"China - for me it's the first time now," Hu says.
"This is really exciting. I see myself as coming back home. My parents are here, in Inner Mongolia. Europe is not new for me any more. I want something new - in China."
Hu is not your typical fashion designer. The first time the celebrated Mongolian haute couturist has shown his creations at the Beijing shows, amid the lineup of straight-laced domestic clothing brands, it is bona fide fantasy. The apparition is followed down the runway by a model barely visible for her giant black ball-gown, her Rapunzel-red hair flowing around and her arms akimbo.
While other designers take inspiration from more conventional topics such as "romantic seaside theme," Hu prefers to use his clothes to express somewhat grittier concepts. This collection, Dark Side, is about natural disasters and Europe's economic crisis.
"It is showing the dark side of the human. This is why I used black and green. Cashmere and leather. Yes, it is an unusual inspiration for a fashion collection," he says.
In comparison with his outrageous, violent designs, Hu in person seems surprisingly shy. Forty years old but looking younger, with punkish short hair and a purple jacket, he speaks in hesitant English, breaking into fluent Dutch when his assistant walks past.
A native of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (where his parents still live), Hu moved to Holland 25 years ago and talks about his adopted land with affection. His favorite style is Baroque - he loves the cut of 18th century clothes -and has his own royal connections: for 10 years he designed the evening gowns for Holland's royal family. The two countries may not appear to have much in common, but Hu disagrees. "Because I come from Inner Mongolia I think they are the same. Holland has a lot of cows, windmills, not many people."
The love of fabrics
He loves not only the colors of Mongolia's clothes but also the fabrics - its celebrated goats and cows produce some of the world's best leather and cashmere, which Hu uses extensively, in addition to silk. "Leather is hard and strong while cashmere is soft so I wanted to use those two kinds of materials to influence the emotions. I think the combination of the two textures can express the atmosphere of economic crises that the bright side may be hidden in the black."
One dress is studded all over with crystals and metal. "It looks very luxurious and beautiful from far away but when you go up close and see the details you can't touch it. It is about the border between beautiful things and dangerous things," he explains.
After studying painting in China, Hu moved to Holland to learn more about painting. He ended up studying fashion in Amsterdam at the Ritfeld academy, then moved to Antwerp where he started his own label.
"For me it's the same - fashion or painting - you just don't use the same tools. For painting you use paintbrush, for fashion you use fabric. It's all about emotion."
Having been out of China for two decades, he is getting acquainted with fashion in another context. He cites British designer Alexander McQueen, Japan's Issey Miiyake and Vivienne Westwood as his biggest inspirations and describes his style as falling somewhere "between East and West" but says he feels he is now more a European designer than Chinese.
"It's new for me here ... there's a big difference," he says. In Europe designers try to tell stories; Chinese fashion is more prosaic. "In China it's more like ready to wear and lacks artistic quality."
Haute couture is the high art of European fashion, calling to mind the costumiers of Parisian maisons, the opposite of China's expertise in factory-produced garments. Hu loves haute couture because of the one-on-one relationship between designer and customer and the opportunity to pour detail into intricate designs.
A major problem for China's nascent fashion scene is that talented native designers who go to Europe to study at prestigious colleges - such as Central St Martins in London - rarely return.
But after 15 years of two shows a year in Holland, Hu says he is ready for a change. This month Hu will go to Hangzhou city, near Shanghai, to open his first design studio on the Chinese mainland.
"China - for me it's the first time now," Hu says.
"This is really exciting. I see myself as coming back home. My parents are here, in Inner Mongolia. Europe is not new for me any more. I want something new - in China."
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