Leading fashion designers show what they've got in 2021

Fashion Zoo

Themed "Every Day Now, Every Day in the Future," Fashion Zoo 2021 was held recently at the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

The international youth fashion culture and art festival, while continuing to expand its exhibition area in the event's third year, attracted more than 200 global pioneering designers, artists, brands, media, curators and charity organizations. It is targeted at Generation Z (people born after 1995), which has been emerging as the main force of the consumer market for fashion, art and luxury products.

The opening runway featured all startup independent designer brands, such as ZHI CHEN, BVM TEAMS, DAMOWANG, DENTAL PINS, DONSEE10 and Dirty Pineapple, which feature genderless designs, a popular aesthetic for today's young generations looking for free self-expression.

The Fashion Zoo Studio launched the "Museum of Suits" as its first season's theme, joined by China-grown and overseas pioneering designers through conference call to have design talks on suit cutting and tailoring. The Experience Lab showcased student works from the International Fashion Academy, while the Up-Cycle Lab exhibited student designs made of sustainable materials from the fashion school Istituto Marangoni.

The cross-border international fashion carnival was also highlighted by trendy contemporary art exhibitions that brought global creations together, pinnacle forums focusing on the fashion industry and its sustainability-driven future, and IP events with interactive experiences linked with trends in Gen-Z culture.

"The young generation is redefining the word 'luxury,' and they are the future of the fashion industry," said the CEO Amy Fan. "We should learn to know them, listen to them, and have sincere dialogues with them."

Ti Gong

Cartier

Luxury jeweler and watchmaker Cartier was calling for sustainability on its forum "From Responsibility to Innovation" in partnership with Women's Wear Daily last Tuesday at the Power Station of Art (PSA) in Shanghai.

Guest speakers included Cartier China Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Alix, Chief Executive Officer of L'Oreal China Fabrice Megarbane, architect Xu Yibo of Stefano Boeri Architecture Studio, and Lang Lang, director of Research Department at the International Center for Creativity and Sustainable Development. They delivered keynote speeches and shared industrial insights on making the planet a better place.

They exchanged views on topics such as how to balance business profits and sustainability, what current and future strategies brands can take to meet sustainable development goals, and how brands will work to increase public awareness and deepen engagement with sustainability from consumers to be part of the action, among many other ideas.

The exhibition "Trees" that was held from July to October at the PSA by the Fondation Cartier Pour L'art Contemporain can also be taken as Cartier's effort to take a cultural and artistic approach to sustainability discourse and educate visitors on different facets of environmental protection. The exhibition featured more than 200 works from a community of artists, botanists, and other scientists from around the world.

In fact, earlier this month, Cartier, delegated by Richemont and Kering, in partnership with the Responsible Jewelry Council (RJC), just launched the Watch & Jewelry Initiative 2030, uniting members from the watch and jewelry industry in a commitment to three objectives: building climate resilience, preserving resources for nature and communities, and fostering inclusiveness across value chains. These include reducing carbon emissions in line with the 1.5°C minimum-increase goal and achieving net-zero carbon emission by 2030.

Ti Gong

Breguet

Swiss luxury watchmaker Breguet celebrated the 220th anniversary of the tourbillon, an exquisite mechanism of unrivaled complexity, in Shanghai last Wednesday.

In tribute to the mechanism's creator and also the brand's founder Abraham-Louis Breguet, the anniversary exhibition unveiled the timepiece Breguet Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Anniversaire 5365, with its limited run of 35 pieces – the same number of tourbillon watches made during the master watchmaker Breguet's lifetime.

For this anniversary piece, Breguet has fitted its reference 5365 with a 60-second tourbillon, visible between 4 and 6 o'clock, with one of these axes showing the seconds. Its upper bridge is made of blue steel, and the cartouche affixed above the tourbillon bears the text "Brevet No.157," a reference to the patent number awarded to Abraham-Louis Breguet for his invention 220 years ago.

This tribute is repeated on the rear of the piece through the engraving "Anniversaire 1801-2021" on the barrel, and "Brevet No 157 Du 7 Messidor An IX" (On June 26, 1801 of the French Republican calendar at the time) upon the lower bridge of the tourbillon, alongside the individual number of each piece. All of these references, with the Breguet signature on the rotor, are engraved by hand. To the right, there is a reproduction of the original watercolor plate used by Abraham-Louis Breguet when filing his 1801 patent application for a tourbillon regulator.

Ti Gong