Perched on a plush leather sofa in the VIP room on the fifth floor of her company’s flagship store on Zhongshan North Road, fashion designer Shiatzy Chen (王陳彩霞) looked poised in the mid-afternoon sun as she sat through a stream of media interviews.
Her calm exterior belies the rigorous preparations Chen and her design team must complete over the next six weeks as Shiatzy Chen becomes just the second Taiwanese design house to show a collection at the official Paris Fashion Week (the first was Yufengshawn, 馭風騷, in 2005). The debut of Shiatzy Chen’s spring/summer 2009 collection in October is also a highlight as the label celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Chen, who was born in 1951 in Changhua, never trained formally as a fashion designer, instead beginning her career with a dressmaking apprenticeship. Chen met her husband, Wang Yuan-hong (王元宏), a businessman in the textile trade, in the early 1970s and by 1978 the couple had set up a women’s knitwear factory under the name Shiatzy International Company Limited. Chen began designing her eponymous label for the company and her aesthetic increased in sophistication as Shiatzy International expanded. By 1990 the company had launched a design studio and retail store in Paris; Shiatzy Chen also has stores throughout Taiwan and China.
“At the beginning I wasn’t sure if I had an interest in designing or not. But I’m not a highly educated person, and if you don’t have an education, you have to be self-reliant and have a skill. So my skill was making clothes,” says Chen, “To have gotten to where I am now has been, I believe, a matter of persistence.”
Shiatzy Chen’s designs are known for combining influences and techniques from traditional Chinese clothing with clean, modern silhouettes. The label’s winter 2008 collection, for example, features dresses and coats with stark lines that skim over the body and rely on a ruffled collar, stylized floral appliques or intricate pleating to provide a touch of femininity. Several A-line coats and shifts echo the current trend for retro fashion, but the collection remains distinctively Shiatzy Chen, with style signatures like necklines borrowed from the qipao and bright colors. The designer is committed to developing and refining that hallmark aesthetic even as her customer base becomes more global: “If someone looks at a piece of clothing and is able to tell at once that it is a Shiatzy Chen piece, then I know I have succeeded.”
Polished in a stone-colored sleeveless blouse with curved collar, Chen was reluctant to talk about the upcoming spring/summer 2009 collection, which she and her design team are currently refining for Paris Fashion Week. But she expounded on her design philosophy, the intermarriage of style and culture, how her brand is perceived and where she hopes to take Shiatzy Chen the brand in the future.
Taipei Times: Can you tell me what your design process is like and where you derive your inspiration?
Shiatzy Chen: This is very much a question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? When I start designing every season, the theme comes to me in many different ways. Ultimately it is a question of being able to pick up on that second of inspiration that moves me the most and going with it. Sometimes the colors I want to use will influence the fabrics I choose, and then the fabric in turn influences the design of a gown. There are also times when I come up with a design first, and that determines the fabric I pick. Sometimes I also happen to come across a piece of beautiful fabric and I will design something around it. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where everything starts and, in fact, the design process is completely different for every season.
TT: What in particular influenced your spring/summer collection, which will be shown during Paris Fashion Week in October?
SC: My ideas have come from a very diverse range of sources, actually. Looking through a book or at an antique can inspire me. And I work together with a design team, so there are even more facets to what influences our clothing. For this particular collection I got a lot of ideas from paging through antique books and from the illustrations I saw in them. The books came from both Europe and Asia and they aren’t necessarily about clothing. I can pick up design elements while looking at, say, a chair.
TT: How did Shiatzy Chen develop over the years from a knitwear company to a high fashion design house?
SC: There have been a lot of things we have had to focus on in order for all this to come together. The most important that we’ve done, I feel, is to have had a very practical approach to business in terms of making sure that we are well-organized internally and that all of our employees — it doesn’t matter whether they are on the design side or the corporate side — have been trained to work at an international standard. It really has involved a lot of hard work and dedication to get to this point.
TT: What direction do you hope the company will take as it continues to expand?
SC: I think that all fashion design houses work with the hope that they will one day receive international recognition. My hope is that every country will have a Shiatzy Chen store eventually or that it will be sold through the most exclusive department stores worldwide.
TT: As your company becomes more international, will you start keeping track of the differences in tastes between your European and Asian clients while planning your collections?
SC: The way I see it is that every season features a lot of pieces, and when you are known for having a style trademark, you design with that in mind. The process of designing clothing takes a long time — a year before a season actually debuts, I already have an idea of what I want it look like and even the atmosphere I want to create with that collection. I don’t think, oh, this is what my Parisian clients or my Taiwanese clients want. I will take their ideas into consideration, but it doesn’t change what I want to do with a season or the kind of feeling I want to create. Ultimately I believe that our clients come to Shiatzy Chen for who we are, and we want to maintain that.
TT: When people think of Shiatzy Chen, they think of clothing that is very much influenced by traditional Chinese styles. Do you feel that you are drawn to traditional design elements in particular?
SC: If you look at Chanel you feel that it is very French, right? If you look at Armani you think of Italian style. And when you think of Yohji Yamamoto you think of Japanese design. Why do we think of Yohji or Chanel as being particularly Japanese or French in the first place? I believe that this is because we consider their aesthetics from the vantage point of our own cultural background. In turn, every designer’s clothing will be influenced by the milieu that they were raised in.
While I wouldn’t say that my clothing is particularly Chinese in flavor, I do hope that when people think of Shiatzy Chen, they think of a brand that has Chinese elements as part of its style trademark. The basic elements of Chinese fashion descend all the way from the Tang and Song dynasties. It has gradually evolved over time, but the spirit remains the same. It has become woven into our mentality, and of course Shiatzy Chen reflects that.
TT: Do you think that your customers come to Shiatzy Chen specifically looking for clothing that has a traditional Chinese feel?
SC: To be honest, I think this is a matter of perception. Why do people think of Chinese style elements as being “old” or “traditional,” while Western clothing is deemed “modern”? Perhaps we take our own culture for granted sometimes, and it is a matter of making Chinese styles more relevant to the current generation. People ask me questions like this quite often, actually. I think that part of the reason is because Western fashion has been quite dynamic and has changed constantly. For example, you can look at Western styles from the 1920s and 1930s, and there are obvious differences between the two decades. On the other hand Chinese clothing has revolved around several basic elements, like the qipao, for a long time.
Of course our clothing has the spirit of traditional Chinese styles because of our heritage. But, ultimately, what makes a design successful is if someone today can enjoy wearing it and looks forward to putting it on. If people feel that your designs fulfill all their requirements for something that is both stylish and practical, then you have succeeded in creating a truly modern aesthetic.
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