Opening this year's Fashion Week on March 25, Beijing Mayor Wang Qishan said he hoped the city would one day be "a capital of fashion."

But compared to world-renowned fashion centers such as Paris, Milan and London, which all have long histories in the industry, Beijing still has a long way to go.

The China International Clothing & Accessories Fair (CHIC) and China Fashion Week for Autumn/Winter Collections have both been held in the last week of March every year since 1991.

Glittering moments

The curtain falls on this year's event today, but there have been some sparkling highlights to savor.

Student designers have been particularly well-received as there have been few eye-catching runway shows from established designers.

The Hempel Awards, Weipeng Jeans Design Contest and Haosha Swimming Wear Contest provided excellent opportunities for student designers to showcase their work.

The 13th Hempel Awards for Young Designers and the second Haosha Cup for Swimming Wear Design both had an Olympic feel, just three years away from the Beijing Games.

A total of 37 designers from 21 countries unveiled their collections before an international jury, with 26-year-old Chen Huaqiang, from Guangzhou Ochirly Industry Co Ltd picking up the golden award for his designs "We are the host."

His four dresses feature juxtaposed digits symbolizing speeds, heights or weights. Both the cut and the red and yellow colors of the dresses showed their Chinese flavor.

Li Hailiang, a 20-year-old student from the Beijing University of Clothing Technology, came second with his collection "Olympic Travelers."

"Not only do athletes gather for the Olympics; it is also a festival event for spectators who travel from around the world," said Li, who added that he was inspired by luggage.

The collection combines dresses with knitted bags colored white, red and blue. The designer unusually incorporated the bags in the dresses.

The Haosha Cup final was treated to 23 collections in dynamic colors, such as shining yellow, green, blue and hot red.

Some of the swimming costumes were impressive collections with innovative cuts and lines going off in various directions.

Meng Tao, 22, from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, won first place with his charming red swimming costume with white lines on it.

This year's Weipeng Jeans Contest was themed "Exciting Exploration."

The collections lived up to this slogan, being much more colorful than the ubiquitous blue jeans. Red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and every shade in the rainbow could be seen.

The designers also blended fabrics such as mohair and chiffon to add to the jeans.

But not all the designs stuck with the traditional notion of jeans as worn by cowboys or purely for casual wear; an evening dress was cut out of denim.

"In a long-term view, we need these contests to bring up and to discover talented young designers who are the future of the Chinese fashion industry," said Wang Qing, president of the Chinese Fashion Designers' Association, which organized the fashion week.

As the quotas on textile and clothing imports have been eliminated, China's manufacturing companies and fashion trading enterprises must work harder to foster their own designers and establish competitive brands.

Lackluster

The same is true of the CHIC and China Fashion Week.

Even though the CHIC has evolved into the largest event of its kind in Asia and arguably third largest in the world, Fashion Week still needs to attract more original collections, better and more innovative designs and more world-famous labels to compete with the old world capitals of fashion.

Although 98 designers from 23 countries and regions have shown their collections, most of them are student designers who took part in the three design contests.

Only 11 Chinese companies gave runway shows and among them just four paraded their designers on stage. The audience had little clue about the designers behind the other shows.

Gas men's label and Hybris women's brand from Italy were the only two foreign ready-to-wear collections on the catwalk, while Han Song from South Korea was the only designer from abroad showing off his latest collection.

While fashion fans expected Fashion Week to set the trends for autumn and winter, only a few runway shows gave any indication.

It is the ninth time Bosideng, famous for its down coats, has shown its latest collections at China Fashion Week. The largest down products manufacturer in China, Bosideng presented three collections this year. The first featured fresh, light colors such as pink and purple, cream and green.

Zhu Lin, design director of Bosideng said: "These colours all come from nature. Nowadays metropolitan people tend to get close to nature as a shelter from bustling city life."

Weipeng Jeans showed off some of its designs that have won critics' praise for their innovation and style. But it was disappointing not to see who the designer or designers were behind the creations.

Zeng Fengfei, a designer from Edenbo Garments Development Co Ltd presented their men's casual collections with variations on four color themes - white, ivory and cream; khaki and brown; gray, silver gray; and the classic black.

Wang Qing, president of the Chinese Fashion Designers' Association, admitted that China Fashion Week has a lot of improving to do.

"The world's top fashion festivals in Paris, Milan or London have a longer history and are much more professional than China Fashion Week," Wang said.

"In addition to clear season themes, they have specific categories such as ready-to-wear, haute couture, men's wear, women's wear and so on. But our fashion week has no such requirements for each runway show," said Wang.

But compared to previous years of Fashion Week, many thought that Chinese fashion design has made some progress.

"In the first few years, there was no clear difference between stage costume and ready-to-wear design," said Ji Wenbo, designer of Whacko. "Most design looked gorgeous but not practical for daily life.

"But now, as Chinese designers have got more and more information and knowledge about world trends, their designs are getting more mature," Ji said.

However, most insiders acknowledged that few Chinese designers have established their own style. People find it hard to tell who the designer is when they watch a show without knowing in advance.

"Young Chinese designers should try to take part in more fashion events abroad so that they can learn more from those veteran designers and catch the world trends," said Jimmy Choo, world-famous designer and professor at the University of the Arts in London, who served as a judge of the Hempel Awards for Fashion Design.

(China Daily March 31, 2005)