Decoding the China fixation

Evening dress by Roberto Cavalli, 2005.[Photo provided to China Daily]

In the past century, major Western designers from Paul Poiret to Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano, were intrigued by the "mysterious Middle Kingdom", in the words of Jiang Yi, a Beijing-based designer. Many other Dior creations were also inspired by China during his long, monumental career.

Jiang, however, says that Giorgio Armani is perhaps among top Western names to differ in his interpretation of Chinese fashion.

Citing the example of a bamboo-inspired show put up by the Italian designer earlier this year, Jiang says: "Armani's love for precise cuts and understated elegance simultaneously gives his creations a restrained rigor and a harmonious ease that is so much in line with design aesthetics of ancient China."

But a color palette with shades of blue or gray (Armani uses grayish blue), ivory white and champagne isn't often the choice of many other Western designers when the theme is China. Most of their clothes come in fiery red or gold, on which spiraling dragons and fluttering phoenixes reign against backdrops of floating clouds and seething waves.

Chinese exports from jade and porcelain in the 18th century to Ang Lee and Wong Kar-wai movies in the modern times provided visual stimuli for Western designers, many of whom that lived in the first half of the 20th century, never had by visiting this faraway land, Zuo Wen, a Beijing-based designer trained in London, says.

"It was a glimpse of China that gave little indication of the country's cultural complexity yet produced something very close to a fixation, a fetish."