Red Carpet – Gallery
Elite Edge Red Carpet all around the world.
Elite Edge Team
A selected gallery of pictures from the ” China’s Next Hot Mama” Show in Shanghai, May 2016.
Elite Edge Events
Some say streetwear is a dirty word, others say it’s merely a subculture in fashion and finally, others say those titles are demeaning to designers all over the world. Either way streetwear has been trending for the last 30 years, so it might not be a trend as much as a lifestyle by now. Brands like Off-White or Fear of God have made streetwear more sophisticated in the recent seasons. However, the problem lives on when it comes to lists. Lists of the greatest streetwear brands, lists like Complex’s list of the 50 greatest streetwear brands, “Most of them are known for little more than printing graphic tees” Says Aleks Eror writer at High Sobriety. It’s hard to invest into a piece and have it be labeled as something equal to a graphic tee. Or to be a designer and have the world see your work as simple as that- it becomes a sensitive issue. Bobby Hundreds, cofounder of archetypal old skool streetwear brand stated, “Every line on this list with a few exceptions, has built their brand off T-shirts”. Streetwear is more than that.
Yoji Yamamoto, an influential Japanese fashion designer, who is a master tailor alongside those such as Medeleine Vionnect, who has won dozens of awards as Master of Design by Fashion Group International understands the importance of streetwear. Since 1981, Yoji Yamamoto has been a part of high fashion, recently collaborated with Adidas in Y-3. Yamamoto is only one of dozens of fashion designers in Pairs participating in collaborations in streetwear as Raf Simons and Rick Owens both have worked with Adidas as well.
In 2014, GQ labored John Elliott+Co as the best designer of the year. John Elliott designers range from hoodies, thermals, and raglan pullovers richly fabricated in gauzy French terry, flannel, or leather patchwork. His latest collection described in Vogue as, “the fabrics were complex and textured- one in particular, a wool bonded aluminum made into flight jackets and shorts, enabled the wearer to bend and sculpt them if he so chooses. Only exhaustive research could result in something like that”. In the same issue of GQ, the other designer of 2014 was a suit-and-tie specialists Brooklyn tailors, lines are blurring as other magazines as J.Crew and Aime Leon Dore both have a strong cross over between the two worlds.
Designer, Gosha Rubchinskiy are walking his models down Pairs fashion Week in FILA’s paneled sweaters and Tennis Classic sneakers that were given a post-Soviet makeover topped with oversized rave-ready sunglasses. Streetwear, working class fashion, sneakers, call it what you may, but I would say streetwear is a part of the fashion world or maybe, it’s always been there.
Thomas Jordon Raybell
As one of the Chairman Mao’s widely quoted sentence, “Many hands make light work”. And this is certainty the case when it comes to social media in China.
China has the world’s biggest Internet user base of 513 million people, more than double of the 245 million users in the United States. However, this is done with no: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram. Understanding the Chinese consumer’s decision is vital for a company as they are the world’s most active environment for social media.
For example,Wechat, a mobile voice and text application has over 100 million users, or consider Youku, which is the second largest video site in the world after YouTube. Taking a closer look at the data shows us the social media users’ behaviors in China, an example would be people in the Tier-1 city area, “People use social media as often as they breath” according to Lotus Ruan writer for Techinasia. According to Cindy Chiu, writer of, Understanding Social Media in China, “China’s social-media users not only are more active than those of any other country but also, in more than 80 percent of all cases, have multiple social-media accounts, primarily with local players”. It’s important to be able to stand out and craft a winning strategy when it comes to social media in China if you want your business to survive. That is, if for goal is only to survive, but who wants to survive when you can be successful.
To be successful you must make your content authentic and user oriented. What does that mean? A story. Cross-culturally people love stories, there is no more powerful way to convey a message than through the medium of a strong narrative. An example of this would be Estee Lauder’s Clinique who launched a drama series, Sufei’s Diary with a 40 episode broadcasted daily. While skin care was part of the story and the products were prominently featured, it was not an advertisement and was viewed more than 21 million times. Clinique’s online brand’s awareness grew 27 percent higher than their competitors. Another key principle for success would be maintaining your brand consistently cross-culturally. An example of this would be Starbucks who adopted various different products to meet the demands of their demographic, however, maintained their message of quality, social responsibility, and community building worldwide. Lastly, it’s important to be flexible and responded to the market. An example, of this would be Dove, they entered into China with a western mindset of promoting beauty in their social-media with real women rather than only models. This approach quickly failed as many of the Chinese consumers viewed the real woman as overweight and unattractive. Dove reconsidered their social-media campaign and partnered with a Chinese adaptation of a US television show and promoted their products through that narrative, which became very successful.
These are three examples, of hundreds of cases of different companies entering into the Chinese market, and failing, because they didn’t understand how to adopt through social-media and build a foundation of Chinese consumers.
Thomas Jordon Raybell
As recent as 2010, the sight of a mobile phone front row of a catwalk was rare. Roll on six years later, the world’s most prestigious shows shine from a snapchat or Instagram account. “We’re all watching a show through our phone rather than our eyes” says the 26-year-old junior fashion editor Josh Newis-Simth. Josh works for Grazia magazine, and has been to loads of fashion shows and was in the middle of the most important months, September. This is when the designers reveal their collections for the following spring and summer. “Social media is now so relentless, you are spending your whole time on Instagram, Twitter, Periscope… Everything needs to be instant” Josh tells BBC news. He explains, “It’s not like the old days when it was a closed off experience. People didn’t have camera phones, so they had to wait six months until they saw February issue to see what was going on”.
This is what customers want though, they don’t want to wait six months to see what the new trend is going to be, as josh says later in the interview, “They want it at their fingertips”. Social media has played a massive role in fashion, and especially in fast fashion. Nine times out of 10, by the time designers clothes have got into store, the high street has already interpreted their look six or seven ways. Ken Downing, the fashion director of Neiman Marcus, said recently that he was showing a client a hot-off-the-delivery-van $11,000 embroidered jacket, only to have her wrinkle her nose and say, “but don’t you have anything new?”. “It arrived the day before” he observed. But it had been online since last October.
“Social media is the laxative of the fashion system” says Scott Galloway, founder and chairman of the digital consultancy L2. As he goes on to explain, “it makes everyone digest everything much faster: trends,coproduction discovery”.
“Everyone drank the kool-aid for too long, but it’s just not working anymore Ms. Von Furstenburg said a couple weeks ago. “We are in a moment of complete confusion between what was and what will be. Everyone has to learn the new rules. What does this look like? No one really knows, but everyone is attempting to experiment to find out what it looks like.
Burberry hosts its fall show in London one week later, and it will be clad in nostalgia. Come September, the brand will abandon the concept of “Spring” and “Fall” and present combined men’s wear and women’s wear show that will be panseasonal. The clothes will be in stores directly after the show.
Diana Von Furstenberg a pillar of the fashion establishment and chairwoman of the crucial of fashion designers of America decided to hold her on experience over two floors in a meat packing district in NYC. She will invite her selected guests to filter in and out over an hour to see vignettes of Karlie Kloss and GiGi Hadid, among other major models, acting out real-life situations, choreographed by Stephen Galloway,chile wearing pieces from her new collections.
This list would be incomplete without mentioning this year’s first big show in New York Fashion Week which took places the behemoth environs of Madison Square Garden which did not only Yeezy season 3 but also Kanye’s new album, “The Life of Pablo. This is a difficult event to dismiss as it sold out with more than 18,000 tickets some selling as high as $8,585 while also being played live in 25 different countries.
This is turning out to be fashion’s season of existential crisis. Suddenly designers are asking big questions about purpose and effect, as they reexamine the system on which they had been rested on. And they are doing it, in the cold, blue light of the smartphones glare. And they are doing it, arguably, because of the smartphone glare. One can not say whether snapchat or social media platforms are killing fashion. However, it’s impossible not to see the apparent change in the industry. The real problem lays in fashion fashion as it has created a situation where you no longer need to wait 6 months. Zara or H&M are able to measure how popular a piece is by how many likes it receives online and then are able to produce merely an acceptable simulacrum. Zara has an amazing chain line management and is able to produce a piece from designers to shelve in 2 weeks. This is where the problem truly is, as all the designers pieces don’t come out for another 6 months, but you could get by with something from the fast fashion world instead. This type of system really cuts out the designer and replaces it with the retailer and or the market. Many designers are now talking about adapting a consumer relevant runway which would showcase clothes closer to the time they would be a avalible in the stores.
The previous model of fashion that everyone has grown up with is changing. The fashion world everyone is used to is over. However, in this is season of change there are multiple factors which are yet to be seen as positives or negative. For example, fashion shows that were once exclusive are now open to the public through Snapchat and Instagram. Stores want a guarantee that a product will sell before they will sell it. This is only realistic with a strong online presences or selling pieces shorty after the runway. As a result of all this, I see a movement towards designers hosting their own shows over dinners or cocktails or even an album release party. I can’t help but feel an invasion of intimacy though, when I’m at a show and there are phones as far as the eye can see. Or if I try to take a picture and I only see a sea of phones. I’m excited for the future of fashion, as we look into our own self expression, the vehicle in which we drive develops as well, which is just as exciting as the change we see happening and we are experiencing.
Thomas Jordon Raybell
CNR shopping, the world’s largest television shopping network QVC and Elite Edge, launched “Chinese Hot Mum Show” together, which were held in five cities , thousands of people participated and one hundred million viewed. In every single place where the event located caused enormous repercussions. The CEO of QVC, Gregg Bertoni, the founder Elite Edge, Sam Guo and the famous movie stars ShenDanping were present the event to cheer for all the Chinese mums.
In order to build up a images of New Women and encourage people to relieve them of the household chores and to have self-confidence in the new time, CNR hold this event and created this opportunity for 35 to 65-year-old women to help them made the dream came true.
In stead of following the traditional concept of being a woman in China, mums started to learnt how to walk as a model on the runway, how to show their beauty of the their age with colors and fashionable clothes, which was a significant change in their life. Through two weeks of training and intense competition. At the end, 31 selected mums showed up at the final competition stage dressing up with the beautiful international fashion brands supplied by American WH Showroom, showing the whole world with the beauty of Chinese new woman.
WH Showroom belongs to WH Fashion Group, based in New York, it is an international platform with high-quality European and American international clothing from many well-known brands, They access to different fashion shows hold in different countries, such as United States, France, Italy in order to launch more brands fit in Chinese market. More than twenty international brands have settled in WH Showroom, such as Desigual, Free people, WOW Couture, etc. Chinese hot mom perfectly interpreted the spirit of WH Showroom and embodied the wonderful combination of Chinese women with western fashion.
Also thanks to the great assistance of Elite Edge for putting effort on this event. Elite Edge is a provider of digital marketing services and helping the international fashion and lifestyle brands to enter the Chinese market with resources and strategic partnerships provided by them. The founder Sam Guo said: “ Why we built up the relationships for WH Showroom, CNR and QVC shopping is not only to make the mum become more beautiful on the stage, but also we want to bring more international fashion and ideas to help Chinese people become more pluralism and international. I want to find more business partners and more diversified channels to build up more strategic cooperation projects between foreign brands and Chinese. We are helping the world into China, and China into the world.”
Gogo Yang