The Business of Fashion

Breaking News | Qiu Hao wins Woolmark Prize

Just a few weeks ago I met Qiu Hao in Shanghai I am thrilled to announce that tonight in Paris he has been awarded the Woolmark Prize, worth €100,000.

The award is is famous for anointing both Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent in 1954 and this year it has been resurrected by Australian Wool Innovation, which recently acquired the Woolmark brand. Said Mr Craig Welsh, CEO of AWI, "We see the Woolmark Prize as an opportunity to support the future of design and at the same time, showcase to the world Australian Merino wool at its best and most innovative."

For those of you who missed it, please check out our feature on Qiu Hao and his fellow Shanghainese designer Helen Lee, and congratulations to Qiu. Well done.

Qiu Hao and Helen Lee | Diversity in design, comrades in commerce

While most Chinese are still focused on buying into the prestige and status of international luxury brands, there are emerging local alternatives for those who want something more individual. Bubbling design and fashion scenes in and around Shanghai’s Taikang Lu and JinXian Lu offer a little bit of niche, homespun design to offset the ubiquity, even in China, of Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton.

In the new Shanghai, emerging fashion designers seek inspiration from home or abroad, create garments that range from the culturally literal to the conceptually commercial, and target mass and class and everything in between. All the same, they share the same business challenges as their counterparts in other established and emerging design centres, from London and New York to Mumbai and Buenos Aires.