Pronounce to Bring East-West Flair to Milan Fashion Week
MILAN — A decade after the Chinese designer fashion boom — and after surviving the COVID-19 pandemic and the most recent economic slowdown — a slew of local brands has managed to build international profiles, juggling easily between hometown displays and a global perspective.
Pronounce, the contemporary menswear player established in 2016 by Yushan Li and Jun Zhou and regarded among the up-and-coming names as a playbook for taking domestic creativity global, is decamping to Milan Fashion Week this season after years of splitting presentations between London and Shanghai Fashion Weeks.
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The pair has a thing for Italy, having opened offices in Milan and presenting at Pitti Uomo in 2019 as part of the trade show’s broader spotlight on China as that year’s summer edition’s guest nation. They were previously awarded The Latest Fashion Buzz recognition at Pitti Uomo in 2017.
“We always believe that we should follow our instinct. It is not about where we are, but more about what messages we want to deliver,” Li said about showing in Milan for the first time.
Praised for their ability to seamlessly blend traditional Chinese fashion — think Cheongsam designs and Mao suits as well as traditional embroidery — with a Western and contemporary sensibility, the design duo is hosting a show at Neoclassical Palazzo Serbelloni on Sunday at 11 a.m. local time. The venue itself is poised to provide a striking contrast with the collection, which Zhou billed as a representation of the “East-West dialogue.”
Although the duo didn’t disclose much about Pronounce’s fall 2024 coed fashion, Zhou said that inspiration came from “certainty and contingency, about the biology and mechanical rationality of beings and about abstract lines and ropes.”
The collection will include a collaboration with Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed company Pop Mart, known for selling collectable designer toys, often sold in a blind boxes geared at the affluent young Chinese consumers.
The duo has historically masterminded many tie-ins with brands big and small, high-end and high-street, from Diesel and H&M to Lanvin, Puma and Li-Ning — moves that underscore their ability to gain international exposure for Pronounce.
Li said that while a strong retail foothold in Europe was paramount before the pandemic, the domestic market and more broadly Asia have been picking up throughout the years of COVID-19, offsetting a slowdown in other regions, leaving the pair satisfied with the current brand performance. Pronounce counts about 30 retailers globally.
“We think that we still have a long, long way to go. For Pronounce, persistence is the only thing that really matters,” Li said.
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