Central Saint Martins graduates Danxia Liu and Shanpeng Wong debuted their brand Danshan (a portmanteau of their first names) at London Fashion Week for Spring/Summer 2017 and have received critical praise for the way their designs defy gender norms. While Wong grew up in Hong Kong, Liu was raised in Guangzhou, China where her father presented her as a boy for the first twelve years of her life: “When I was born, my paternal grandmother asked my dad to divorce my mum because she wanted a grandson. At the time, it was considered a failure when a man doesn’t have a son. My dad would always take me to the barber to cut my hair really short, only dressed me in boys’ clothes and encouraged me to play sports like football,” she told Dazed in a 2016 interview. Liu’s gender repressive upbringing had a major impact on her, giving her painful insight into the constraints of masculinity while inspiring her to break (men) free from those boundaries. She initially wanted to be a fine artist, but eventually ended up studying womenswear at CSM, where she met Wong during their foundation year. The two designers were roommates for four years, worked for the same company before starting Danshan and share similar feelings toward the restrictions of gender: “…Shan has so many beautiful traits that I value and I feel are buried in traditional notions of masculinity. This became our statement, it was something we could both strongly relate to and explore through menswear,” Liu told Dazed in the aforementioned interview.

Although Danshan’s aesthetics are still evolving (it’s not even two years old), the brand has already shown the imagination for thematic arcs and a daring eye for unconventional silhouettes. The duo’s debut lookbook, for Spring/Summer 2017, dressed men in flowing nightgowns, robes and tunics and placed them on pedestals—an apparent allusion to ancient Greek statues of goddesses. In contrast, the brand presented its Spring/Summer 2018 collection, “Learning with Danshan” in an intentionally drab classroom at Kings College in London and styled models in outfits that offered obvious nods to traditional school uniforms: dark blazers, embroidered crests, and black knee socks all made appearances. The collection is an exploration of how educational systems influence the performance of masculinity by students, especially in terms of body language. The presentation bore the tagline, “DANSHAN know that vulnerability is strength,” which is a common ideology for the brand: creating clothes that encourage men to express themselves in ways that defy gender expectations.

Shanghai-born Ziggy Chen founded his eponymous label in 2012 after twelve years of managing his wife Helena’s line Decoster, one of the oldest designer brands in China. Although Chen studied fashion design in the ’90’s and worked as university lecturer in textile design for many years, he entered his second career by happenstance: “The organizers of Shanghai Fashion Week asked Decoster to participate, but Helena was not interested in doing a fashion show. At the time, we were planning to launch a menswear line and we had already experimented it with two capsule collections in 2010, so I thought it might have been a good opportunity for a new brand to do a runway show,” Chen told Le Paradox in 2014. “Then we told the organizers that we would have attended, but not as Decoster. Decoster Concept Spring/Summer 2012 was completed in less than 3 months, with main inspirations coming from one of my favorite collection[s] of historic photographs.” After the runway show, Chen received e-mails form STEALTHPROJEKT and VERTICE asking if Decoster Concept would show in Paris that fall, which eventually convinced the designer to officially launch his own menswear label. In 2015, Chinese retail behemoth Lane Crawford featured Ziggy Chen as one of its “Created in China,” brands, offering an additional platform for support and exposure. The designer now counts global luxury retailers like SSENSE, Antonioli and, of course, Lane Crawford as stockists.

From interviews, it’s clear that Chen started his brand as a passion project, and his obsessions continue to drive it even as it experiences increasing success. An avid student and collector of fashion history, the designer often draws inspiration from the Song and Qing dynasties, as well as 17th and 18th Century European garments: “Sometimes I wear Chinese pieces from 100 years ago that are impossible to wear in this day and time,” Chen recounted in a 2015 interview with Lane Crawford. “I try to transfer the experience I have of wearing these pieces into the clothes that I design. The lines from these old garments are so unique and different to what you see today.” Chen’s garments often mix a muted color palette with perfectly wrinkled textiles and variations on traditional silhouettes; it isn’t unusual for one of his pieces to incorporate multiple fabrics, each made up of two or more natural fibers, which is true for numerous garments in his Fall/Winter 2017 collection. And, although Chen, like many designers, cites Rei Kawakubo as an inspiration, his aesthetics and techniques are just as akin to brands like Paul Harnden and Sage de Cret, which match his rare obsession with textiles.

Designer Shangguan Zhe founded his label Sankuanz (pronounced san-quänz), with two friends and 3000 yuan in 2007, immediately after graduating from Xiamen University where he studied graphic design. A native of Changting, Zhe decided to forego China’s fashion capitals of Beijing and Shanghai and stay in Fujian Province; instead, the designer has made a home in Xiamen—an island city of 4.5 million people that sits opposite of Taiwan—where he has helped court a growing community of Chinese fashion designers who have been dubbed the “Xiamen Fashion Gang” (after the Antwerp Six).

While he is a fan of Rei Kawakubo’s conceptual approach to fashion, Zhe’s initial collections relied heavily on graphics: “Because I majored in graphic design, at first my designs were mostly T-shirts with the graphic designs I created,” he told W Magazine earlier this year. Even Sankuanz’s early runway collections utilized graphics as their main design language: Zhe’s Fall/Winter 2013 Mt. Kangrinboqe collection—with its Tibetan Buddhist-inspired robes and embroidered animals is reminiscent of Maharishi (an arguable reappropriation of Chinese motifs that is worthy of its own essay, especially since the fabrics and trims were made by traditional Tibetan craftsmen)—while his Fall/Winter 2014 collection—with its pop cultural references, bright color palette and all-over prints—feels like a nod to Jeremy Scott. However, as Zhe has gained more experience, his approach and aesthetics have shifted so that he now prefers fashion design as his “main method of creation.”

Although more recent collections still incorporate text and occasional graphics, it’s clear that Zhe is now more focused on garment construction, trims, silhouettes and thematic threads. Sankuanz’s Fall/Winter 2017 collection, titled “Destroy,” ruminates on the current and future relationship between chemistry and human beings and incorporates various details and materials from biochemical protection suits. “Destroy” is also indicative of Zhe’s changing inspirations for his brand: “Starting from the last season, Sankuanz has been in the process of converting its theme from ‘youth culture’ to ‘science and technology,’ as well as the current situation of human existence. For fall, we’ve also furthered our exploration and innovation of materials with DuPont fabrics and the fibers found in NASA space suits,” he told W Magazine in the aforementioned interview. Zhe’s development as a designer is clearly paying off: he was named as a semifinalist for the 2015 LVMH Prize, counts too many cutting-edge stockists to count and currently shows at Paris Fashion Week.

Born and raised in Fujian Province, Feng Chen Wang’s young career has been influenced by her international experience; the designer has already lived in Shanghai, New York, and London, where she received her Master’s degree from London’s Royal College of Art. Wang founded her menswear line in 2015 soon after graduating and made her runway debut for Spring/Summer 2016 through VFILES’ show at New York Fashion Week. Her first collection, “Love and Life,” drew inspiration from her father’s struggle with cancer, and personal themes are integral to Wang’s design process: “I am an emotional designer,” she told Dazed in 2016. “Real life and real things happening are more interesting to me. My feelings lead my ideas.” Wang’s explicitly autobiographical approach is unique within the fashion industry and has helped separate her from the many other up-and-coming menswear designers: “I am driven by my experiences and collate my discoveries and personal narratives into my work. My inspiration consists of modern interpretation of my worldview and contemporary culture in their various forms,” she explained in a 2016 interview with i-D.

Although Wang’s collections have often taken a sculptural approach to design, she is balancing her overarching concepts with “the practicality of the clothing” more and more each season. While her Spring/Summer 2017 runway show at London Fashion Week was inspired by connection in the digital age and showcased monochromatic outfits made up of garments that seemed to wrap, twist and strap themselves to her models, her Spring/Summer 2018 “Made in China” show at NYFW still featured some wild pieces (such as a bomber jacket with a gathered mesh overlay, as well as bicep-high, adjustable gloves), but was light years more approachable for the average high-fashion consumer. It seems this new approach will pay off for Wang, especially when paired with the hype her brand is sure to receive due to the Air Jordan 1 Flyknit collaboration featured during the Spring/Summer 2018 show. Wang was already shortlisted for the LVMH Prize in 2016, and with heavy hitting stockists such as Lane Crawford and H. Lorenzo, it appears her star, and sales, will only continue to rise.

Born in 1982 in the seaside city of Qingdao, Xander Zhou was fascinated by clothing as a boy: “Even at a young age, I would use scissors on new clothes if I thought that would make them look better,” he recounted to Interview Magazine in 2013. Zhou ended up studying industrial design at university in Beijing, but knew all along that he wanted to be a fashion designer. Eventually, while visiting the Netherlands, a friend gave him a secondhand sewing machine and Zhou began to create the designs he’d being carrying in his head; he would go on to live in the Netherlands where he studied fashion design at The Hague. In 2007, Zhou returned to China, where he founded his eponymous label in Beijing, which he felt presented far more opportunities for an upstart designer: “I found that in Europe it is quite hard to get started as an independent fashion designer…In China, I chose Beijing because I know the city and some of its people in the fashion scene (better than e.g. Shanghai), but also because I think Beijing is the ‘cultural capital’ of China,” he explained in a 2008 interview with Dazed.

With a brand that is already ten years old, Zhou has been a trailblazer for the newest generation of Chinese designers: in 2008 he was named “Designer of the Year” by Esquire China; in 2010 he served as guest editor and appeared on the cover of the [“Gay China” issue of iLook Magazine](https://www.forbes.com/2010/06/24/china-25-fashion-designers-luxury-couture-zhou.html; and, in 2013, he became the first Chinese-born designer to show at London Fashion Week, where he has shown since. However, despite Zhou’s impact on China’s industry, he does not simply want to be known as a Chinese designer. Although Zhou designs and produces his garments in China, his tags read, “Made on Another Planet,” and in 2016 he told Metal: “…most people have a stereotype idea of things that are ‘Made in China’ that may result from a lack of understanding of China in all its diversity. Even within China, or within Beijing, there are people that seem to be living in completely different worlds, or in parallel universes if you want. Since it might therefore be hard to picture anything based on the information that my clothes are ‘Made in China,’ they might as well be made on another planet.”

Zhou’s labels are only one of the many ways in which he strives to defy classifications. His style has been described as “progressive tailoring” by outlets such as Dew Magazine, which Zhou rechristened “don’t-give-a-fuck-tailoring” in the aforementioned Metal interview, and construction is clearly important to the designer. Yet, at the same time, he designs for “people who would also wear streetwear,” even though he has stated that he doesn’t make streetwear. Additionally, Zhou avoids the dichotomy between conceptual and wearable design: “Artistic innovation is not a threat to menswear’s wearability, but rather a guarantee for its survival. After all, if we would only care about protecting our bodies from the elements, there would be no such thing as fashion,” he explained to Indie in 2016. What is clear about Zhou is his talent for reinterpreting his many inspirations; his Spring/Summer 2018 collection seamless blends various forms of “work wear,” including police uniforms, mechanics suits, office wear, aprons and Tibetan robes, while incorporating avant-garde details such as cutouts and 3D-inserts. Zhou’s multifaceted ideology toward design seems to be paying off: his runway shows receive consistent praise and his collection is currently stocked by shops that range from Opening Ceremony to HBX.