China is a hot topic. Is it also a fashion setter? Purpose of this study is to investigate on the emergence of Chinese fashion brands in the international fashion system. In order to do that, we first accounted for a paramount overview of fashion theories. We focused on the fashion system theory suggested by Kawamura, as it offered a thorough analysis of the first case of Asian designers being internationally successful: the Japanese Revolution. We crossed literature from fashion with the utmost research on branding, specifically drawing upon the country-of-origin stream of research. The research design comprised two main stages and two qualitative methodology approaches: Grounded Theory and Qualitative Cluster Analysis. In the first stage we developed a framework in order to identify Chinese fashion brands participating in the fashion system. In the second stage we identify common patterns of access to the fashion system. Results were compared with the antecedent case of the Japanese Revolution.
Findings suggest that Chinese fashion brands are emerging. However, they do not access the fashion system as they actually rise within it: most of the designers have studied in a Western country, preferably in the US and in the UK; two fashion institutes emerge as pivotal: Parsons - The New School of Design in New York and the Central Saint Martins institute in London. Finally, their use of the Chinese-asset is limited. Unlike the Japanese, who had dramatised their foreign and exotic identity and accessed the fashion system through an exoticisation process, Chinese designers apply to the educational system of the main fashion capitals placed in the West, especially in the US and in the UK. Ultimately, we suggest that Chinese fashion brands are emerging and they access the fashion system by means of a naturalisation process grounded in the Western-educational system, especially based in anglophone countries
