 | |
| Industry | Fashion design |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | , |
| Website | shushutongstudio |
Shushu/Tong, also stylized as SHUSHU/TONG, is a Shanghai-based fashion label founded in 2015 by designers Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang. Its design sensibility is inspired by girlhood, nostalgia, and retro anime and films.
Founders Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang were both born in Chengdu and attended the same high school. [1] Both Lei and Jiang were inspired by the anime Nana to become designers, although Jiang was briefly interested in becoming a cartoonist before realizing she preferred fashion. [1] The two met at Shanghai's Donghua University when studying fashion in 2014. [2] The two went on to acquire MA degrees at London College of Fashion, [3] where the two were flatmates and first conceived of the brand. [1] Lei spent time interning with Simone Rocha, and Jiang with Gareth Pugh. [4] After a failing to acquire a visa to stay in London, [1] Shushu/Tong was officially founded in 2015 in Shanghai. [4] [5] The label's name is a combination of Lei's nickname, Shushu, and Jiang's given name, Yutong. [1] The first physical Shushu/Tong store opened in July 2022 in Shanghai JC Plaza. [6]
Lei is the creative director of the brand, while Jiang is more involved on the marketing and client side, although she also has input on the design process. [5] Their first sales were made on Chinese social media platform WeChat, [7] [1] [3] before the brand was picked up by other stockists; social media has been an avenue which allowed their brand to grow despite not being located in a traditional fashion capital like Paris. [7] The brand has collaborated with Asics [7] and Charles & Keith, [8] for footwear, local brand Yvmin for a line of jewelry, [9] and Estée Lauder for holiday cosmetic gift sets. [6] The brand's collaboration with Estée Lauder was noted as the first time a global brand had collaborated with a Chinese fashion brand. [6]
Shushu/Tong is noted for its hyper-feminine style, having been compared to the coquette aesthetic trend, [4] [7] soft girl subculture and Lolita fashion. [5] The brand was noted for predating the trend of hyper-girly clothing after 2020. [7] Their designs often incorporate girly elements like frills, bows, ribbons, and pearls, as well as gingham and pastel fabric. [10] [11] Works that have inspired collections include the Aim for the Ace! , [10] The Virgin Suicides, [11] Gigi, [4] and the protagonists of magical girl anime such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Cardcaptor Sakura . [5] [3] The founders named Chloë Sevigny and Tina Chow as muses, [10] and Faye Wong as a perennial inspiration [7] as well as celebrity they would like to dress someday. [4]
Shushu/Tong is one of some rising Chinese fashion brands associated with guochao (Chinese :国潮; pinyin :Guó cháo), a fashion trend among younger Chinese shoppers to prefer homegrown designers which incorporate aspects of Chinese history and culture. [12] [5]
Jiang also serves as a muse for Lei, as she models items and provides early feedback, giving a woman's perspective to Lei's designs. This may have contributed to criticism against the brand for its limited range of body shapes. [5]
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is an American multinational cosmetics company, a manufacturer and marketer of makeup, skincare, perfume, and hair care products, based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is the second largest cosmetics company in the world after L'Oréal. The company owns a diverse portfolio of brands, including La Mer, Jo Malone London, Clinique and Tom Ford Beauty, among many more, distributed internationally through both digital commerce and retail channels.
Ermenegildo Zegna N.V., also known as Zegna or the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, is an Italian luxury fashion house. It was founded in 1910 by Ermenegildo Zegna in Trivero, Biella, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. As of 2021, it is a public company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shanghai Tang is a Hong Kong luxury fashion house founded in 1994 by Hong Kong businessman David Tang. The brand is known for its luxury homeware collection and fine bone china. In 1998, Richemont acquired David Tang's controlling stake in the business.
Japanese street fashion refers to a number of styles of contemporary modern clothing in Japan. Created from a mix of both local and foreign fashion brands, Japanese street fashions tend to have their own distinctive style, with some considered to be extreme and avant-garde, with similarities to the haute couture styles seen on European catwalks.
Fashion design is the art of applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction and natural beauty to clothing and its accessories. It is influenced by culture and different trends, and has varied over time and place. "A fashion designer creates clothing, including dresses, suits, pants, and skirts, and accessories like shoes and handbags, for consumers. He or she can specialize in clothing, accessory, or jewelry design, or may work in more than one of these areas."
Consuelo Castiglioni is a fashion designer. She is part Chilean and was born and raised in the Italian-Swiss town of Lugano, Switzerland.
Liu Wen is a mainland Chinese model. She is widely regarded as China's first supermodel. She was the first Chinese model to walk the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, the first East Asian spokesmodel for Estée Lauder cosmetics, and the first Asian model to ever make Forbes magazine's annual highest-paid models list. In 2017, Liu became the second Chinese model to ever appear on the cover of American Vogue, and the first to be featured on the front cover rather than foldout. She landed on the cover a second time in American Vogue's April 2020 issue and a third in May 2023, becoming the first person of Chinese descent to appear three times. In 2024, she became the first model of Asian descent to be featured solo on the cover of French Vogue. She is currently represented by The Society Management and is based in New York City.
Sun Feifei, commonly known as Fei Fei Sun, is a Chinese model based in New York City. She is ranked as the New Supers by Models.com. Top casting director Ashley Brokaw proclaimed Fei Fei as "an exceptional beauty ", considered to be a supermodel by some fashion editors and journalists. She is a spokesmodel of cosmetic giant Estée Lauder.
Olivia von Halle is a British fashion designer who runs "Olivia von Halle", a manufacturer of silk pyjamas.
Le Labo is a slow perfumery brand born in Grasse, France, based in New York City and owned by Estée Lauder.
Tong Yao, also known as Tanya Tong, is a Chinese actress, best known in film for portraying Chen Shu in A Big Deal (2011), May in Snowfall in Taipei (2012) and Annie Yang in To Love Somebody (2014), and has received critical acclaim for her television work, particularly as Meng Xizi in Militia Ge Erdan (2012), Zhou Xiaobei in Three Bosom Girls (2014), Song Renping in Like a Flowing River (2018) and Gu Jia in Nothing But Thirty (2020).
Irene Kim, also known by her online alias Ireneisgood, is an American model, beauty and fashion journalist, and television personality based in New York City. In 2018, Kim released her clothing brand IRENEISGOOD LABEL.
Veronica Swanson Beard is an American entrepreneur and fashion designer who co-founded Veronica Beard, a contemporary fashion company, with her sister-in law Veronica Miele Beard. Swanson Beard launched the brand in 2009 and has continued to run it with Miele Beard as the company scaled.
The fashions of the 2020s represent a departure from 2010s fashion and feature a nostalgia for older aesthetics. They have been largely inspired by styles of the late 1990s to mid-2000s, 1980s, and late 1960s to early 1970s Early in the decade, several publications noted the shortened trend and nostalgia cycle in 2020s fashion. Fashion was also shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a major impact on the fashion industry, and led to shifting retail and consumer trends.
Tom Ford SA is an American luxury fashion house founded by namesake designer Tom Ford in 2005. Its product line features ready-to-wear and made-to-measure offerings, as well as footwear, accessories, and handbags.
Soft Girl or Softie describes a youth subculture that emerged among Gen Z female teenagers around mid-to late-2019. Soft girl is a fashion style and a lifestyle, popular among some young women on social media, based on a deliberately cutesy, feminine look with a "girly girl" attitude. Being a soft girl also may involve a tender, sweet, and sensitive personality.
An Internet aesthetic, also simply referred to as an aesthetic or microaesthetic, is a visual art style, sometimes accompanied by a fashion style, subculture, or music genre, that usually originates from the Internet or is popularized on it. Throughout the 2010s and 2020s, online aesthetics gained increasing popularity, specifically on social media platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok, and often were used by people to express their individuality and creativity. They can also be used to create a sense of community and belonging among people who share the same interests. The term aesthetic has been described as being "totally divorced from its academic origins", and is commonly used as an adjective.
Sandy Liang is a fashion label based in New York City. Founded in 2014 by Sandy Liang, its designs are inspired by nostalgia, girlhood, and grandmothers in Chinatown.
C-Beauty, or Chinese beauty is an umbrella term encompassing contemporary beauty products, practises, and ideals originating from China. China has the second largest beauty market in the world, after the United States. Common C-Beauty products include cosmetics, skin care, hair care, perfumes, and nail art. C-Beauty often incorporates influences from traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese art.
Regencycore or, sometimes, royalcore, is a fashion style and internet aesthetic inspired by clothing worn in early 19th-century Europe. The rise of regencycore is widely attributed to the popularity of the Netflix television series Bridgerton, which takes place in a fictionalized version of Regency era Britain and premiered at the end of 2020.