The City Of T-Shirts & Flip Flops

Forgoing the glitz and glamour of cosmopolitan cities, China’s young and upcoming fashion designers set up base in off beat Xiamen. 

- Amy Qin

In the seven years she lived in Beijing, Vega Zaishi Wang started her eponymous label and made her name as one of China’s top young fashion designers. 

But the capital city’s grueling pace of life — the media, the parties, the pollution, the cost of living — was taking its toll. She struggled with depression so oppressive she named her 2014 autumn/winter collection “The Dark Night of the Soul”.

And so, in September, Wang finally made her escape. Like a bird in search of warmer climes, she fled south to Xiamen, a coastal city between Hong Kong and Shanghai. She set up a studio in a four-story mansion in a quiet neighborhood on Xiamen Island, just a short walk from the beach.

On a recent sunny afternoon, an ocean breeze blew in through the studio’s open windows. Gritty Beijing, so often blanketed in smog and traffic, felt like a world away.

“In Beijing, there was no such thing as work-life balance,” said Wang, 32, settling into a vintage raspberry coloured leather armchair. “But here in Xiamen, I can slow down my pace and focus on my collections. I’m much happier here.”

In moving to Xiamen, Wang became the latest addition to a small but robust community of up-and-coming young Chinese fashion designers who have forgone the glitz and glamour of cosmopolitan Shanghai and Beijing in favour of off-the-beaten-path Xiamen.

Known as the “Xiamen gang,” these designers — whose aesthetics range from elevated street wear to high-end fashion — are beloved by fashionistas from Beijing to Hong Kong. Their creations have been promenaded on the elite catwalks of London and Paris fashion weeks and have even inspired numerous knockoffs on Chinese e-commerce platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao.