Huishan Zhang is surprisingly zen as we sip coffee at his flagship Mount Street store just a week before he's due to showcase his latest collection at London Fashion Week. Most designers might be scrambling to sew up hems right now, but after showing at London Fashion Week for more than 10 years, Huishan has got the process down pat.
“I was the first-ever Chinese designer to show on the LFW calendar, and I'll forever be grateful to London for it,” he says. “London is a melting pot of cultures and has really opened up its doors to me, which is why I still call it home and feel it's important to show here every season.”
The Chinese-born designer first moved to London 20 years ago to earn his degrees in fashion and patterning cutting at Central Saint Martins, but his career truly took off when LVMH scion Delphine Arnault, chairperson and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture handpicked him to join the Christian Dior haute couture atelier soon after graduation.
“Years later I asked her why she chose me and she said, ‘You were the only one who dressed discreetly in a suit while everyone wanted to show off, so it made me remember you'." As a designer, I've always preferred to stay in the background and let my clothes speak for themselves."
And what exactly do his clothes say, you might ask? One only needs to take a look at his collections of perfectly tailored dresses with intricate beading, ultra-flattering silhouettes and (dare I say) *practical* hemlines to know that the Huishan Zhang woman is highly sophisticated and discerning. Oh, and very well-travelled, as evidenced by his choice of venue for his latest show. “We showcased at the Dorchester Hotel because it's exactly where our woman would stay when she comes to London, “ he says. ”It's where she has her afternoon tea, and goes onto all her events."
His dedication to his clientele is what, he says, has sustained the brand since it launched in 2011, through the last decade when designers have opened and shuttered their labels in record numbers. “We treat it seriously as a business and not just a vision," he adds. “At the end of the day my clients are my friends who are actually living this lifestyle, so I constantly listen to them, and I have direct feedback from them. They tell me they want something special, but subtle, stretchy enough to be able to move freely, and they don't want things to be wrinkled, so all our satin is wrinkle-free. I call this effortless elegance because I don't want my client to have to think about these concerns—that's my job. They just have to think about looking beautiful and confident.”
Born in the coastal city of Qingdao, China, where the designer still produces much of his collection and stays for much of the year, his bi-continental lifestyle has also required him to innovate early on. In the first few years, without the budget to ship his designs, Huishan would have to hand-carry his entire collection to London for fashion week. “This is why my pieces travel really well; I've been using wrinkle-free, lightweight fabric for a long time because I used to be the one carrying everything and steaming all the clothes before the show!” Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention.
His unique start to his career has led to many young students seeking his mentorship and guidance. At the mention of this, Huishan picks up his phone to gesture at messages sent to him by the husband of Angelica Cheung, former founding editor-in-chief of Vogue China, referring some young students in London to him, who are keen to pick his brains. Huishan welcomes with open arms, keen to reciprocate the warm welcome London has given him. “All I can do is share my journey, and hope it inspires them somehow,” he says. “I remember reading all about how Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani got their start, and even though everything about their story was different from mine, I was still inspired to keep chasing my dreams.”
Now stocked globally at the likes of Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges (where you could find a huge pop-pop dedicated to the designer) Huishan is a bona fide success story. But every milestone comes with its own set of challenges, he says, which is something he hopes young, emerging designers are aware of—the “unsexy” bits of running a fashion label, if you will. “When we were a small business, we didn't have the power to buy lots of fabrics, so we were stuck with other people's leftovers, but now that we're bigger, and buying thousands of metres of fabric, we needed to send people to Italy to quality control it,” says Huishan. “I played every possible role in the company in the beginning—even pretended to be my PR to say no to people!”
More than a decade later, Huishan is still adding hats to his head. For his new collection that he showcased on February 22, he took on the role of a stylist too, styling the looks himself for the first time, rather than collaborating with external talents which he had done prior. “This collection is very personal, it's a love letter to my friends who are my clients and who I've always offered advice to when they ask me what shoes or jewellery to wear with my dresses, so this was my chance to style the woman I've always designed for.”
