Trends & Observations in Fashion for Lunar New Year 2021
Written by Lily Yang
Edited by Deborah Lau-Yu, The Fête Chinoise Team
FENDI LUNAR NEW YEAR COLLECTION 2021
Capsule collections have become a new trend to address the Lunar New Year market. Luxury brands such as Fendi, Gucci, Chloé, MCM, Moncler, Dior, and Shanghai Tang presented their limited-edition capsule collections to celebrate the biggest holiday of the year for Chinese and Asian families. Let’s take a brief look at how a few of these upscale brands applied their creativity and innovative touch to honour the Year of the Ox.
FENDI LUNAR NEW YEAR COLLECTION 2021
FENDI
Fendi’s floral print and the vivid color FF logo stole the spotlight in this year’s capsule collections. This collection features collaged prints of peony and Chinese plum blossoms, accompanied by the colour scheme of pink and red as their main design. Peony and Chinese Plum blossoms are both symbolic motifs to Chinese culture and Lunar New Year, representing prosperity, wealth, and good luck. They are also incredibly beautiful in form. Fendi exquisitely injects these two crucial elements into their classic design, such as women’s accessories and the iconic Peekaboo and Baguette bags. With the colour red as the widely-known symbol of “good-luck,” Fendi built on its foundation and added hues of pink for a joyful and pretty colour scheme applied to the FF logo. With the use of the pink and red palette and the floral motifs, Fendi did a good job of incorporating the minimum tone of culture through colour and symbolism to celebrate Lunar New Year, while balancing their own brand voice. The campaign photos for this capsule collection also demonstrate Fendi’s effort to integrate specific and relevant Lunar New Year elements in the campaign. In the women’s campaign photos, Fendi uses peonies as the centrepiece of the photo, featuring the model in the red and pink FF logo T-shirt and the classic red Peekaboo Iseeu medium. Most campaigns by leading brands have not gone to this level of detail, and sometimes default to disjoint uses of the zodiac, journey to overly mystical interpretations, or become reliant only on red. Instead of using red in a mundane way or resorting to the animal of the year, Fendi used peonies and Chinese plum blossoms as symbolic cultural motifs, demonstrating their intention to adopt cultural elements in their iconic textile designs for a balanced and elevated collection. In short, the red and pink FF logo and the floral prints were a delight to look at, and the spirit of the new year was captured in their campaign photography.
FENDI LUNAR NEW YEAR COLLECTION 2021
“The Ox has been portrayed in a variety of styles this year, as brands worldwide tackle the high task of creating for a specific audience and culturally significant occasion, wedged into an already busy fashion calendar. Years ago, it was unimaginable for such great volume of major brands to create retail products specifically for Lunar New Year. ”
Gucci
GUCCI LUNAR NEW YEAR COLLECTION 2021
Gucci pushed out their playful Epilogue collection in early January: Gucci x Doraemon. Gucci stunned Doraemon’s fans by presenting an even cuter version for the festivities. In the Lunar New Year collection, the popular manga robot character got himself an “ox-outfit” makeover. The robot cat is dazzled with a pair of horns and oxtail and feet outfit. This icon is imprinted in a part of everyone’s childhood memories around Asia. Gucci’s dedicated this playful twist to welcome the 2021 Lunar New Year, offering a variety of selections such as small bucket bag, oversize T-shirt, cotton sweatshirt and more. Doraemon is a character from the Japanese manga series, which then at first glance might seem odd to adopt for the Lunar New Year capsule. However, this character became hugely popular in China and is an icon throughout many Asian countries, so it makes sense that Gucci centred this Lunar New Year campaign around the joyful character of Doraemon. This application gave Gucci a chance to attract a broader audience throughout Asia, snatching their attention with the adorable adaption that very literally tied in the Year of the Ox.
Chloé
Mixed with landscape paintings, bold red-colored accessories and ox pins, Chloé welcomed the new year with lots of red. Chloé featured an illustration of an ox on various pieces in their Lunar New Year collection, and brought together pieces from their accessories that were plainly red. Encompassing over twenty products, items like the Mini Daria Chain Bag is delicately crafted with a bright-red shiny finished calfskin decorated with cow metal pins. This illustrated ox-themed collection also has a youthful touch: denim canvas mixed with shiny red calfskin is used in various pieces of its Lunar New Year collection. A little change purse with definitive ox features form a whimsical face on its circular silhouette. Along with the bright-red colour palette, the brand included little accessories with the ox and bamboo to represent luck and happiness for the Year of the Ox. Apart from the literal ox, the cultural cues are subtle, and the visual aesthetic strays from the style of Chinese culture, but the sentiment of celebrating the year of the ox with joy and enthusiasm is definitely captured!
SPONSORED BY UNION CAPITAL REALTY, BROKERAGE.
MCM
MCM’s Lunar New Year collection presented “Oskar the Ox” featuring red leather goods with a ringed hardware in the center. The ringed hardware is used throughout this campaign to represent the concept of a nose ring on an ox. The design is simpler, with an obvious and bold reference to the Year of the Ox, and yet does not offer any further significant attributes to honour the Lunar New Year. Whether in concept or aesthetic, the brand did not reach very far in the creativity of the collection. It is also unclear what the name Oskar is referring to, but we hope to find out! As a Korean-based company, from a culture that celebrates the Lunar New Year, many commentators expected to see more effort and layers of meaning to their campaign and designs.
MONCLER
MONCLER LUNAR NEW YEAR CAMPAIGN 2021
Known for their outerwear, Moncler put forth a festive capsule collection that featured shirts printed with the shape outline of the brand's logo, and red ox accents that dotted a constellation patterned design. A more street style tone to the design, consistent with what they released in 2020 for the Year of the Rat, the designs captured an urban energy while integrating symbolism of the Lunar New Year. The actual campaign photography was phenomenal, in partnership with Chinese photographer Leslie Zhang, who brought in some elements of kung fu and architecture, which worked well with the aesthetic of the collection. We find it to be an artful combination of retail and culture, mixing a contemporary tone with hints of tradition.
SHANGHAI TANG
Being a fashion house that already embodies Chinese culture year-round, the capsules and collections for Lunar New Year are more of a subtle step out for the brand. A favourite piece of the Shanghai Tang collection this year is an embossed floral jacquard qipao that is striking in deep red. Paired with the same patterned Tang jacket, the combination is striking and subtle at the same time. The brand chooses to embrace timeless design in their collections in fashion. In the thoughtful gifts for the home, the Ox makes an appearance atop a pair of chopsticks. Though the brand's celebration is not loud, the sophisticated and more subtle ways of beauty by Shanghai Tang are appreciated, while many brands rush to cartoon ox's as a quick solution to approaching the occasion.
DIOR
With more subtle tones, Dior had perhaps the least amount of the colour red in their capsule and campaign, opting to lean on symbolism and the fashion house's style of patterns and detail. Flowers at large are an important part of the Spring Festival, and in text, represents the blossoming of fortune, with different meanings attached to each type of flower. Dior's Lunar New Year collection, flourished in floral, was titled Dior Hibiscus, inspired by the Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, also known as the "China rose." The leaves from the design were also translated onto their lucky red pockets this year in gold, echoing the collection's style. The capsule included bags, ready-to-wear pieces, and jewellery. A tasteful collection, it was on brand with its own maison, however, the aesthetic veered away from tradition and cultural tones. Though beautiful, we would like to see more cultural significance to the occasion, for a capsule collection made for the occasion.
We hope you have enjoyed this short discussion on a few select brands. These unique campaigns presented exclusive, innovative and detailed designs to welcome the Year of the Ox. Although some attempts may have fallen short of what the audience was hoping to connect with culturally, the general landscape of festivity is becoming more creative, diverse, and open. We are excited to see how these luxury brands continue to address our community at New Year, and incorporate Chinese culture in their products and marketing. We also look forward to seeing more intersection of cultural tradition and fashion in luxury brands.
