Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

THE Spring/Summer 2023 Shenzhen Fashion Week raised its curtain at OCT Harbor in Nanshan District yesterday, with Laurèl, a German womenswear brand under local fashion powerhouse ELLASSAY, and luxury car brand Audi joining hands to stage the opening runway show.

The 10-day itinerary includes nearly 70 runway shows with over 300 brands presenting their new Spring/Summer 2023 collections.

Themed “We Can Be,” the event aims to be the world’s first carbon-neutral fashion week, according to its organizers.

To achieve the vision, it will launch a carbon neutrality initiative, calling on guests and enterprises to reduce their carbon footprints through practical actions.

Additionally, the fashion week will purchase part of the carbon emission quotas through the city’s carbon emission exchange to offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the fashion week to achieve carbon neutrality.

“This year, we take a step further to put carbon neutrality in a more prominent position and actively guide the whole industry to achieve the goal of sustainable development,” Pan Ming, president of Shenzhen Garment Industry Association, told reporters in an interview before the opening ceremony.

“We established a sustainable development working committee and released China’s first carbon footprint evaluation report on high-end womenswear during the last edition of Shenzhen Fashion Week,” she added.

In addition to the main venue at OCT Harbor, there are parallel venues in Futian, Nanshan and Longhua districts.

The Futian venue is set up on the central street at One Avenue shopping mall, with themed activities emphasizing a vigorous and fashionable Futian.

The Nanshan venue will carry out a series of activities and introduce fashion brands and designers from Hong Kong and Macao to interact with Nanshan designers and promote the connectivity of cultural and creative industry elements in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The fashion week’s closing show and ceremony will be staged at the Dalang Fashion Town in Longhua.

The biannual event has evolved into one of the leading events on the Chinese fashion calendar, and has ambitions to become a global player, according to Shenzhen Garment Industry Association.

As one of the pillar industries of Shenzhen’s economy, the city’s garment industry has ranked first in the country in terms of the number of local fashion brands and the number of listed fashion companies and their market values. Shenzhen is home to over 2,500 fashion brands and nearly 10 listed enterprises. In 2021, Shenzhen’s garment industry contributed to 10% of the country’s total sales and took 60% of the high-end market share.