Asia has grown to become a fashion continent to count on, and not just for Western high fashion brands that open new stores and develop collections specially suited for the Asian market. The most interesting aspect of this progress is, instead, the development of Asian fashion, with its new creative and innovative designers gaining more publicity outside Asia as well.
Fashion is a hard-to-define phenomenon. It’s both affecting and the effect of our society and is evolving along side the rest of it at same time as it feels like a world of its own. There are various ideas and theories trying to describe the fashion phenomenon, some say it all started within the society of the West, others believe it has always existed all over the world. Fashion can often be seen from a democratic point of view, there it always balances between the aim of belonging and differentiating. Taking into account the background in the fashion history and theories about where and how it all started, it is therefore especially interesting that Asian fashion has taken a more central role within the West’s fashion scene.
The Singapore based brand, Max.Tan is an example of an Asian label that due to its interesting approach to fashion, has done a great success abroad. Their design aesthetic can be described as clean and crispy, with sharp cuts and playful shapes. Max.Tan aims to create an alternative and quiet fashion lifestyle, based on a mix of various influences such as masculine, feminine, oversize, undersized, deconstruction, reconstruction and transformation. They are all combined into a versatile, architectural and multi decisional, cultural approach, which is exemplified by everything from their pieces to their Singapore flagship store, where, besides finding their latest collations, one can also find the Swedish-based brand, ODEUR. This strengthens the thesis about fashion, as being at its absolute best when including various different perspectives and cultures. The only sad part is that it took us so long to finally start to take a real interest in all the great talent outside the West.
Hanna Cronsjö
