NEW YORK—For fashion professors Bill Filerino and Kathy Mills, seeing the NTDTV Global Han Couture Design Competition for the first time was a complete change of pace. The two attended the fashion show and awards ceremony on Friday night, at the conclusion of two days of competition.
“It was magnificent,” said Mills. “The array of colors, the details...it looked like goddesses’ clothes. When you look at Western clothes, it’s like paper dolls—rigid. But these, they are airy and breezy.”
Filerino was similarly blown away by what he saw. “The mix of cool and warm colors are rarely seen here,” he said. “And I expected to see more Mandarin collars, but I didn’t see any of that.”
Sitting in the front row, Filerino took notes throughout the show—shoes in ancient China featured upturned toes to prevent tripping on long dresses; scholars dressed one way while government officials dressed another way; and the ever-present Mandarin collar? From Manchurian invaders, not ethnically Han, which is the majority of Chinese people.
Both have taught for many years in the Fashion Marketing and Management department at New York’s Berkeley College, and seeing Han couture was an enriching experience.
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“I think Chinese designers step out of the norm much more than any American designer would,” Filerino said, referring to the designers’ embrace of colors. “And the fabrics are especially exquisite.”
For close to two hours, model after model, both men and women, glided down the catwalk. The pace was a leisurely one, far from the blitz that modern fashion shows tend to be. “I think the Chinese got it right. This way you can actually see what they’re wearing,” Filerino chuckled.
The dresses, both casual and formal, for men and for women, are in the diverse styles of the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties. These styles of clothing are something that few professors, and only a handful of Chinese people living today have encountered.
But it’s not just the clothing that was an eye-opener for the two. They learned that in modern China, traditional Chinese dress is all but lost due to the Cultural Revolution and modernization. While the Japanese and Koreans wear their traditional garb for special occasions, and Indians wear sari nearly every day, the Chinese today have little of their own culture to refer to.
Thus the goal of NTDTV’s competition is to revive the tradition of Han couture, and replant these cultural seeds in China. True to their fashion marketing background, the two were quick to answer when asked about how this movement could gain headway.
“I would think a fashion show like this in China would spread the movement exponentially,” Filerino said.
And Mills had her eye on a few dresses, which she said were highly marketable. “Make them a bit more fitted, wear it to a party, and you'll be the best dressed one there!”
