The Chinese label subverting masculine stereotypes for a ‘gender-fluid generation’

For the co-founders of menswear label Pronounce, whose androgynous collections defy categorization, the headlines belie an rising actuality among the many nation’s youth. In actual fact, Chinese language-born Yushan Li and Jun Zhou see a “disconnect” between official attitudes and what’s occurring at floor degree.

“Once I was younger, related discussions had been additionally occurring,” he added. “Masculinity and the concept boys have to be males — these matters have all the time existed in our Asian tradition.”

Pronounce could also be broadly thought-about a males’s model — even changing into, in 2019, the primary Chinese language label to stage a runway present at Italy’s most prestigious menswear occasion, Pitti Uomo — however the pair would not design with a selected demographic in thoughts. As an alternative each female and male fashions are used to showcase their loose-fitting but structural creations, which had been made to be worn by anybody “who’s curious, who loves new and fascinating stuff, who desires to be assured,” Li mentioned.

Bridging worlds

In addition to its progressive perspective to gender, Pronounce’s enchantment in Europe attracts from its founders’ means to bridge the aesthetic divide between East and West.

Having each studied in London earlier than launching Pronounce in 2016, Zhou and Li headquartered their label between Shanghai and — earlier than the pandemic struck — Milan. With Zhou drawn to Italian tailoring heritage and Li extra targeted on Asian crafting (“that is why we now have a whole lot of arguments,” the latter joked, “however we discover a steadiness on the finish of the day”), the pair have established a popularity for incorporating Chinese language influences into their work.

The well-known Terracotta Warriors are among the many Chinese language themes that Li and Zhou have integrated into their designs. Credit score: Courtesy of Pronounce

Their Spring-Summer time 2020 assortment, for example, noticed photographs of the nation’s iconic Terracotta Warriors printed on outsized turtlenecks and wide-legged denims. However nods to their homeland are sometimes subtler and expressed by shapes, patterns or supplies, from woven bamboo vests to trendy iterations of the “Mao fits” broadly worn in China after the nation’s communist revolution within the late Nineteen Forties.

Of their designs, the duo has performed with the proportions, traces and sleeve lengths of Mao fits for successive collections. Variations have are available in pink with enlarged collars or embroidered with delicate gold thread. Different interpretations of the tunic noticed Li and Zhou use fishnet cloth to disclose fashions’ pores and skin, or cinch the clothes on the waist earlier than buttoning them up with butterfly-shaped fasteners.

“We’re actually obsessive about Mao fits,” Li mentioned. “We predict individuals who put on them look actually good-looking, actually charming — the silhouette, the sensation once they’re worn, the actually optimistic vitality.”

A up to date tackle the “Mao fits” broadly worn in China after the communist revolution. Credit score: Courtesy of Pronounce

Dubbed “Fashionable Nomads,” the venture was knowledgeable by the robes and outerwear discovered on the Tibetan plateau, and the pair’s journey to Internal Mongolia, the place most of China’s ethnic Mongol minority reside (visiting Mongolia itself, or Tibet, was dominated out resulting from pandemic-era journey restrictions, Li mentioned). After spending time with the area’s nomadic communities and buying native textiles for reference, the designers put their very own spin on rugged, textured clothes made to climate powerful situations.

An overcoat from the label’s new assortment, “Fashionable Nomads.” Credit score: Courtesy of Pronounce

By reinterpreting what they present in a gender-neutral fashion, the label’s founders hoped to play on Chinese language stereotypes that hyperlink nomadic cultures with sometimes masculine traits.

“The boys are tremendous robust, tremendous powerful,” Li mentioned. “However we discovered that the Mongolian lady are actually powerful as effectively. Even enjoying with the little youngsters, we noticed that they had began (elevating animals) and constructing homes. It is past gender, past technology — it is a part of their DNA. For these of us who reside in cities, it is so completely different, and so they had such a huge impact on us.”

Avoiding cliche

In spanning visible languages, Pronounce’s problem is, partly, discovering Asian motifs which might be acquainted sufficient to resonate with international audiences with out veering into stereotypes.

“This can be a subject we mentioned from the start of our model,” Li mentioned. “The way to eliminate cliche, or to have our personal (take) on these actually well-known types.”

Because of this, he added, the model has steered away from basic clothes just like the qipao, the form-fitting costume broadly related to China within the Western creativeness. “We could not discover a answer and do not have (a novel interpretation) of that fashion but,” Li mentioned, “so we have not touched it.”

Pronounce’s latest collaboration with Puma was impressed by the traditional Pumapunku temple advanced in Bolivia. Credit score: Puma

“It is not like, ‘We’re Chinese language designers, so we now have to do this sort of fashion,’” Li mentioned. “It is extra that we now have actually robust emotions about one thing, after which we now have that come out.”