VOGUE BUSINESS | Meet Jacques Wei
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At Shanghai Fashion Week this March, Jacques Wei chose a venue to match the brand’s ambitions — the city’s Dashijie building, also known as the Great World, built in 1917 and considered one of the world’s finest amusement halls of the 1930s.
The buzzy brand that had the fashion pack queuing outside the Great World on Xizang Road is helmed by Donghui Wei, who studied and worked in Paris before returning home to China in 2019, and stylist Austin Feng, who is also styling director of W Magazine China.
Specialising in womenswear, designer Wei takes a ’90s-inspired approach founded on clean modern silhouettes and is inspired by men’s tailoring and sumptuous fabrics. For Autumn/Winter 2024, the brand pays homage to the Epiphyllum flower, which only blooms at night. The collection plays on tensions, with sheer fabrics and delicate evening dresses tempered by luxury wool overcoats and shearling gilets.
Trend forecaster Raquel Sánchez Montes attended the show alongside key industry leaders such as influencer Sarah Xu and blogger Saisai Guan. Restraint is in the air, Sánchez Montes says. “The current [consensus] is for relaxed and comfortable clothes, minimal cuttings but with some special details and monochrome colours like beige, grey, black, white, cream,” she says. A trend that is central to Jacques Wei’s AW24 collection, together with leopard print, described by Sánchez Montes as “one of the most popular prints right now in China”.
Jacques Wei is making a name for itself at home — at a clip that could spin into international success. It’s a jump that’s been historically challenging for Chinese designers to pull off.
Co-founder Wei graduated from the Paris fashion school of Atelier Chardon Savard and worked in the French capital for seven years before launching his eponymous Shanghai-based brand with Feng in 2020. Wei takes care of design and acts as CEO, while Feng is tasked with ‘image-making’ — styling, casting, campaign styling, PR and so on. The results have been well received at home, covered by Vogue China, T Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar China. Chinese retailers, including Labelhood, Look Now and Nound Nound, have also remained supportive.
Now on its seventh collection, the brand has a turnover of €3 million, a staff of 15 (plus two interns) and 30 stockists including Mytheresa and Net-a-Porter. The support from Mytheresa hints at Jacques Wei’s global ambition: it was selected by the e-tailer — also at Shanghai Fashion Week this season to launch a capsule and exhibition with Courrèges — for its inaugural China Designer Programme, retailing worldwide since March 2023. A collection of oversized suits, minimal dresses and bold cutout pieces mostly sold out.
This season, Mytheresa’s buyers stepped up the budget for the brand by 47 per cent. “I’m really grateful to have the chance to work with them; they’ve been helping me a lot to open out to the global market,” says Wei. “A lot of international stores use Mytheresa as a reference and look me up on there.”
The AW24 show also featured a contribution from Nike. Two deconstructed classic Nike shoes (V2K and Vomero 5) were worked into runway looks via Wei’s classic feather motifs, which were also visible atop skirts and dresses. “It’s a new exciting trial for me. I never thought I could mix my clothes with really athletic shoes but it worked really well,” Wei says after the show, adding that he had to disappoint showroom visitors who hoped they were part of the shoppable collection.
Market feedback is promising
The collection is selling through Shanghai’s Tube Showroom and attracting attention thanks to its higher-end designs at competitive prices. Shirts and tops retail at RMB 1,500 to 2,500 (£164 to £270), while dresses sit between RMB 3,000 and 4,000 (£330 to £440). Shearling pieces top the price list at RMB 8,000 to 10,000 (£875 to £1,100).
Zemia Xu, founder of Tube and agency Dia Communications, says the Chinese market is in a phase of rapid growth. “Consumers are looking for a unique aesthetic and plenty of texture in fabrics, so Jacques Wei’s current market feedback is very good. For example, on Net-a-Porter, their sales rate is very strong out of its women’s clothing brands,” she says.
Besides Mytheresa and Net-a-Porter, Jacques Wei has focused on domestic partnerships. A debut capsule with Chinese retail giant Peacebird for International Women’s Day is running through to July, selling both online and out of more than 1,000 physical stores across China. Wei says the Ningbo-based company contacted him following October’s show and invited the brand to collaborate. “After the last show, they said they loved the style and concept. They gave me the SKU list of exactly what they wanted and the colour palette. Other than that we had free reign.”
The brand is launching two more partnerships in October, with the full details still under wraps. One is with a Chinese footwear brand, with a limited-edition series of six shoes planned; the other with a traditional Chinese gold jewellery brand based on an innovative weaving technique. “Jacques [Wei] has always expressed a very unique aesthetic, with oriental charm and international vision,” says Tube’s Xu. “It’s also very good at shaping the brand language in terms of partnerships — from the cooperation with famous artists to the previous gold jewellery brand [last season]. It’s a very well-controlled way to manage amplification.”
So how big can Jacques Wei become? It’s too early to be sure, but this March, the brand was in Paris testing the broader market at 247 showroom, with a view to “fully opening up internationally”. Mehak Luthra, global commercial director of 247, says buyers globally, especially in the US and the Middle East, like the aesthetic of the collection. “Jacques Wei is drawing from Chinese heritage and art and offering a feminine yet bold alternative to global independent women. The tailoring is particularly strong — as are the satin dresses.”
Wei confirms the feedback in Paris was very positive, securing four new store presences, including Alothman in Kuwait and Doha, and London’s On Motcomb. “Other than that, I have 20 stores that gave great feedback and are keeping an eye for next season,” he says. “Not bad for a first season, I think.”
