The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2023 - Issue 33

bitefashion Fashderella L ike a celebrated world-renowned showman, fashion designer, and performance artist Sheguang Hu is famous for his avant-garde style and jaw-dropping shows. In the last several years, he has integrated Chinese elements with Western culture to analyse intricate details and layouts in-depth. Hu's aesthetics concept has often influenced and impressed the ever-changing fashion world. He has proven his fashion shows and presentations are no ordinary feat or dull. The awesomely flamboyant designer was abandoned by his parents at birth and raised in north China’s Inner Mongolia Au- tonomous Region. While he was reunited momentarily with his estranged mother when he emigrated to the Netherlands at 16, he was made to work washing drab grey dishes in the family restaurant kitchen. After two years of kitchen purgatory, the prodigy packed his bags and left home to pursue his fashion dreams. Hu discovered fashion encompasses everything, including beauty and expresses temperament while lifting one’s spirits even on a sombre day. His lack of high school education did not prevent him from studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amster- dam and designing for Dutch and Chinese figures. Instead of letting his past determine his future, the designer used his life experi- ences and background to pursue and curate innova- tive, theatrical, artistic, fashion-forward and edgy collections. In 2012, the newly appointed head designer of the China Fashion Institute returned to the Mercedes-Benz Beijing International Fashion Week. He triumphantly delivered a storied fash- ion show that wowed the audience with textured fabrics and intricate styles, including heavily military-influenced, tightly tailored and straight jackets. In 2013, his SS14 haute couture collection 'Sting' spoke about humans becoming empty spirits with no happiness or feelings, calling them to embrace life. “Modern life has become tasteless. Despite the material abun- dance, people’s souls are empty,” the designer said. “People are infected with ‘numbness’: they feel no happiness and no pain… like zombies. We need strong feelings, even if it is piercing pain. The pain wakes us from the numbness, forces [us] to feel the taste of life again and pursue lost dreams. So please open your soul to feel the ‘stinging’ pain!” The models in full masks were self-effac- ing and helped raise the question of who are we? Images courtesy of Sheguang Hu