Zehao Zhou, 24 year old menswear student from China, realised from a young age that fashion taste is ‘a mobile business card.’ He couldn’t find many clothes that quenched his thirst for fashion and so began designing his own. Realising the powerful potential menswear has, Zhou explained ‘I want to explore the possibility of menswear in my way and vision.’ Zhou interned at the Beijing Forbidden City Museum. ‘What I like most is that I can learn from many aspects of the artefacts of Chinese culture, giving me greater cultural perspective and bringing a lot of interesting inspirations to my designs.’ Zhou’s final collection is about variations of cultural conflicts. Original inspiration came from the film The Last Emperor, studying cultural shock, cultural monopoly and cultural integration. ‘I’m trying to integrate both Western and Eastern cultures to see if there are any new outcomes or ways of designing in my final collection,’ he says.
Olivia Reynolds, BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism
@liv_reynolds8