Ao Yes Shanghai Spring 2027

Reported by Vogue.

Something is shifting in Shanghai's design scene, and it looks less like a revolution than a quiet, confident reorientation. Ao Yes — the label from designers Austin Wang and Yansong Liu — arrived for Spring 2027 with a collection built around reflection in every sense: mirrors, light, water, shadow, and the broader question of what Chinese fashion actually gets to be right now.

According to Vogue, the duo has been actively interrogating what a new Chinese style looks like for a generation that isn't particularly precious about cultural inheritance — one that wants to wear it, not preserve it. The answer they landed on was disarmingly charming. Polka dots and cartoon-rendered mountains and seas sat alongside brocades lifted from Song-dynasty court textiles. Red showed up, carrying its familiar associations of luck and celebration. The qipao got a delicate, contemporary rework. None of it announced itself. That restraint was entirely the point.

Heritage as Pleasure, Not Obligation

The silhouettes ranged from easy, unfussy dresses to body-conscious cuts and tiered flowing capes — feminine without being precious, relaxed without losing structure. What Wang and Liu seem to understand intuitively is that traditional references land harder when they aren't laboring under the weight of their own significance. The cultural touchstones here felt chosen for pleasure, not duty. A brocade because it's beautiful. A qipao silhouette because the proportions still work. Red because it's joyful — full stop.

The casting leaned international, a subtle signal that Ao Yes is building toward something with a wider reach, without flattening what makes the brand specifically itself. That's a difficult balance to maintain, and the Spring 2027 collection made it look almost effortless — which is, of course, the hardest thing to pull off.

Young Chinese designers are increasingly fluent in this mode: tradition as a living toolkit rather than a museum exhibit. Ao Yes is making the case that cultural memory doesn't have to feel heavy — it can feel like an invitation.

Read the original at Vogue.