In October, the CFDA and W Hotels unveiled Xu Zhi as the brand for a celebratory capsule collection for W Shanghai – The Bund, the hotel chain’s first in the city. Designer Xuzhi Chen, a graduate of the 2015 CFDA+ program, created six looks and several travel accessories inspired by Shanghai’s glamorous past and present.

We spoke to Chen about the challenges and successes being an emerging designer, his East-meets-West brand ethos and the inspiration behind his W Hotels collection.

Make sure to check the W Hotels The Store site to shop the XU ZHI for W Hotels collection soon.

You were raised in China, and formally educated and started your business in London, and have showcased your collections in both cities. How do those two worlds come together within your brand and the collections you create?

I always consider my brand Xu Zhi as the hybrid of cultures. My Chinese background contributes to my understanding of beauty, which is being subtle and sophisticated as well as finding the balance between contrasting moods and concepts. On the other hand, my education in London, together with living and working experiences later on, enriched my skills and knowledge of how to make the business of fashion work, and how to build up a sincere and successful fashion brand that could consistently offer products of good quality and considerate designs. Working in London/Europe means you’re being considered to be competing with so many other established great brands and designers, and you just have to keep working hard to live up to the high standards. In general, both worlds mean a great deal to me and Xu Zhi would never have existed without any one of them.

Xu Zhi is under three years old but has received numerous accolades and is plentifully stocked throughout the world. What has been your greatest challenge(s) as a young brand?

We’re lucky because Xu Zhi received lots of recognition and praise since its inception, and audiences really resonate with our values and beliefs. But as a young brand, we do face lots of challenges as everyone would do – practical things like ensuring the brand is developed financially well; sourcing the best production partners to come up with the best products. But in my mind, the greatest challenge is actually something more conceptual: how to build a more complete brand image and personality and not restrict ourselves only with technical sides of clothesmaking. The craftsmanship of course would always be very important to us, but we’d also like the brand to be a more vivid and lively one that people could connect themselves to us more closely.

What do you think has been the key to your success so far?

Dedication to what I aim to build up and unconditional support from my great family and friends.

You visited W Shanghai prior to designing the collection. What inspirations did you draw from that trip and from the city overall?

Xu Zhi is a hybrid of eastern and western cultures, which I also found within newly-opened W Hotel Shanghai and which instantly resonated during the first visit. I love how the interior design adopts very signature Shanghai elements such as leon lights in the names of Shanghai lanes and streets, cartoon-like figure paintings of chic Shanghai ladies, etc., but all elevated in such a modern way that  brought an electrifying breath into the whole building. My special collection for W Shanghai tries to reflect that kind of mood and bring out excitement and joy that are both in W and XU ZHI’s blood.

What significance do the pajama looks have to Shanghai?

It’s more a statement of a certain lifestyle. Shanghai has always been the fashion capital of China/Asia since the early 20th Century and its lovely people have lived a sophisticated life and embrace modernity and cultures from abroad. The pajama-wearing tradition is just that: showing how much a distinctive lifestyle and attitude towards casualness and comfort matter to the local people.

What was the highlight of the creation of your collection for W Shanghai?

The research phase! I looked at lots of vintage photographs (even some from my family album) to research how people wore pajamas in the fashionable past of Shanghai in the 1920s and it’s such an eye-opening experience!