Shanghai Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2026: Maison Margiela, Shushu/Tong, Mark Gong and more standout shows
In recent years, Shanghai has been coming into its own as a global fashion capital—not least because the vibrant Chinese city has played host to runway shows and brand events from European luxury brands like Chanel, Gucci, Loewe and Louis Vuitton.
Sure, there was a fair share of international brands present at the Fall/Winter 2026 edition of Shanghai Fashion Week, which ran from 25 March to 1 April. The likes of Angelina Jolie, Tilda Swinton and G-Dragonwere flown in for a Tom Ford Beauty event in the Chinese city on 29 March, while Maison Margiela was the closing show of the calendar this season, marking the brand’s first show outside of Paris.
Even so, much of the buzz surrounding the latest Shanghai Fashion Week had to do with the crop of independent Chinese fashion designers that staged their runway shows.
Feng Chen Wang, for one, marked the 10th anniversary of her eponymous fashion brand with a runway show at Apple’s flagship store in Jing’an, where she unveiled her first womenswear collection. Susan Fang, who skipped out on London Fashion Week in February, instead chose to present her FW26 collection in Shanghai, featuring collaborations with Casetify and Melissa. And Simon Porte Jacquemus sat on the front row to catch Mark Gong’s latest fashion spectacle.
Fashion thrives on newness, and Shanghai Fashion Week, being a platform for Asian creative talents both established and emerging, has the potential to shake up the global fashion industry with all of those different perspectives. Without it, we’d be missing out on the poetic and moody glamour offered at Jingwei Yin’s fashion brand Oude Waag; or the playful and girly designs of Shushu/Tong; or the off-kilter and sexy runway moments of a Mark Gong fashion show.
You’ll see what we mean below, where we spotlight the standout FW26 shows from Shanghai Fashion Week.
Maison Margiela
Porcelain connects China to Europe: the former invented the ceramic material, and the latter used them to make dolls. Designer Glenn Martens alluded to this connection with Maison Margiela’s first fashion show in China, which combined ready-to-wear and Artisanal haute couture looks. Models were turned into porcelain dolls, wearing spectacular gowns made from layers and layers of “glass organza” fabric that was draped and airbrushed to mirror the sheen of porcelain. Hundreds of actual ceramic pieces, which were glazed and fired, were assembled into a mosaic on a white gown, one of the standout Artisanal looks in the collection. (Founder Martin Margiela made a waistcoat crafted from shards of porcelain for his first Artisanal collection, for Fall/Winter 1989.)
Martens made another connection to China by way of beeswax, first used to make candles during the Han Dynasty, for another awe-inspiring Artisanal look: an original Edwardian mourning gown, dipped entirely in beeswax. Such thrifted finds from Paris’s flea markets, coupled with Maison Margiela team’s inventive upcycling techniques, imbued the collection with a sense of history, or rather, memory.
Various vintage leather jackets were cut and patchworked to create an Edwardian-style dress, featuring paintings of bird skeletons. Remnants of vintage dresses were used to make the model’s masks. And furniture fabrics, too rigid to drape, are bonded onto several pre-draped dresses, bringing Masion Margiela’s “impossible draping” to life.
The most poetic example of upcycling was seen in the closing look: a forgotten 19th-century painting, which the Maison Margiela team found on the floor of a flea market, was restored and draped in its entirety over a corset, creating a whole new gown.
Shushu/Tong
Designers Leiliu Shu and Yutong Jiang cited Violette Nozière as inspiration for their collection. At the age of 18, Nozière became infamous in France for attempting to poison her parents and successfully killing her father. This all happened in the 1930s, and Shushu/Tong’s designers drew on the ladylike dressing of the time for their collection, while adding their signature girly twist. That meant plenty of frills: slinky cocktail dresses were topped with beadwork or bows, while coats and sporty jackets were adorned with floral embellishments or faux fur flourishes. Male models donned some of the looks—perhaps as a point about the versatility of the women’s pieces—while almost every other model carried a handbag, in suede or leather, on her arm. The Shushu/Tong fan may tell you she’s just a girl, but this season, she’s also dressed to kill.
Oude Waag
The idea of clothing as armour is not a new one, but it remains a potent one, as seen in Oude Waag’s Radical Tenderness collection. Designer Jingwei Yin was processing some deep, emotional pain while making the collection—that’s according to what he told Vogue, but you can also tell from the beautiful clothes tinged with gothic sensibilities that were presented on Oude Waag’s fog-filled runway.
Yin played with contradicting qualities, bringing fragility and strength together. Blanket-like knits shrouded models in earthy browns and sombre greys. The fluid evening dresses, made from bias-cut cupro with a sheen, came with thorny details: Yin cut fringes of spikes from eco-suede fabric, and used them to embellish necklines or create cuffs, giving models a warrior-like formidability. You also get the sense that guards are up when you see the long, lean tailoring looks, topped with jackets featuring broad, powerful shoulders. And you wonder what the model in the tattered melange sweater, distressed with holes and exposed threads, went through.
But the collection ends on a hopeful note, with closing looks in deep plums and light pinks that for Yin, embody an “enduring intensity”. After all, it does take a certain kind of intensity to take whatever life throws you and emerge from those experiences with such grace as Yin has.
Mark Gong
Mark Gong’s “Gong Girl” does whatever she wants: last season she took on the wild, wild West in cowboy boots, belted leather tops, sandwashed jeans, and slip dresses with the straps falling off her shoulder (Margot Robbie wore one such dress while channeling the uninhibited Cathy on the Wuthering Heights press tour). This season, she pairs cropped sweatshirts with ballooning floral skirts ripped from ballgowns; see-through lace dresses with long, furry coats; and satin dress shirts with party-ready embellished microshorts.
With such eclectic looks, sure to be saved on countless Pinterest moodboards, Mark Gong answers the question he posed this season, as he told Hypebae: “Can a woman be sweet, sexy, and soft… and still be the one in control?” The 28-year-old designer should know. Since launching his label in 2018, Gong has always catered to the “ladies with an attitude”, to use Madonna’s words. (As it happens, Madonna’s Like A Virgin played during Mark Gong’s latest fashion show.)
Susan Fang
As pretty as Susan Fang’s Air-Infinity collection is, it’s meant as a rebellious statement against capitalism. Fang offered craft as an antidote: handiwork is evident in the puffy skirts and jackets, in the tops and dresses covered in ribbons and ruffles, and Fang’s signature smocked tulle creations in pastel hues, where fabric is made to resemble flowers. The standout dress of the collection seemed to be made of glass: it’s actually covered in hundreds of resin butterflies, each individually made by hand by Fang’s mother at her atelier in Shanghai.
Jacques Wei
Dries Van Noten fans will appreciate the colour play across Jacques Wei’s 40-look collection, as well as all those fun textures: sheer blouses featured beautiful embroidery, skirts were adorned in feathers and beads, and furry shearling accented coats and evening dresses. Wei, who cites Cher as an inspiration, balanced all that wonderful weirdness with a dose of glamour. Sensual lace tops were paired with silk harem pants—you’ll look good on the dancefloor wearing them—and several outfits were punctuated by animal prints, be it in the form of zebra boots, snakeskin pants, or a leopard pencil skirt.
Feng Chen Wang
Feng Chen Wang’s Fall/Winter 2026 menswear collection, which she presented in Paris in January, was based on the Chinese philosophical concept of “two forces” existing in balance and motion. Her debut womenswear line-up, shown in Shanghai, followed the same thread, which is why models came down the runway in pairs, or the men and women mirrored each other’s looks. There were plenty of bold outerwear pieces in the mix, including cropped trench coats and leather puffer jackets trimmed with faux fur, casually styled with baggy jeans and leather balloon pants. These looks worked for both him and her, but what was clearly for her were the embellished pencil skirts, the satin bubble skirts, and textured dresses.
This article was written by Pameyla Cambe and first published on Lifestyle Asia Singapore on April 2 2026.