20 Chinese fashion brands to know in 2026

Neo-Chinese style has arrived in the mainstream — and 2026 may be the most consequential year yet for the country’s fashion brands. Domestic players have been shaping that conversation since the 2010s — through Gen Z taste-making, boundary-pushing retail experiences, maximalist customization, and sportswear brands that have grown into genuine global forces. Local designers are now a fixture on prestigious European fashion week calendars, from Paris to London. Local pride has become a defining characteristic of China’s younger consumers — and these 20 brands are among those best placed to show where domestic taste is heading. This is not a ranking; think of it as a cross-section. 1. Avvenn Founded: 2021 (Shanghai) Impressions on Xiaohongshu hashtag: 19.8 million Bio: AAvvenn builds womenswear around a tension it calls “Pioneer Harmonism” — streamlined silhouettes and neutral palettes set against avant-garde tailoring and unexpected material combinations. Its two Shanghai stores are as deliberate as the clothes themselves, designed to function as brand worlds rather than retail spaces. 2. Ao Yes Founded: 2022 Xiaohongshu impressions: 2.2 million Co-founded by Austin Wang and Yansong Liu — both Bunka Fashion College graduates — Ao Yes is a Shanghai label reinterpreting Chinese cultural identity through gender-fluid silhouettes, bold fabrication, and a philosophy it calls “No Gender, No Season, No Time.” Collaborations with Zara and Disney mark it out as one of the more commercially minded names in the neo-Chinese style wave. 3. Esoteric Thing Founded: 2020 Xiaohongshu impressions: 7.8 million Shanghai-born Billy Cai launched Esoteric Thing with no design training, no business plan, and a name borrowed from a friend — and built it into one of the city’s most talked-about streetwear labels regardless. Its pricing and understated design language have been points of genuine debate, which Cai takes as a compliment. A Nike collaboration has since followed. 4. Feng Chen Wang Founded: 2015 Xiaohongshu impressions: 5.9 million Chinese-born and London-based, Feng Chen Wang graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2015 and has since become one of the most recognized Chinese designers working internationally — debuting at New York Fashion Week for SS16, joining the official Paris Fashion Week calendar from SS23, and picking up collaborations with Converse and Levi’s along the way. Her deconstructed unisex menswear draws on Chinese heritage. 5. Uooyaa Founded: 2015 Xiaohongshu impressions: 66.6 million Founded in Shanghai by Jinxia Yin, Uooyaa built a following on playful, size-inclusive designs that blend 1980s nostalgia, workwear, and retro femininity into something unapologetically its own — now spread across more than 100 stores in China. Collaborations have ranged from Christian Lacroix in 2019 and Central Saint Martins graduates in 2024 to luggage brand Level8 most recently. 6. Anta Founded: 1991 Xiaohongshu impressions: 936.8 million Founded in Fujian in 1991, Anta is now China’s largest sportswear company by revenue, having overtaken both Nike and Adidas in its home market. Its multi-brand portfolio — which includes Fila China and, through its controlling stake in Amer Sports, Arc’teryx and Salomon — is less a sportswear empire than a calculated land grab across every tier of the global activewear market. 7. Li-Ning Founded: 1990 Xiaohongshu impressions: 223.3 million Olympic gymnast Li Ning founded his namesake brand in 1990, and it spent decades as a reliable domestic staple before a 2018 New York Fashion Week debut — bold graphics, red-and-gold colorways, Chinese characters front and center — turned it into a guochao icon almost overnight. It now sits at the intersection of performance sportswear and streetwear culture, with limited drops that sell out in minutes and a Paris Fashion Week partnership with the Centre Pompidou to its name. 8. Nφdress Founded: 2014 Xiaohongshu impressions: 10.4 million Central Saint Martins graduate LuQi Yu founded Nφdress in 2014 as a label driven by 1990s Chinese and Japanese street fashion — velour, lace, mesh, and satin colliding in corsets and minidresses printed with digital portrait photography. Avril Lavigne and Emma Chamberlain have both worn the brand, which also counts a collaboration with Opening Ceremony among its credits. 9. Rui Founded: 2019 Xiaohongshu impressions: 12.5 million Flying the flag for sex-positive design, Rui Zhou launched her eponymous label after graduating from Parsons, building it around a proprietary knitwear technique she programmed a machine to execute — producing body-conscious cut-out pieces that stretch and pull like a second skin. She became the first Chinese designer to reach the LVMH Prize final, winning the Karl Lagerfeld Prize in 2021, and has since dressed Blackpink’s Lisa and Dua Lipa while racking up collaborations with Victoria’s Secret, Ugg, Adidas, and Chinese sex toy brand Osuga. 10. Yvmin Founded: 2013 Xiaohongshu impressions: 24.5 million Beijing-born Yvmin describes itself as a “body decoration laboratory” — which covers everything from butterfly hair clips and teddy bear necklaces, to the early-viral custom jeweled prosthetic shells designed for amputee model Xiao Yang. Bella Hadid, Billie Eilish, and Blackpink have all worn the brand, but its most enduring work lives at the boundary between jewelry and body art. 11. Shushu/Tong Founded: 2015 Xiaohongshu impressions: 209.5 million Chengdu-born design duo Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang — both London College of Fashion alumni — have spent a decade building Shushu/Tong’s signature brand of saccharine, subversive femininity out of ruffles, bows, and impeccable tailoring. Stocked at Dover Street Market, Browns, Ssense, and Net-a-Porter, the brand opened its first standalone store in 2022 and is now a must-visit destination for style-conscious visitors to Shanghai. 12. Roaringwild Founded: 2010 Xiaohongshu impressions: 9.3 million Founded by six university friends, Roaringwild has grown into one of China’s most recognized streetwear brands. Graphic-heavy drops, cyberpunk-inflected outerwear, and a DIY ethos define the label — and its store openings reliably double as community events, pulling together creatives and musicians alongside the clothes. 13. Songmont Founded: 2013 Xiaohongshu impressions: 210 million Songmont has become China’s most talked-about bag brand — online bag sales grew roughly 90% in the first three quarters of 2025, according to BigOne Lab data analyzed by Bloomberg, while Gucci’s fell more than 50%. Co-founded by Fu Song and Wang Jie, with roots in Shanxi, the brand is built on full-grain leather, quiet luxury silhouettes, and traditional Chinese craftsmanship — plus a podcast that has quietly accumulated a devoted following of its own. 14. Short Sentence Founded: 2015 Xiaohongshu impressions: 37.9 million Short Sentence has earned its place as a Shanghai staple through bright, relaxed knitwear that makes dopamine dressing feel effortless rather than effortful. A recent expansion into home goods and loungewear, under the A Society of Home imprint, carries the same playful, crafty energy as the main line. 15. Didu Founded: 2019 Xiaohongshu impressions: 4.9 million Trained under Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saene at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Di Du announced herself internationally by winning the Vfiles competition in 2019 and debuting at New York Fashion Week. She entered the official Paris Fashion Week calendar in 2021 — one of the few Chinese designers on that stage — with a body of work built around sharp, body-conscious silhouettes that marry empowerment and provocation. 16. Yueqi Qi Founded: 2019 Xiaohongshu impressions: 2.8 million Central Saint Martins graduate Yueqi Qi builds her collections around intricate beadwork, embroidery, and Chinese folklore — tactile, theatrical, and couture-adjacent — work that earned her a place on the 2022 LVMH Prize shortlist and a devoted following from FKA Twigs to Kiko Mizuhara. 17. Mason Prince Founded: 2014 Xiaohongshu impressions: 47.9 million Mason Prince draws frequent comparisons to Balenciaga for its moody, grunge-inflected streetwear — though at a fraction of the price. Founded by siblings Qiusen, Qiumu, and Qiulin Zhou across Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the retro-futurist label has built a devoted following among young consumers, with retail spaces that function as full-blown world-building exercises — from tea house ground floors to surrealist “backrooms” installations. 18. Rocksteady Founded: 2021 Xiaohongshu impressions: 11.9 million The USC Economics and Visual Arts graduate behind Rocksteady spent years running a Bilibili fashion channel before the brand landed at Net-a-Porter, I.T.HK, and SND in its debut season — achieving 100% sell-through. Drawing on cult cinema, post-punk literature, and a gothic-Western mythology, it sits well outside the current Chinese fashion mainstream. 19. Pet Tree Kor Founded: 2021 Xiaohongshu impressions: 14.6 million The name refers to petrichor, “the smell of soil after rain” — a reference point for how Pet Tree Kor builds menswear around the tension between urban architecture and natural growth, producing gorpcore-adjacent yet quiet luxury silhouettes with structural, plant-inspired details. The brand built its Chinese fanbase entirely through Bilibili and Xiaohongshu before landing on Ssense, with a reported 100% sell-through at its first stockist. 20. CFierce Founded: 2018 Xiaohongshu impressions: 3.7 million CFierce — the product of London College of Fashion graduates 7ince and Xue Shan — champions the cyberpunk aesthetic gaining traction among Chinese Gen Z. The name stands for “Cute and Fierce,” and the brand positions itself as a vehicle for self-expression for consumers who want to push fashion’s boundaries. Note: Impression figures reflect views accumulated under each brand’s primary hashtag on Xiaohongshu at time of publication.

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20 Chinese fashion brands to know in 2026

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag