Premier League to Lyst Index: Neo-Chinese fashion’s on top

On Saturday evening, ahead of a Premier League match, Manchester United’s players walked out in custom Adidas jackets inspired by Tangzhuang tailoring codes — featuring mandarin collars, traditional knot-button fastenings, and a muted gray palette drawn from classic Chinese dress. The Manchester United versions were made exclusively for the players, but the underlying Adidas Chinese New Year Jacket sold out almost immediately after its US launch on May 1, prompting the brand to offer pre-orders via its app, with shipping delayed until July. That “soccer” moment was the latest confirmation that neo-Chinese style has broken through to mainstream popular culture. Data had already signaled as much. When Lyst published its Q1 2026 Hottest Products Index on April 29, Adidas' Chinese-style track top ranked third globally — drawn from a field of more than eight million items filtered by social mentions, searches, page views, sales and interactions. It was an indicator of how far fashion has embraced Chinese design codes. Katy Lubin, VP of Brand & Communications at Lyst, says searches for "Chinese style" are up 400% year-on-year on the platform, while demand for "mandarin jackets" has risen 165% over the same period. “That kind of sustained search behavior goes beyond a single piece,” she says. “It’s bubbling up organically, and that’s usually a strong indicator that there's genuine longevity in it.” Neo-Chinese style capital The trajectory mirrors how other global aesthetic movements have traveled — maturing and becoming more nuanced at the point of origin while simultaneously breaking into new markets. Neo-Chinese style’s roots stretch back to the 1920s and 30s, when Shanghai tailors began incorporating Western techniques — fitted silhouettes, shoulder seams, raised hemlines — into the qipao, also known as the cheongsam. A new generation of Chinese designers such as Feng Chen Wang and Samuel Guì Yang has spent years reinterpreting heritage techniques for contemporary audiences, building an international fanbase in the process. In February 2025, Jing Daily reported on how users on Xiaohongshu were explaining neo-Chinese style to Western audiences; at that point, the dedicated hashtag accumulated 7.9 billion views on Xiaohongshu and 27 million posts on TikTok. The global appetite now arriving via sportswear collaborations is creating a movement built on the foundation that those designers have been building for years. One standout neo-Chinese label building a global following is Paris-based Edmond Luu’s Pièces Uniques. Most recently, Paris Saint-Germain — one of the world’s most followed clubs on social media — partnered with the brand on a Lunar New Year capsule rooted in Luu’s Chinese diaspora heritage. For Fabien Allègre, PSG’s Chief Brand Officer, the partnership reflects the club’s broader identity project. What connects PSG and Pièces Uniques, he says, is “a shared sense of identity and cultural dialogue” — storytelling that resonates beyond either fashion or sport. Luu's approach was conceptual, taking cues from East Asian nostalgia around school uniforms. “I imagined what a fictional ‘PSG school’ could look like,” he says. “How students would dress, how tailoring and sportswear could coexist, and how a uniform could become a bridge between Parisian culture and Asian references.” For Luu, what’s shifting is something more structural. “Chinese aesthetics were often reduced to clichés or very surface-level refrences,” he says. “Now, there’s a new generation of creatives, both in China and in the diaspora, reclaiming these codes with more nuance and confidence.” He describes neo-Chinese style not as a fashion moment, but as “the beginning of a cultural reawakening” — one rooted in a culture that is “extremely rich visually, spiritually, and philosophically,” and a world growing more willing to engage with it beyond stereotypes. When a Premier League squad makes a pre-match style moment out of Chinese design and fashion-forward Gen Zers are sporting the same jacket on the streets of Europe, Lubin’s take is straightforward, “People aren’t just responding to a specific brand or campaign — they're actively searching for this aesthetic.” For brands still treating neo-Chinese style as a seasonal gesture, its recent embrace by a global cultural force like soccer suggests the movement is only beginning to realize its full potential.

Premier League to Lyst Index: Neo-Chinese fashion’s on top

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag

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Premier League to Lyst Index: Neo-Chinese fashion’s on top

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag