LI-NING Autumn/Winter 2020 30th Anniversary Collection Future-Vintage, Sport-Formal

Our thoughts and prayers are with China at this moment and all those affected by the Coronavirus epidemic, just when Chinese nationals around the world should be celebrating the Lunar New Year.

On the global political and economic stage, China has in recent years risen as a super-power, yet coupled with the ongoing trade war imposed by the US, this crisis is putting tremendous added pressure on the country, forcing it to take unprecedented drastic measures while putting its economy at risk.

As we have come to recognise in the fashion and food industry, transparency is key.  China's president Xi Jinping warned this week, "The epidemic is a devil.  We cannot let the devil hide." This virus does not have any borders and amidst all the alarm and panic, the world needs to collaborate  to take it on, find a vaccine and work together to stop the epidemic.
We wish China and everyone in the world good luck as we usher in the year of the Rat.

Meanwhile, the rise of the status of China as a fashion power may be represented by the rise of the Chinese fashion brand LI-NING, which celebrates its 30^th Anniversary this year with the staging of its Autumn-Winter 2020 collection: Future-Vintage, Sport-Formal earlier this month (18th January 2020) in Paris, at the Pompidou Centre.

Li-Ning has come a long way since the days when it was very much another sportswear brand.  
But look at it now.
Founded by the country’s sport icon of athletics and Olympic gold medallist, Li Ning, the brand is now incorporating street fashion and tailoring, creating a hybrid sports-inspired look with multiple reference points.  And has accumulated a global following to boost.

(L-R) Founder Li Ning, with mega fans Jackie Chan, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade at the Li-Ning Menswear Fall/Winter 2020-2021 show, Paris Fashion Week January 18, 2020. 
(Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)

The collection originates in an image of Mr. Li, the brand’s founder and an Olympic gold medallist in his own right, wearing a suit, seen above with his fervent fans.

The vision of a champion athlete in relaxed tailoring inspires Li-Ning’s approach: applying techniques of classical tailoring to iconic, sport-derived styles, seen through an aesthetic lens of future-past. This range of apparel, footwear, and accessories is a product of Li-Ning’s three-decades-long quest to define a wardrobe for tomorrow.
The brand’s 30th anniversary sets into motion a far-reaching series of new collaborations and associations within the worlds of fashion and contemporary art, the latter of which is represented in Li-Ning’s three-year patronage, beginning in January 2020, of Paris’ renowned cultural institution -  the Centre Pompidou.

With a focus on live performance, the programme seeks to crystallize the partners’ shared belief in the unifying nature of experience and the power of art in creating exchange.

 Li-Ning’s Autumn/Winter 2020 show inaugurates the partnership, utilizing the venue’s sprawling galleries to reveal this special anniversary collection.

For the show, Li-Ning creates the effect of a shifting 3-D urban landscape with the Pompidou Centre illuminated in a matrix-like grid constructed of scaffolding, neon, pixelated LED screens, and monitors displaying 8-bit content reminiscent of ’80s video games along side various vintage video footage. The games and videos play, glitch, and “break down” then loop again, highlighting the season’s innate clash between lo-fi and hi-fi.  Models walked the Pompidou to a roughly collaged soundtrack that flickered between underground dance music, new wave hits, and ambient sounds of city bustling streets. 

Quickly expanding the brand's growing world of associates, founder Li-Ning arrived in Paris having just launched collaborations with the menswear designer Neil Barrett, at Milan Men’s Fashion Week, and Stefano Pilati’s Random Identities, at Pitti Uomo.

The Paris show opened with a preview of yet another partnership: a design collaboration with the iconic martial artist and actor Jackie Chan. The 10-look collection featureed futuristic black-and-white looks that combine Kung-Fu–inspired design elements with utility and military surplus.


(Photos by Francois Durand/Kristy Sparow/Getty Images)

Li-Ning on the international stage at Paris Men's Fashion Week

In China, Li-Ning is an iconic  and successful sports brand named after their star Olympian.

China's iconic sports brand Li-Ning, named after the Chinese star Olympian,

will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2020.

And now its ambition is to conquer the world, especially after a successful introduction in its home country at retailers like Lane Crawford. Li-Ning’s elevated runway collection, now in its fourth season, continues to expand its global distribution at a range of high-end retailers and specialty sneaker boutiques including KITH, SSENSE, LN-CC, Slam Jam, END Clothing, Oki-Ni, Selfridges, and END Clothing to name a few.

The sports brand has now presented for the second time at Paris Men’s Fashion Week. This season the event was in a show space inside the Lycée Turgot in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.  Within the custom set, graphics from the collection adorned the hyper-colour, multi-layer walls; with seating arranged in a maze-like format.

Models walked the labyrinth to an eclectic Chinese soundtrack, ’90s hip hop, and abstract Jazz, revealing the collection to a front-row crowd that included world champion skier Eileen Gu, Chinese performer Ayunga, singer Can Chengyu, and Lucas Jagger, as well as Mr. Li-Ning himself, who took in the show alongside his daughter Xiaoyan.

Mr. Li-Ning at the Paris catwalk alongside his daughter Xiao-yan.

Li-Ning finds the inspiration for its latest collection in ping-pong—or simply known as table tennis in the West, the Chinese national sport that commands a fervor greater than basketball, baseball, or soccer and one in which China has won 28 of 32 Olympic gold medals since its introduction in 1988.

For Spring/Summer 2020, the simple ping-pong polo informed the design direction of the entire collection, which offers easy shapes and voluminous silhouettes cut away from the body.

For an airy look, Li-Ning has used a set of new, ultra-lightweight fabrics for an array of coats and shirts, trousers and shorts, bags and accessories and footwear. 

In its styling and coloruways, the collection fused nostalgia and futurism.

SS20 highlights include deconstructed, zip-away Mackintosh coats trimmed in contrasting piping and affixed with patches, layered paperweight anoraks in contrasting tones of khaki and yellow, oversized polo—short or long-sleeved, striped, patterned, patched, piped, open V-neck, or zip-neck with vintage-inspired circular pulls. The breezy look carried through to the women’s range: females wore long tennis dresses darted with contrast stitching, as well as zip-away track coats and waisted track dresses. And for all genders, Li-Ning reimagined its signature garment—the track suit—in a wild range of colors, materials, and techniques, each of them at home on the ping-pong courts of yesterday or today.

Across all apparel, Li-Ning made strong use of vintage-inspired graphics including repeating paddle prints, abstract collages, comic book sketches, and the critical number 11, which was assigned to Mr. Li during the 1984 Summer Olympics.