Yirantian Guo turned her show space into a courtroom in the fall of 2024. The guests sat on wooden benches and had leather-bound briefs placed on each chair. If The good woman happened during Fashion Week, Guo’s show was exactly what that would look like.
But Guo’s inspiration wasn’t a made-up character or a woman who only exists within the confines of primetime television (or a streaming platform and a Sunday afternoon shower). “It’s about the working woman,” Guo said backstage after the show, “it’s what she wears every day and what she feels comfortable in.” An example: a media manager sitting a few seats away looking at the collection couldn’t help but exclaim with each look, “This is for me! It’s what I wear!”
Guo is an important part of Shanghai Fashion Week; she has been part of the Labelhood program since the very beginning of her showcase, which is also when she launched Yirantian after graduating from the London College of Fashion in 2014 and returning to Shanghai. Yirantian, as Guo describes it, is about dressing “the city woman who expresses a sense of strength with non-aggressive sexiness.”
At some point in its long and storied history, Shanghai became known as “the Paris of the East,” a nickname that nodded to its penchant for decadence and glitz. Although the city has since outgrown its name to emerge as a fashion capital, this idea of sophistication and glamor still permeates many of its residents, especially those in the upper echelons. Guo leans into this particular vein of Shanghainese style and explores its nuances, approaching sensuality through the city’s specific, and often mature, sartorial language.
Guo has cut her clothes sharply and her skirts short, cutting dizzyingly deep necklines into her shirts and evening dresses to contrast with fun knitted cummerbunds and playful floating shirt collars; both of which subtly undermined the male uniform of power. She draped suits in tailored tube tops and leather-trimmed capelets, and made funky trousers and top coats in color-blocked shaggy shearling. Guo is often at her best when she takes the contemporary into new, crazy areas. This is where her proposal for the working wardrobe took its most compelling shape this season, where she ruled in favor of a woman whose sensuality is rooted in intrigue rather than outright sexiness.
