SHANGHAI – Chinese fashion designer Fengchen Wang was named the winner of the inaugural New Wave Fashion Awards’ top honor, Visionary of the Year, during an award ceremony on Monday afternoon at the W hotel in Shanghai.
Chen Sifan and Moto Guo scored the Public Impact award and the Future Force award, respectively. They will each receive a cash prize of 100,000 renminbi, while Wang will take home 300,000 renminbi.
The New Wave Fashion Awards was introduced last October to turbocharge local creativity, nurture creative talent, and identify homegrown creative directors of tomorrow.
The prize was organized by the Shanghai Fashion Designer Association, a relaunched initiative to fuel the next stage of growth for Chinese fashion designers, with financial backing from Dior and Moncler.
Six finalists, which also included Angus Chiang, 8on8, and Mayali, presented their brand expressions and creative ideas during the past few days amid the fall 2026 edition of Shanghai Fashion Week.
In addition to a cash prize, the three winners will also receive industry mentorship from a group of industry judges, including members of the senior leadership teams at Dior and Moncler, designer Uma Wang, Commi Moi founder Lu Yan, and Labelhood founder Tasha Liu.
Wang, founder of her namesake label Feng Chen Wang, said she will use the prize money to invest in her official foray into brick-and-mortar.
“After completing the initial preparation and testing, we plan to find the most suitable time and location to launch our first global flagship store,” she said.
For the competition, Wang reimagined a historic building by the Bund, which used to house a tea trading company importing loose leaf tea from her hometown Fujian to the U.K. at the turn of century, as a pop-up store, serving tea-infused cocktails, and a selection of her top-selling styles presented in a carefully curated East-meet-West setting.
The designer arguably has made the biggest impact during Shanghai Fashion Week in the past week, presenting a 10th anniversary show with an eye-catching performance featuring Under Armor garments, fueling speculations that an official collaboration is underway.
A day later, she collaborated with Apple for a 50th anniversary fashion show at the tech company’s store in front of Jing’an Temple with a slew of major Chinese stars in attendance.
It was also announced on Monday that she was selected as one of the 10 designers who will participate in Kering’s new initiative in China, dubbed CRAFT, which stands for Creative Residency for Artisanship, Fashion and Technology.
That initiative is designed to spotlight, accelerate and elevate the next generation of Chinese creative talent, and to foster dialogue and exchange between China and Europe in design, craftsmanship, innovation and future business models.
