Shanghai Daily news

The world of haute couture is dominated by European and American designers but a French photographer believes Shanghai has the creativity and emerging talents to take its place on the world fashion stage, writes Zhao Feifei.
For French photographer Julian de Hauteclocque Howe, home is where the passion is. Instead of living in fashion capitals such as New York or Paris, he has decided to come to Shanghai because he believes that Chinese fashion is going places and is where the next real action in haute couture is going to occur.
With the scores of beautiful pictures he has taken of the city's fashion scene, one cannot help but share his enthusiasm and believe in his prediction. There seems to be an eternal wanderlust in the 34-year-old lensman. In fact, de Hauteclocque Howe has spent 10 years in Asia, 10 years in Europe and 10 in the United States. Now he's back in Asia again. ``Funny thing is that coming back to Shanghai reminds me of days when I was a kid,'' says de Hauteclocque Howe. ``I was born in Japan and my brother was born in Hong Kong. I lived in Hong Kong for about five years. I went to primary school there. At the age of nine, I moved to Europe.'' He came to Shanghai three years ago. With a US$1 million credit card sponsored by investors, he searched high and low for Chinese silks and antique Chinese doors which became part of his design and display of Asian art in an art gallery/bar in Santa Barbara, California. De Hauteclocque Howe started taking photographs at 15. He landed his first photo assignment at 18 -- an album cover for a German rap band. Later he moved to London, working for an advertising agency and started doing film work. He liked films so much that when he went back to Paris, he enrolled himself in French Conservatory of Film. After that, he went to the Brooks Institute of Photography in the United States, one of the world's leading photography schools. He almost won every competition held in school and he graduated with honors. Then he moved to New York before taking off to Texas, first as a lighting technician and later doing photo shoots for IBM. ``I always jump at opportunities,'' he says. ``I'm very curious. Maybe it runs in the blood. My mother is an anthropologist. When I was a kid, she took me to temples in Malaysia and the Philippines, riding on ox. Even at the age of 67, she took off to Cuba to do research.'' De Hauteclocque Howe's can-do spirit was rewarded with a stroke of incredible good luck. He got a US$20,000 deal from fashion designer Anna Sui for only one picture. ``I took a picture of her product and sent it to her,'' he reminisces. ``I thought maybe I would get a couple of hundred US dollars or even somebody just tell me what they thought of the picture. But they ended up buying the picture at US$20,000. That photo lasted seven years. It was in every airport in like 55 countries. I was pretty lucky with that one.'' Now with his works, de Hauteclocque Howe was one of those who are drumming up attention for Chinese fashion. ``I'm pretty interested in Chinese designers like Lu Kun (a promising Shanghai designer) and his haute couture collection,'' says de Hauteclocque Howe, while clicking on a photo on his computer. It shows a woman lying on a red rose-pattern chair, dressed in a half-transparent gown with every detail oozing Chinese flavor. He waxes lyrical: ``Lu does modern `qipao' incredibly beautiful -- all the geometrical styles, the collar, the transparency. He gave me the keys to his studio and gave me free rein on everything. I can just shoot any time I want. The more he saw my pictures, the more he get ideas for doing more beautiful things. He's only 23 years old. He's got a lot potential.'' De Hauteclocque Howe persuaded Lu to design a dress in the way that Lu would see a Chinese girl in Paris. He borrowed the dress and shot it with a stylist who just had done a Vogue cover in Portugal, and with the make-up artist from MAC, in a US$15,000 suite in Hotel Meurice Paris. ``When some people see the picture, they think it is from some big fashion house such as Chanel. But they don't imagine this is from a Chinese designer. That's what I want to do more and more, to show the world Chinese fashion in a very glamorous way. I am very ambitious about fashion,'' he says. ``I hope this will encourage other designers to work with me to take things further. I don't want to just borrow a couple of their clothes and get some pretty girls to shoot them. I want to know what they're thinking and how we can go somewhere to make it interesting.'' Nowadays many local magazines buy pictures from their parent companies, and are not inspired by photography as an art form, as de Hauteclocque Howe has discovered. ``There are so many things you can say about the same object,'' he says. ``When a girl is smiling, maybe in the picture it's not just her smiling, maybe somebody on the side is looking at her. You could have almost the same photo, but you could turn it into a concept really easily. But a lot of people stay away from that because it's not a normal thinking. ``I always put a content into the picture. I don't allow my models to do what they want to do before the camera. I give them a role to play. It's very important for them to know why they're standing there.'' The 2005 Shanghai International Fashion Festival will kick off late this month. This poses a good photo opportunity for de Hauteclocque Howe but he points out the problems with the fashion festival. ``In Paris, the show starts at 8am because there's a lot of shows to do. That means make-up and everything start at 6am. All industry people will be there. In Shanghai, 70 percent of people are just having a glass of champagne and seeing some beautiful clothes. That's the problem. It's not an industry thing. There isn't any haute couture in China yet. That's why I'm interested in Lu. I think he's maybe one of the Chinese designers who can do high fashion. It rumored that Valentino will come to the local fashion festival, however de Hauteclocque Howe doesn't care about the big names in the Western fashion world. ``I don't want to go to a Gucci show in Shanghai when I can get a better one in Paris,'' he says. ``But I do want to go to a show where I can see Chinese designers and not only Chinese designers but the best Chinese designers. You have the best talents in Shanghai -- I think you can rival any big city in the world.'' 
Shanghai: the next fashion mecca

The world of haute couture is dominated by European and American designers but a French photographer believes Shanghai has the creativity and emerging talents to take its place on the world fashion stage, writes Zhao Feifei.
For French photographer Julian de Hauteclocque Howe, home is where the passion is. Instead of living in fashion capitals such as New York or Paris, he has decided to come to Shanghai because he believes that Chinese fashion is going places and is where the next real action in haute couture is going to occur.
With the scores of beautiful pictures he has taken of the city's fashion scene, one cannot help but share his enthusiasm and believe in his prediction. There seems to be an eternal wanderlust in the 34-year-old lensman. In fact, de Hauteclocque Howe has spent 10 years in Asia, 10 years in Europe and 10 in the United States. Now he's back in Asia again. ``Funny thing is that coming back to Shanghai reminds me of days when I was a kid,'' says de Hauteclocque Howe. ``I was born in Japan and my brother was born in Hong Kong. I lived in Hong Kong for about five years. I went to primary school there. At the age of nine, I moved to Europe.'' He came to Shanghai three years ago. With a US$1 million credit card sponsored by investors, he searched high and low for Chinese silks and antique Chinese doors which became part of his design and display of Asian art in an art gallery/bar in Santa Barbara, California. De Hauteclocque Howe started taking photographs at 15. He landed his first photo assignment at 18 -- an album cover for a German rap band. Later he moved to London, working for an advertising agency and started doing film work. He liked films so much that when he went back to Paris, he enrolled himself in French Conservatory of Film. After that, he went to the Brooks Institute of Photography in the United States, one of the world's leading photography schools. He almost won every competition held in school and he graduated with honors. Then he moved to New York before taking off to Texas, first as a lighting technician and later doing photo shoots for IBM. ``I always jump at opportunities,'' he says. ``I'm very curious. Maybe it runs in the blood. My mother is an anthropologist. When I was a kid, she took me to temples in Malaysia and the Philippines, riding on ox. Even at the age of 67, she took off to Cuba to do research.'' De Hauteclocque Howe's can-do spirit was rewarded with a stroke of incredible good luck. He got a US$20,000 deal from fashion designer Anna Sui for only one picture. ``I took a picture of her product and sent it to her,'' he reminisces. ``I thought maybe I would get a couple of hundred US dollars or even somebody just tell me what they thought of the picture. But they ended up buying the picture at US$20,000. That photo lasted seven years. It was in every airport in like 55 countries. I was pretty lucky with that one.'' Now with his works, de Hauteclocque Howe was one of those who are drumming up attention for Chinese fashion. ``I'm pretty interested in Chinese designers like Lu Kun (a promising Shanghai designer) and his haute couture collection,'' says de Hauteclocque Howe, while clicking on a photo on his computer. It shows a woman lying on a red rose-pattern chair, dressed in a half-transparent gown with every detail oozing Chinese flavor. He waxes lyrical: ``Lu does modern `qipao' incredibly beautiful -- all the geometrical styles, the collar, the transparency. He gave me the keys to his studio and gave me free rein on everything. I can just shoot any time I want. The more he saw my pictures, the more he get ideas for doing more beautiful things. He's only 23 years old. He's got a lot potential.'' De Hauteclocque Howe persuaded Lu to design a dress in the way that Lu would see a Chinese girl in Paris. He borrowed the dress and shot it with a stylist who just had done a Vogue cover in Portugal, and with the make-up artist from MAC, in a US$15,000 suite in Hotel Meurice Paris. ``When some people see the picture, they think it is from some big fashion house such as Chanel. But they don't imagine this is from a Chinese designer. That's what I want to do more and more, to show the world Chinese fashion in a very glamorous way. I am very ambitious about fashion,'' he says. ``I hope this will encourage other designers to work with me to take things further. I don't want to just borrow a couple of their clothes and get some pretty girls to shoot them. I want to know what they're thinking and how we can go somewhere to make it interesting.'' Nowadays many local magazines buy pictures from their parent companies, and are not inspired by photography as an art form, as de Hauteclocque Howe has discovered. ``There are so many things you can say about the same object,'' he says. ``When a girl is smiling, maybe in the picture it's not just her smiling, maybe somebody on the side is looking at her. You could have almost the same photo, but you could turn it into a concept really easily. But a lot of people stay away from that because it's not a normal thinking. ``I always put a content into the picture. I don't allow my models to do what they want to do before the camera. I give them a role to play. It's very important for them to know why they're standing there.'' The 2005 Shanghai International Fashion Festival will kick off late this month. This poses a good photo opportunity for de Hauteclocque Howe but he points out the problems with the fashion festival. ``In Paris, the show starts at 8am because there's a lot of shows to do. That means make-up and everything start at 6am. All industry people will be there. In Shanghai, 70 percent of people are just having a glass of champagne and seeing some beautiful clothes. That's the problem. It's not an industry thing. There isn't any haute couture in China yet. That's why I'm interested in Lu. I think he's maybe one of the Chinese designers who can do high fashion. It rumored that Valentino will come to the local fashion festival, however de Hauteclocque Howe doesn't care about the big names in the Western fashion world. ``I don't want to go to a Gucci show in Shanghai when I can get a better one in Paris,'' he says. ``But I do want to go to a show where I can see Chinese designers and not only Chinese designers but the best Chinese designers. You have the best talents in Shanghai -- I think you can rival any big city in the world.''