Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 203 - 200: About the Closed Circle

In Italy, it was 1:30 PM in Florence where people had just begun their lunch, while in New York, people were just starting their workday.

If Qi Yi was preparing to resign, he must have been very busy with many things after arriving at the company, as Qi Yi’s position involved handing over a great deal of data, a process that would inevitably take some time.

That’s why Yan Yan, upon seeing the email, did not call him directly but instead, lay on the bed typing a reply.

However, almost at the same time after Yan Yan sent her email, her inbox received another email from Qi Yi.

...

Waiwai:

Reply=>

When we spoke on the phone, I told you I would write to share my views, as an outsider to the fashion industry, about this closed circle of fashion.

While you were on the plane, I, feeling rather lonely, took the opportunity to study some fashion history.

I wanted to see if current Chinese designers, as you mentioned, really stand at the forefront of fashion like Japanese designers did in the sixties and seventies.

I found that the history of modern fashion is relatively short, and much of the so-called "historical" information is about the development of garment craftsmanship.

Looking back about forty or fifty years, Paris was the sole fashion capital of the world.

Speaking from the perspective of the Four Fashion Weeks you are particularly interested in, Paris Fashion Week started in 1910, with Milan and London’s fashion weeks following much later, established in 1967 and 1971, respectively.

From a historical perspective, New York Fashion Week is a bit more complicated.

According to my resources, New York Fashion Week was founded in 1943, but the official New York Fashion Week did not start until 1994, having been known as Press Week of New York prior.

Press Week and Fashion Week were not initially the same concept, and this Press Week benefited from the fact that France, as a war zone, could not host Paris Fashion Week during World War II.

New York’s Press Week was not led by designers or industry associations but was organized by a media publicist named Eleanar Lamber.

She had ample media resources, and any designer she supported was bound to become successful.

Starting in 1939, due to World War II, many European fashion financers, the golden masters of fashion attention, hid away in the prosperous and peaceful United States.

American tycoons’ wives and daughters didn’t dare to casually travel to Europe for Haute Couture since, after all, life is sometimes more important than beauty.

After Paris Fashion Week was halted due to the war, New York had a new opportunity.

In 1945, Eleanar Lamber gathered local American designers in New York for a concentrated showcase of their work.

This likely was the initial form of New York Fashion Week. However, the early model of this Press Week was a bit strange; the shows were only visible to media personnel, and buyers could only view the products by visiting the showrooms.

You mentioned that China’s current position in fashion closely resembles that of Japan in the sixties and seventies.

From my studies, instead of comparing it to Japan of that era, it might be more appropriate to liken it to the United States of the time.

In the sixties and seventies, with financial support from the American Government and industry associations, U.S. designers showcased at the White House and were sent by delegations to host fashion shows all over the world, including the then-Soviet Union and Australia, among other places.

Similarly, our own industry associations, supported by the government, began organizing similar events in the late eighties and nineties, though I’m not sure if this was within your radar.

Starting in the 1920s, American designers have lamented why there were no American world-class fashion brands. It took the American Government and industry associations eighty to ninety years to establish the status that the U.S. holds in fashion today.

New York Fashion Week now should be second only to Paris Fashion Week.

My rough conclusion as an outsider is that, whether from the perspective of transitioning from a manufacturing power to a brand power or the context of industry development, the history of American fashion offers more lessons than Japan’s.

I recently read a book by Pulitzer Prize winner, Robin Givhan, titled "The Battle of Versailles," which recounts the story of a fashion showdown in Paris in 1973, between five then-relatively unknown American designers and five French fashion moguls during a fundraising event for the Palace of Versailles.

American fashion began to emerge on the global stage after that showdown.

Thus, when Yan Yan was looking at the email that Qi Yi had sent, Qi Yi was also looking at Yan Yan’s.

When Yan Yan saw the opening of the Qi Yi’s email, she was nearly scared silly; even if the "alien" Qi Yi could reply to emails instantly, it couldn’t be that he could guess every question she might ask.

At the end, she realized that the email was clearly sent before he had finished writing it.

Yan Yan knew that it must have been a coincidence that Qi Yi was also writing her an email.

It was probably interrupted by the email she sent over, and while trying to see what she had written, he accidentally clicked send.

But at this time, shouldn’t Qi Yi be at work? How could he have time to write emails?

Regardless, since Qi Yi had received the email, Yan Yan reassured herself and got up to brush her teeth.

Otherwise, having slept in until she woke up naturally without calling Qi Yi, who was in a sensitive period mentally and her "little wife," to say good morning, it would probably lead to another discussion about who feels more for whom.

The email Qi Yi had sent previously was written last night.

Qi Yi’s last email dealt with his psychological struggle over whether to follow Ian in this matter,

But actually, analysis or no analysis, Qi Yi had already understood what he truly wanted to know, the question he asked in the query section about who loved whom more.

Qi Yi was confident in his love for Yan Yan, but with the long distance of their international relationship, he wasn’t so confident whether Yan Yan felt the same level or not.

Such thoughts were inevitable for international couples who could not meet for extended periods.

What’s more critical was that in Florence where Yan Yan currently resided, there was another rival for her affection.

Qi Yi had written the email to Yan Yan last night because he couldn’t sleep.

After writing the first email, Qi Yi still couldn’t sleep.

Qi Yi didn’t try to sleep again; he decided to simply wait until Yan Yan called him in the morning, take a shower, and then go to work.

However, when the usual time came for Yan Yan to call him, there was still no response from her.

Qi Yi’s mental activity was too rich last night, which is why, when he received Yan Yan’s email, he got too excited and sent his own unfinished email.

Note 1:

Robin Givhan’s "The Battle of Versailles" tells a real story, the quintessential American dream, most suitable for adaptation into a film.

Last year (2016), HBO funded a film adaptation of this book, which is not yet completed and it’s unclear whether it will have the chance to be shown in China.