Fashion-Making and Co-Creation in the Transglobal Landscape: Sino-Italian Fashion as Method

For a country or a city, expressing an instantly recognisable aesthetic has become an important corollary to communicate political and economic strength. More than in the past centuries, fashion has been tasked with not only reflecting and representing social or individual needs, but also constructing ex novo territories in which old stereotypes and imaginer are creatively set free. On the other hand, the accelerated production relocation in past decades has irrevocably changed the geography of fashion, as well as the rhetoric of the origin of national creativity. This leads one to wonder what happens when two or more players are engaged in the making of fashion. Specifically, what happens when Italy and China collaborate in transglobal fashion-making? How does one account for the national creativity that has sprung from the Sino-Italian co-creation? Drawing on the accounts of Italian fashion and Chinese fashion, this article discusses the intricacy of Sino-Italian collaboration and the entails of such a fashion co-creation, through which, a reflection on transglobal fashion-making is made with the proposition of a framework for its examination.