“Come!” says my friend Anja Aronowsky Cronberg when I tell her I am thinking of swinging through Shanghai during the city’s Fashion Week. “Bring clothes! We’ll get them copied!” That was all she had to say.
Some visitors to Shanghai head straight for the Bund, the museums, the dumplings, but for me, the lure of having a couple of old dresses copied, practically overnight, means that I will gladly endure a 17-hour flight. Plus, since it’s Fashion Week, it will be a chance to take the temperature of the local scene.
My first morning in town, Anja, the editor in chief of the critical theory fashion journal Vestoj, ropes me into being on a panel she is running at Labelhood, a sort of hipster version of Milk Studios. The audience is purple-haired and pierced, and it is hard to tell if they are bemused or enthralled. Maybe this is because I am too jet-lagged and too focused on the little bag of clothes at my feet, since our first stop after the panel will be the South Bund Fabric Market, where three floors of tailors and thousands of fabric swatches are waiting for us.
Anja recommends a stall called the Milano Tailor Shop, and I unfurl my old AllSaints smocks (relics from the early days of that company, before they traded their baby elephant silhouette for a sleeker aesthetic) and one gauze top from a French designer whose name I won’t mention (he would be mad!). South Bund has other delights: racks of “cashmere” designer scarves in patterns that even Alessandro Michele in his wildest days couldn’t have come up with (nor would Gucci charge less than $20 for the results). There are also blankets in clear cases, the inspiration for this season’s Balenciaga flower bags, which cause Anja and I to talk briefly about cultural appropriation, desire, and queasiness.
I quickly select some ersatz Liberty prints, and then hightail it to Uma Wang’s shop in the French Concession. Wang is the pride of the Chinese fashion scene: She shows in Paris; her clothes are sold at boutiques like IF and L’Eclaireur. The French Concession, full of beautiful little cafes, boutiques, and shade-giving trees, is considered the loveliest part of town, and indeed its leafy streets evoke an Asian East Hampton, but a brief investigation reveals a darker story: This bastion of imperialism, a relic from uglier days, once forbade Chinese people from even sitting on a bench in its colonial confines.
One of the best shops in Shanghai is Autumn Sonata, though I defy you to find it unless you have a Chinese friend to take you. And luckily, I do: Tasha Liu, a chic entrepreneur, explains that due to some incomprehensible zoning law, this multi-brand store (Paul Harnden! Vintage Comme!) is hidden from view down an alleyway. Shanghai is a city of profound contrasts: The alley, overhung with laundry, stands not far from skyscrapers that are among the world’s tallest buildings.
Next up is Tasha’s own shop, Dongliang, so modish and cool it seems as if it was moved whole from the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. I try on a vast blue frock by the new Chinese brand Marchen, huge even by my overblown standards, that I regret not buying. There is just enough time for a brief visit to Lolo Love Vintage, the incredibly charming outpost hidden down another alley, where the lovely old clothes are likely foreign transplants, and where I sing along to a scratchy recording of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” to the astonishment of the refined shoppers.
At night, I hit the Fashion Week tent, where I hang out in the VIP lounge between shows. I nearly knock down a young girl who is carrying a handbag that is the exact replica of a hot air balloon. This is the Shanghai souvenir I want: so witty, so winsome! Alas, when I ask her where to find such an item, she has two words for me: “Kate Spade.”
The next day, Anja convinces me to go with her to a creaky depot called Antique Shanghai, far from the center of town. This dusty dump specializes in the detritus of Chinese life over the past decades: old radios, painted wooden boxes, Mao memorabilia. I buy an ashtray with a picture of a leering, winking cat that, upon reflection, I am not even sure is Chinese; Anja does better, procuring enamel mugs, decorative boxes, and indigo fabric remnants.
Time to pick up the clothes! Back to Milano I go, and my $330 total, it turns out, was money incredibly well spent: I love my elephant smocks and my fake French top. That night, my last in town, Tasha takes me to a crazy place, a restaurant called La Petite Fontaine, which is a combination vintage store (Marilyn Monroe statues! Pinball machines!), animal house (cages with rabbits and canaries!), and bistro. We order delicious lamb chops, a nice break from the dumplings I have been inhaling all week. Popping a chop into her mouth, Tasha sighs and says, “Welcome to my beloved Shanghai.”