Asian creatives’ influence is growing. Their audience is global. So why do Asian creatives still want the West’s seal of approval?
That question was on the table on 7 October at Decimo at The Standard, London, where Red Flagged brought together 40 fashion industry figures, Central Saint Martins (CSM) students and alumni for A Seat at the Table. The dinner opened up a conversation about where to start, who opens doors and what success looks like for a new generation of Asian creatives.
Co-founded by Alex Han and Ed Lee, Red Flagged is a queer-led Asian creative community spanning fashion, film, art and music. Its latest initiative, A Seat at the Table, brings emerging talent into conversation with industry leaders and decision-makers - to share experiences, find guidance and build connections that carry beyond the evening.
But what does Western approval offer when Asia is increasingly shaping global taste? In a subsequent interview, fashion editor Rosana Lai points to Korea’s cultural influence, with publications taking cues from Korean beauty. “This means as a designer, where you hail from matters less than ever before,” says the Hong Kong-born former fashion director of Tatler Asia.
Yet some ambitions persist. Lai observes that designers still chase “certain hallmarks of success”, including an invitation to show on the Paris Fashion Week calendar. She points to SHUSHU/TONG as a label that gained momentum in Asia before attracting Western attention. A European show or publication can introduce a brand to new buyers and readers; it need not be where its audience first took shape. Prestige and a following are different achievements, even when one helps build the other.
For Oscar Ouyang, choosing London was a more personal decision. Raised in Beijing, he studied on CSM’s BA and MA Fashion courses. “London has been my home for the last 10 years, it has become more natural for me to initiate the brand here,” he says. “Shanghai is still very appealing to me and I grew up with the Chinese fashion scene.”
There was practical support, too. “DSM London was the first shop to stock my debut collection after the CSM MA,” Ouyang says, referring to Dover Street Market. He founded his label with Yibo Chen, a graduate of the Royal College of Art’s MA Fashion Womenswear course, and made his London Fashion Week debut under the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN scheme in September 2025. A first stockist is an endorsement, but it is also a way for clothes to reach customers. For Ouyang, a main base remains essential even as the label reaches other markets.
Lai’s move brought access to a different professional world. She arrived during the pandemic without a job lined up, looking for a new challenge. “London has a very established, diverse publishing industry, which means there’s a niche for everyone,” she says. The international fashion community helped her feel at home. For journalists and PRs, she argues, proximity makes it easier to attend events, build relationships and take on last-minute work. “I’m a big advocate for being physically present where possible.”
For CSM student Mengdi Cui, however, an overseas launch still holds an attraction. After seven years at Alibaba’s Tmall, she is studying for an MA in Fashion and weighing employment at an established label against starting her own. She would launch outside China, perhaps in London or Paris, believing that Chinese consumers would give an overseas debut more attention and a larger budget. She also worries that China’s rapid production and e-commerce systems allow imitations to appear quickly and remain difficult to trace.
Yi Ng would start by asking who will buy the work. The Singapore-born entrepreneur co-founded A-COLD-WALL* and is the co-founder and CEO of SR_A. Asked where a graduate with enough money to launch in just one city should begin, she says: “I would start with the consumer, rather than the city. Who are you creating for, what cultural shift are you responding to, and what is the one product or idea that can communicate your vision most clearly?”
That question also runs through Ouyang’s approach to design. His gender-neutral knitwear draws on East Asian subcultures and East London’s art scene, combining cultural references with an interest in developing materials and craftsmanship. He describes a DIY, grungy undertone to London fashion, but puts equal emphasis on the people encountering the work. “As important as it is to keep your own practice, sometimes you have to cater the language to your current audience,” he says. Asked about trusting his vision across markets, he adds: “It’s not particularly challenging to me to trust my own background.”
For Lai, the same distinction applies to stories. Information can travel globally in seconds, she says, but “the most impactful stories tend to be the ones that are able to take global ideas or trends and apply them to a local audience”. An editor’s job is to work out which angle matters to those readers. “As our collective airwaves become more saturated with information, having a point of view and capturing an engaged audience has become one of the most valuable skills as a journalist.”
Ng points to To Summer and Gentle Monster as businesses that combine distinctive cultural identities with innovation in products, retail and supply chains. Having grown up across Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney, she sees opportunities in bringing those perspectives together. London offers concentrated talent and global networks; Asia offers philosophies, heritage and craftsmanship from which to develop contemporary businesses. “The question is not simply where a brand belongs, but where its proposition will matter most,” she says. For all three, the work’s intended audience makes geography a more specific question than East or West.
Reaching that audience is only part of keeping a business alive. At 19, Ng left her second year of law school in Sydney to join A-COLD-WALL* as a co-founder, when it was still a bedroom operation in north London. She describes a luxury streetwear business built around cultural relevance, scarcity and a more culturally diverse consumer. “Building in the West, as this category emerged globally, enabled us to scale quickly.”
At SR_A, her Cambridge Master’s research into luxury business models informed joint ventures with established companies across headphones, wearables and luxury timepieces. “I’ve learned that creative credibility establishes cultural relevance; commercial infrastructure enables scale,” she says. For a graduate with limited capital, her advice is to find where creative conviction meets commercial viability, using emerging technologies to make better use of available resources. A city may offer a receptive creative scene without supplying everything a founder needs to develop, distribute and sustain the work.
Ng’s ambition for Asian businesses extends beyond where they sell. She challenges the assumption that the region’s advantage begins and ends with manufacturing efficiency and heritage craft. “Heritage is a starting point, not the end product,” she says. She argues for combining technical ability with cultural knowledge to create original products, rather than replicating Western models. “The next generation of Asian businesses must move from making products for the world to owning the ideas and IP behind them.” Here, a change in power involves ownership of intellectual property as well as attention.
Ng urges founders to test their convictions against consumer behaviour and commercial reality. When it comes to the pitfalls of working across markets, her advice is blunt: “Get a good lawyer. Protecting your intellectual property, structuring partnerships properly and preserving strategic flexibility can be just as important as securing the opportunity itself.”
At the dinner, Mengdi discussed her career plans with Audrey Khew, from the British Fashion Council. Their conversation ranged from the value of gaining experience at an established label to the realities of launching independently and the role location can play in shaping an emerging brand. Afterwards, Mengdi said the conversation had helped clarify her plans and left her feeling less uncertain about what to do next. By bringing emerging East and Southeast Asian creatives into conversation with industry leaders and decision-makers, A Seat at the Table does more than offer access to a prestigious room. It cannot settle the East-West question in one evening, but it creates a safe space where participants can exchange practical knowledge, test assumptions and form professional relationships that continue beyond the dinner.
Western recognition can still bring attention, introductions and a first retail opportunity. Yet a career is built through what follows: developing a viable business, continuing to reach that audience and retaining a stake in the value the work creates. The best place to begin, then, is not automatically East or West, but wherever opportunity can become something a creative can sustain and call their own.
Written by Luyao Ya, Interviews by Alex Han
