Keeven Zhai: Shanghai on-call fashion guru

How does a fashion designer stand out in a city full of fashionistas who are bored of their Balenciagas and have way too many Armanis?

The trick is to customize, customize, customize, according to designer-cum-stylist Keeven Zhai. In a city packed with 23 million people and with many international brands now becoming standard fare, shoppers want bespoke pieces that they won’t -- horror of horrors -- see some other woman sporting down the street.

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“Whether it's in clothing or jewelry, there’s no denying that the age of customization is upon China,” observes Zhai. “As Chinese consumers grow wealthier, their appetite for tailor-made goods grows bigger too. Mass-produced goods are no longer able to satisfy their demands.”

Zhai should know.

He’s been running his own company, Fashion Design Organization, which owns four mid- to high-end fashion labels, for the past five years.

The confident smile that women emanate from within after a makeover is priceless. How could I give that up?— Keeven Zhai

"Zhai Yanxin" produces women's and men's tailored and ready-to-wear pieces -- but even then no more than three pieces per design, he adds -- while "Xiu Zhuang" specializes in wedding and ceremonial dresses. "T2" is a designer T-shirt label and "Tofu" is his jewelry and accessories line.

Becoming a household name

At just 27, Zhai is already an established household name among Shanghainese women thanks to his spot as a host on “Style Today,” ("今日印象") a daily fashion and style program on Shanghai’s Channel Young (8 p.m.-9 p.m.).

Besides dishing out easy do-it-yourself styling tips on the show, "Teacher Keveen," as he is respectfully called on the show, also carries out makeovers on participants ranging from pimply teenage girls to plump middle-aged ayis.

The show is so well received that he is now used being called Teacher Keeven on the streets of Shanghai, usually by passers-by hoping to garner some free styling tips.

The show has also helped to boost Zhai’s own label’s name recognition.

“Once people have accepted you, they will look for items associated with you, and this is when I can introduce my own products,” says Zhai.

Creating a brand

The Harbin-native first came to Shanghai in 2000 to attend university. He majored in journalism and, with his silky smooth voice and perfectly enunciated Mandarin, had planned to be a television show host.

But he gradually turned his interest to fashion and one day in his second year of university, boldly knocked on the door of his favorite fashion designer, the late Chen Yifei, to ask for an apprenticeship.

“When they heard I was just a student from out of town, with no experience and who hadn’t even graduated, they wouldn’t even let me have an interview,” says Zhai. Fortunately, persistence and repeated visits to the workshop paid off and he was eventually taken in.

Though he rose quickly from an office assistant running trivial errands to assistant stylist, Zhai was thirsty for more and headed off to Singapore to major in fashion design and marketing. Perhaps influenced by his parents, who both come from finance-related backgrounds, Zhai believes that every good designer should also be good at business.

After graduation in 2005, the fan of Chinese philosophy and traditional art followed his patriotic instincts back to Shanghai and resumed his fashion career by styling celebrities such as Maggie Cheung and SHE prior to starting his own company.

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During the October 2010 Shanghai Fashion Week Zhai showcased a new line under his New Union label entitled “Beauty Portrait," which featured a palette of subtle blue, red and inky black and white shades inspired by traditional Chinese ink paintings.

As Chinese consumers grow wealthier, their appetite for tailor-made goods grows bigger too. Mass-produced goods are no longer able to satisfy their demands.— Keeven Zhai

Fashion is a business

Unlike many in the local industry, Zhai thinks that fashion design is not just an art, it’s a service-oriented profession.

“The most fulfilling part of the job is seeing that such a small effort on my part can bring about so much joy to other people,” says Zhai, who believes that the aim of good design is to make customers understand beauty and find it in themselves.

And how does he stay so energetic and effervescent, despite maintaining a hectic filming schedule on top of having to design and run his own label?

“If you are genuinely interested in something, you won’t feel tired, no matter how busy it keeps you,” says Zhai, who turns to cooking and playing mah jong with close friends for stress relief.

Listed among Zhai's future plans is a potential partnership with the Shanghai Institute of Fashion Design to teach a class on fashion design. He hopes to impart his knowledge of the latest trends, his love of DIY techniques and his years of practical experience in the industry to his future students, he says.

Zhai hopes to also publish a book containing advice on how to mix-and-match clothes and accessories and plans to jump on the celebrity microblogging bandwagon soon, so he can convey more style tips in a more personal manner to his fans.

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Will he keep helping Shanghai women stay fashionable with his well-known makeovers with everything else now piling on?

“The confident smile that women emanate from within after a makeover is priceless,” he says, “how could I give that up?”