Helen Lee

Helen Lee was founded in 2008 in Shanghai by Chinese designer Helen Lee as a contemporary luxury womenswear brand specifically focused on what Lee described as 'a deliberately-Chinese-feminine contemporary-luxury vocabulary anchored to traditional Chinese-cultural references and contemporary architectural-tailoring proportions.' The brand has been one of the defining post-2008 Shanghai-anchored contemporary-luxury-womenswear brands. The Helen Lee vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: deconstructed Italian-mill wool and Chinese-cotton tailored separates with deliberately-Chinese-feminine proportional construction, hand-printed silk and cotton dresses with deliberately-traditional-Chinese-cultural-reference motifs, the brand's iconic Helen Lee handbag programme, deliberately-architectural cotton-and-linen ready-to-wear, and a colour palette anchored to washed-cream, oxblood, ecru, washed-charcoal, soft-pink, plus the brand's recurring use of saturated red, royal-blue, and the iconic Chinese-feminine-aesthetic colour combinations. The brand has presented at Shanghai Fashion Week each season since 2010. The brand is independent and held by Lee. Helen Lee operates flagship retail in Shanghai (the brand's home flagship), Beijing (Sanlitun), Chengdu, plus international wholesale through SSENSE, MATCHES, Lane Crawford, the Boontheshop network in Seoul, Net-a-Porter, the Webster, and a curated set of contemporary-luxury-womenswear specialty retailers globally. The brand has been one of the more quietly disciplined post-2008 Shanghai-anchored contemporary-luxury-womenswear brands.