Pronounce Studio

Pronounce Studio (PRONOUNCE) was founded in 2017 in Shanghai by Chinese designer duo Yushan Li and Jun Zhou as a contemporary luxury menswear brand specifically focused on what the founders described as 'a deliberately-Chinese-architectural-and-cultural-reference contemporary-luxury menswear vocabulary anchored to traditional Chinese craft and contemporary Italian-and-British-aesthetic tailoring proportions.' The brand has been one of the defining post-2017 Shanghai-anchored contemporary-luxury-menswear brands. The Pronounce Studio vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: deconstructed Italian-mill wool tailored separates with deliberately-Chinese-cultural-reference proportional construction, hand-printed silk and cotton shirts with deliberately-traditional-Chinese-textile-pattern motif references, the brand's iconic Pronounce Studio technical-fabric outerwear programme (deliberately-engineered with hardware-and-strap construction details that reference traditional Chinese-craft tradition), deliberately-architectural cotton-and-linen ready-to-wear, and a colour palette anchored to washed-black, oxblood, ecru, washed-charcoal, plus the brand's recurring use of saturated red, royal-blue, and the iconic Chinese-architectural-aesthetic colour combinations. The brand has presented at Milan Men's Fashion Week each season since 2018 and was an LVMH Prize semi-finalist in 2019. The brand is independent and held by Li and Zhou. Pronounce Studio operates flagship retail in Shanghai (Anfu Road — the brand's home flagship), plus international wholesale through SSENSE, MR PORTER, MATCHES, Dover Street Market, GR8, Lane Crawford, the Boontheshop network in Seoul, and a curated set of contemporary-luxury-menswear specialty retailers globally. The brand has been one of the more conceptually rigorous post-2017 Shanghai-anchored 'Chinese-architectural-luxury-menswear' brands.