Shanghai designer Lu Kun's signature dresses feature a feminine cut. Provided to Shanghai star

Designer Lu Kun

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In the same year, Lu Kun moved beyond making and altering dresses for customers, including local celebrities, wives and mistresses of the wealthy in a tailor shop. He started his own studio and brand. A year later, in August as he clearly recalls, the first fashion show given by a local designer in Shanghai was held at Three on the Bund.

It was a definite landmark for the local fashion industry, and the show featured dresses in a riot of colors, inspired by the stained-glass windows of Shanghai’s churches.

"It confirmed for me then that I may have the talent for making dresses under my own name," says the 33-year-old at his studio on the fifth floor of his office, in a building that is a retrofitted former factory on a quiet gritty street in "the old town".

As this year marks the start of his second decade working in fashion, the designer decided to broaden his repertoire from party dresses to a collection with more mass appeal.

His first ready-to-wear collection will launch later this year and sell on e-commerce sites like Elleshop. The dresses boast "a more girl-next-door look from a typical Shanghai lane house" and will be priced between 800 to 2,000 yuan.