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

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"I became a fashion designer because I was not a good student back in school and my mum, a typical Shanghai woman, chose this path for me. But I fell in love with it and did well, eventually. I think my fashion trajectory is a reflection of 'Modern Shanghai Chic'," he says, summarizing his two-hour lecture.

He has been compared to the Italian duo of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, or the Tunisian-born couturier, Azzedine Alaia, whom Lu looks up to. Like them, Lu has made his name by knowing what makes the ladies look good. Sometimes he knows them better than they know themselves.

"It's always the dress," says Lu, believing creations like YSL's Le Smoking tuxedo suits are for thin, tall, and svelte models.

Behind him against a wall in the studio, silk dresses with polka dots, leopard prints and delicate laces fill the racks. And Lu points to them as "the prototype of his Shanghai-style dress".

What defines a Shanghai-style dress is not a certain color, or pattern, as he puts it, but "a general silhouette".

"When you talk about qipao, you would not think of it being red or green, with dragons or Chinese buttons, but its curvy look," he explains. His signature dresses, "always inspired by the looks of Shanghai ladies in the 1920s and '30s", have been considered as reformed versions of the qipao but with more sexy but sophisticated appeal.

Celebrities Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham have worn his dresses during their visits to Shanghai.