Siam Piwat in Partnership with PARCO Offers a Thai Brand the Opportunity to Showcase Work
At New York Fashion Week and Tokyo Runway Show
Siam Piwat, the world-renowned retail and management group whose operation oversees Siam Paragon, Siam Center, and Siam Discovery, and a proud partner of the iconic symbol of prosperity and opulence by Chao Phraya river ICONSAM, is once again a proud leader of innovative lifestyles and a patron of Thai brands achieving global recognition by partnering with Japan’s leading department store group PARCO in order to select a Thai brand to enter ‘Asia Fashion Collection’.
Siam Piwat Retail Holding’s Group Senior Vice President and Retail Business Development Parisa Chatnilbhandu announced, “Siam Piwat, along with key public and private groups, has always been a major force behind the support of Thai fashion industry. This year, we are honored to partner with one of our business alliances from Japan, PARCO, to participate in Asia Fashion Collection (AFC), in addition to several projects and campaigns which we both have collaborated together in the past.”
Asia Fashion Collection (AFC) is a special project developed by the bilateral partnership between Vantan and PARCO to support business alliances in Asia. AFC originally set out the mission to grow the fashion industry by pushing a new-generation group of Asian designers onto the global stage where its board of directors consist of Kaname Murakami, the chief editor of WWD Japan, Masaya Kubota from BEAMS, Daiki Nakane from TOKYO BASE STUDIOUS, Chihiro Sekine from Isetan Mitsukoshi, and Fumiya Yoshinouchi.
Siam Piwat has been a constant support of Thailand’s new generation of designer talents by pushing them onto international platforms. Now, as one of the partners, Siam Piwat has a responsibility to select Thai designers to take part in AFC. In 2019, the chosen Thai brand to participate in AFC was TITAT, led by designer Titat Kuantrakul, where its collection represented Thai heritage through a combination of Thai textile and cotemporary materials. As a result, TITAT was invited to international fashion runways including Asia Fashion Collection: Tokyo Runway Show and Asia Fashion Collection: New York Runway Show, in addition to a fashion event in Taiwan.
This year after shortlisting all potential candidates, Siam Piwat has selected ‘Chalisa’, led by designer Chalisa Anekvorakul who had previously participated in Thai Touch Season 3, a competition event that sought after a new wave of designer talents across clothing, textile, leather goods, shoes, and jewelry categories. The objective of the competition was to elevate Thai designer industry — supported by the Department of Industrial Promotion (DIP).
Chalisa is one of many brands that would represent this year’s Asia Fashion Collection. Among them include Japan’s aNANA tih sayim by Nana Miyashita, ito by Taisho Takenaka / Kurumi Ito, and KTOKA by Shiki Cara Kataoka; Korea’s VEGAN TIGER by Yang Yoona; Taiwan’s SEANNUNG by Liao Shen Nung. Chalisa along with other promising fashion brands from Asia will be featured in two iconic fashion events: Asia Fashion Collection: Tokyo Runway Show and Asia Fashion Collection: New York Runway Show.
This event marks another proud moment for the people of Thailand, especially in the designwear industry as the work of a Thai designer with promising future will be showcased on an international level and receive acknowledgement by the global fashion industry. This is another step of achievement from Siam Piwat to continuously build and support local heroes into global heroes.
Thai designwear and fashion enthusiasts can explore and shop multiple collections from various Thai fashion brands at The Wonder Room and Absolute Siam Store, 1 Fl., Siam Center.