Couturier Grace Chen, a fashion designer to China's businessmen and elite, wants to expand her studio to a complete fashion label.
She designs women's clothing ranging from business suits to evening gowns. Her studio is located in the former French Concession.
Her gowns are classic and to describe Grace Chen's design of gowns, she said, "It makes a woman feel like a princess. It's a cliché, but that's how it is."
Chen's clientele includes China's first lady Peng Liyuan, Cheng Hong, the wife of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and Fu Ying, the former ambassador to the United Kingdom. Celebrity clients include Helen Mirren and Oprah Winfrey.
She said, "I'm just aiming to make these women feel beautiful, the best they can feel."
She studied at the New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and worked in Halston in New York before moving to Los Angeles. She then created designs for Tadashi Shoji.
Designer Grace Chen then left Los Angeles for China to expand the Tadashi Shoji business there, and in 2009, she came home to Shanghai to build her own fashion label.
"I was the first Mainland Chinese graduate from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology," she said.
She credits the mixture of Hollywood glamor and Asian culture in her designs.
"In Hollywood, there are more events, red carpets, and agencies to promote celebrity fashion," she notes. "There's a consistency of style for an [individual] star with what she wants to achieve in her look, whereas the Chinese try to fit a common standard."
The designs of Grace Chen continue to be more popular and she intends to reach new goals for her fashion line.
She said, "From now on, we're becoming a proper brand and not just a couture studio and label."