Brand Statement

Dress first in the self you are becoming

She does not wait for a garment to define her. She wears it to arrive, first, at the woman she means to be - this is where LADIAQUA’s gentle resilience begins.

Founder and Chief Designer

Li Zihan

Nearly a decade of private commissions, and the author of the Zihan Couture Design System. A graduate of the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, she trained under the Hong Kong master tailor Tse Chi Kwong, and has long dressed executives, founders and international clients. She is a member of the Fashion Art Committee of the China Fashion Association and of the China Textile Engineering Society.

She works outward from a client’s role, the occasions ahead, the structure of the body and her own sense of beauty - offering a complete commission that covers design, pattern, cloth, technique and the longer arc of a wardrobe. Couture, in her view, is not a matter of making a garment look complex or costly. It is finding the precise, becoming and unrepeatable expression that sits between a woman’s body, her role, the occasion at hand, and what she quietly hopes to feel.

LADIAQUA began in 2018, dedicated to how women dress for significant expression, for decisive moments, and for ordinary days.

LinkedIn　The Zihan Couture Design System　Brand facts

Design Philosophy

Avant-Garde

Undefined, and choosing.

To be forward is not to be novel for its own sake, but to hold an independent judgement.

We understand fashion without following it, and offer several possibilities of structure, material and wear.

Every wearer chooses her own style, and states her own position.

Elegance

Faithful to the choice, and its own measure.

Elegance is not obedience to a given standard, but knowing - after choosing freely - what genuinely suits you.

Exact proportion, restrained expression, and detail judged to the point.

Personality that never tips into noise; strength that shows of its own accord.

Rethinking Couture

We serve not the garment, but the woman who wears it

Couture is usually imagined as intricate craft, precious cloth, handwork and a strong sense of design.

These matter, of course - but they are not the whole of it.

If a garment does not answer a woman’s body, her role, the occasion and what she hopes to feel, it remains at most a fine garment - not couture that belongs to her.

We call such a garment a soft armor - close to the body, and equal to the room.

Soft: comfortable, fluid, following the body and leaving it room to breathe.

Armor: structure through shoulder and waist, exact proportion, judgement of the occasion - a more assured bearing.

Couture: original design, accomplished craft, and a pattern cut for one person alone.