China Fashion Week highlights eco-friendly materials, technology

The ongoing China Fashion Week held in Beijing is showcasing a slew of fashion works made with eco-friendly materials and technologies, with designers racing to present the country's intangible cultural heritages in fashion making through innovation.

At the 2025 edition of China Fashion Week, which opened on March 20 and which will run until Friday, designers showcased their works, modeled after ancient crafts such as ethnic minority Miao embroidery, batik, and lacquer painting.

As the show increasingly pursues rising trends like eco-friendliness and technology, fashion industry insiders are also actively integrating traditional Chinese designs with innovation and the notion of sustainable development.

A session of the fashion week held Tuesday showcased works of Yang Chunshan, who takes inspiration from the dragon, bird, and butterfly patterns of the Miao ethnic minority group's Bainiaoyi, a national intangible cultural heritage in China, and the images of Xing Shi, or literally the awakening lion.   

The designers have also incorporated the idea of environmental protection and sustainable development into dyeing, using natural dyes from fruits like apple, pitaya, and mulberry instead of chemical dyes.

Xie Fangming, vice chairman of China Fashion Association, said the designers at the fashion week have been making innovations in areas like materials and dyeing techniques, reflecting the rising trend of promoting the development of fashion industry with state-of-the-art technology and embracing eco-friendliness.

"We've adopted a great number of technologies, including using new materials like soft, glossy, and more lightweight fabrics to develop new products. In addition, we've made lots of efforts to pursue sustainable development, like using recycled materials, recyclable materials, and plant-based dyes," he said.

The fashion week also features robot models sharing the runway with their human counterparts and also robot dogs running in lion dance costumes.

China Fashion Week highlights eco-friendly materials, technology

The two-day 2025 Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Conference concluded on Friday in Shanghai, where multiple globally leading "China solutions" took center stage.

Under the theme "Brain connects the world, wisdom gathers in Shanghai," the event gathered research teams from major universities, leading industry developers, and experts across the BCI sector to strengthen the connection between research, application, and policy.

As part of the event, the first BCI competition featured four categories—fatigue detection, emotion recognition, brain-controlled robotic cars, and brain-controlled robotic arms - with 40 out of nearly 100 teams from across China received prizes.

In the BCI Industry Innovation Exhibition Zone, more than a dozen frontier-tech companies presented cutting-edge technologies ranging from key components to comprehensive system-level solutions.

Exhibits spanned the entire technology chain, from underlying hardware to clinical applications, covering fields such as sleep intervention, mental illness treatment, and rehabilitation for degenerative diseases—highlighting the latest trends in BCI development.

"We completed the first domestic clinical trial this March, and next year we will launch large-scale clinical trials," said an exhibitor named Chen Yaoxu.

Shanghai has established China's first future industry cluster dedicated to BCI technologies. During the conference, several new innovation platforms—including a BCI service platform and a joint laboratory for digital neuromedicine - were inaugurated.

"We are guided by clinical needs and clinical scenarios. At the same time, we are opening high-quality EEG datasets for enterprises to support their algorithm research and guide them in developing concrete products that truly address real-world needs," said Wang Zhuoyao, BCI Project manager of Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

Shanghai conference highlights China's cutting-edge brain-computer interface innovations