Autumn/Winter 2025 - The Ancient Tea Horse Road
Through thousands of years, porters, caravans and mule teams carved out a trade route barely over two feet wide across the vast mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.
The “Tea-Horse Trade” lasting for more than two millennia transformed this ancient network of three major routes into a vital passage connecting southwestern China, Tibetan regions and even neighboring Asian countries. Tea, silk, cordyceps, and safflower traveled on horseback across valleys—gifts of nature that, through human ingenuity, became symbols of the daily lives of people in both Tibetan and Han regions.
As a fashion traveler on horseback, SEAN SUEN 骧孙 attempts in the AUTUMN/Winter 2025 collection to connect the basin and the plateau through clothing. The name “骧” refers to a gallant horse with a white right hind leg, also symbolizing a leap upward. The brand has always sought to use garments as a cultural vehicle, promoting the exchange between East and West on both physical and spiritual levels. Looking back at the thousand-year-old caravans accompanied by the crisp sounds of horse bells, people today still see the same bright moon above the mountains.
At the moment the bells ring, SEAN SUEN’s Autumn/Winter 2025 collection retraces this millennia-old route through multiple perspectives—the natural eye, the human gaze, and the contemplation of all living creatures—tracing and uncovering its rich symbolism and unique visual identity. Along the way, the blending of Han, Tibetan, Naxi, Bai, and other ethnic cultures created the diverse spirituality and aesthetics that form the soul of the Tea Horse Road. This season, we reinterpret the spirit of the road and its multi-ethnic aesthetics through the language of fashion, building a grand avenue that transcends the boundaries of time and space, connecting the past and the future.
Drawing colors from the landscapes traversed by the Tea Horse Road, SEAN SUEN restores the majesty of the plateau. In the face of unique terrain and nature’s trials, humans learned to find vitality amid towering mountains and steep ridges by resembling birds and animals, plants and mountains. Every courier station and village along the road represents humble yet practical adaptations to the natural environment. For the AUTUMN/Winter 2025 collection, we carefully combine natural materials like wool and leather with modern technological fabrics, balancing functionality and comfort as a response to the rugged, simple lifestyle of the ancient road—and as a reflection and preview of future ways of living. By exploring the traditional clothing, customs, and beliefs of the diverse ethnic groups along the route, we use fashion as a metaphorical steed, creatively retracing the Tea Horse Road.
Where we tread today, will be tomorrow’s Tea Horse Road.
