Shawn Pan (in the yellow shirt and green slacks) directs his seemingly inexhaustible font of creativity into extravagant evening gown designs. The more numbers-oriented Chien Yu-feng handles marketing and strategy. Their division of labor has clearly worked-Shawnyi, their clothing label, has won itself a place on the world's high-fashion catwalks. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

The area around the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel on Taipei's Chungshan North Road is a fashion war zone where top brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton vie for supremacy. The three-year-old Shawnyi label is a relatively new entrant into the fray, but has already won the hearts of numerous local glamour girls, celebrities, and VIPs, pop star A-mei and movie star Terri Kwan among them. Both have worn custom-made Shawnyi outfits to gala events.

The Taiwanese designers who have created their own clothing labels over the last 20 years have generally attempted to go global by building out from a base in Taiwan and working their way toward Paris. Shiatzy Chen is a case in point. But Shawnyi took a different approach. Its founders, Chien Yu-feng and Shawn Pan, are both children of the 1970s who studied and worked in the highly competitive Paris fashion scene for eight years before returning to take on the Taiwanese market. Will their Paris-to-Taipei strategy ultimately help East Asian fashion designers achieve greater prominence on international catwalks?

Racks of clothing stand beneath glittering chandeliers in Shawnyi's flagship Taipei store. It's like a huge walk-in closet out of every woman's fantasies, filled with the kind of resplendent outfits you'd expect to see on a fairytale princess.

One formal gown with spaghetti straps features a bodice that shapes and supports the bustline paired with a finely embroidered tutu-like skirt, giving its wearer the elegant look of a sashaying ballerina. The gown is very finely made-the embroidery alone required a month of hand stitching-and sells for NT$150,000.

All Chien and Pan's work, whether a chiffon evening gown decorated with Swarovski crystal, a simply-cut outfit, or a pure-white jacket, demonstrates their mastery of complex beaded embroidery, lace fringes, and haute-couture concepts. When they pair their sexy, feminine creations with ultramodern handbags, belts, and other accessories, it's hard to imagine that they sprang from the minds of two men in their thirties.