AW26 On Stage
Chen Linong in SHAO
The Taiwanese singer and actor brought the coated denim of Underworld Royale to a stadium stage in Guangzhou.
On July 19, Taiwanese singer and actor Chen Linong took the stage at the 2026 Guangzhou Pearl River Beer Festival wearing SHAO’s Ombre Coated Pleated Denim Jeans .
Chen opened the festival’s closing-night concert with a seven-song set at Tianhe Sports Center Stadium. The scale was substantial: the venue was configured for an audience of up to 35,000, with an 80-meter main stage, a 20-meter extension and more than 1,000 square meters of screens carrying each movement across the stadium.
Against that production, the jeans held their own. The wide leg read clearly from the stands, while the coated surface caught the light in close-up photographs and fan videos. What began as dark indigo shifted toward black and silver as Chen moved, revealing the depth of the treatment rather than flattening the denim into a single glossy surface.
Chen Linong, Live in Guangzhou
Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Chen first came to national attention through Idol Producer in 2018 before beginning a career that has moved between music, film and television. His solo work has since established him as a major figure in Mandarin pop, with an audience that has continued to follow him from his early group years into his current life as a recording and touring artist.
That audience is unusually visible. Chen’s official Weibo account has more than 20 million followers, but the numbers only explain part of his reach. His fans, known as 赶路人, have grown alongside him, treating each performance as another meeting in a longer shared journey rather than an isolated appearance.
The Guangzhou performance arrived during an active chapter in his music career. Recent releases including 赶路人 and 爱存档 have extended the story of his 青春为名 concert era, giving the festival set the atmosphere of a reunion as much as a public show.
He appeared comfortable with the size of the occasion. From the first song, the performance carried the directness his audience knows: open, energetic and closely connected to the crowd. Even inside a stadium, Chen’s appeal rests on his ability to reduce the distance between performer and fan.
The SHAO jeans suited that presence. They were noticeable without making him look over-styled, and directional without overwhelming the performer wearing them.
The Ombre Coated Pleated Denim Jeans
The Ombre Coated Pleated Denim Jeans were introduced in SHAO’s AW26 collection, UNDERWORLD ROYALE: DARKNESS UNDER NEON LIGHTS.
The design begins with denim and deliberately changes how the material is read. A graduated coating moves across the fabric, giving it the gloss and texture of leather while allowing the original blue denim to remain visible underneath. The effect is uneven by design, moving between indigo, charcoal and black rather than covering the garment in a uniform finish.
The baggy cut gives the jeans their immediate attitude. Volume runs through the full length of the leg, while the pleated construction organizes the excess fabric into deeper folds. The result is generous without becoming shapeless. From the front, the pleats create long interruptions through the coated surface; in motion, they open and collapse around the leg.
That movement became central to how the jeans appeared onstage. Under concert lighting, each fold produced a different level of reflection. Some sections absorbed the light and appeared almost matte. Others flashed with the polish of worn leather. The surface continued to change throughout the performance, particularly when Chen crossed the stage or stepped forward toward the audience.
The jeans were made to be seen from more than one distance. At stadium scale, the width and dark gradient gave the silhouette weight. In closer images, the denim grain, coating and pleating became visible as separate elements. The design remained clear whether viewed through the main screens, a professional camera or a fan’s phone.
A Shared Point of Origin
There is also a quieter connection behind the appearance.
Chen Linong was born in Kaohsiung. SHAO founder and designer Shao Yang was born in Taiwan and raised in Brooklyn, where she later built her career in New York fashion. One entered the public eye through Mandarin pop; the other spent decades developing a design language through tailoring. Their paths are distinct, but they begin from the same island.
The connection does not need to be turned into a grand statement. Its value lies in the specificity of the moment: a Taiwanese artist wearing the work of a Taiwanese-born designer on a major stage in Guangzhou.
Both careers also resist a narrow reading of origin. Chen has built an audience across the Chinese-speaking world through music, cinema and live performance. Yang’s work moves between Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and the visual culture that shaped her across those places. The jeans worn in Guangzhou belong to that movement. They were designed in New York, debuted during Shanghai Fashion Week and entered popular culture through one of Taiwan’s most closely followed young performers.
For SHAO, heritage has never meant reproducing a fixed image of where someone comes from. It appears through memory, attitude and the way a garment travels once it leaves the runway.
From Shanghai Runway to Guangzhou Stage
SHAO presented UNDERWORLD ROYALE: DARKNESS UNDER NEON LIGHTS during Shanghai Fashion Week. The collection drew from the atmosphere of 1990s Hong Kong gangster cinema, looking closely at the way clothing can establish authority, hierarchy and emotional restraint before a character speaks.
Coated denim was an important part of that world. SHAO developed the material until it carried a leather-like sheen, then used gradient treatments and strong trouser shapes to move it away from conventional jeans. On the runway, the resulting pieces appeared beneath neon light alongside sharp suiting and leather outerwear, contributing to the collection’s dark, controlled mood.
Chen’s appearance showed another life for the same design.
Removed from the runway’s cinematic setting, the jeans did not lose their character. The coating became brighter under stadium lighting; the pleated volume responded to the pace of a live performance; the baggy cut sat naturally within Chen’s own stage image. The garment was recognizable as a runway piece, but it did not feel preserved behind glass.
That transition matters. A strong fashion placement is not simply an opportunity to reproduce a look exactly as it first appeared. It shows whether the design can retain its point of view after it enters someone else’s world.
On Chen Linong, the Ombre Coated Pleated Denim Jeans found that second context. They carried the darkness of UNDERWORLD ROYALE into a summer stadium in Guangzhou, worn by an artist whose own presence gave them a different energy.
For the thousands watching inside Tianhe Sports Center, and the larger audience who encountered the performance through photographs and clips afterward, the jeans became part of a night already important to Chen and his 赶路人.
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Ombre Coated Pleated Denim Jeans
Discover the SHAO AW26 denim worn by Chen Linong, from Underworld Royale: Darkness Under Neon Lights.
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