Using silk scarves as his canvas, Sun Qingfeng, the Shanghai designer who founded Woo, introduced a collection inspired by Chinese ink paintings.

Shanghai Fashion Week introduces a showroom for business deals and focuses more on homegrown talent as it takes tips from biggest markets

There was a small but important difference at this year's Shanghai Fashion Week: for the first time, it had an official showroom where deals potentially worth millions of dollars could be struck.

The bold gesture also highlights the grand ambitions of this government-sponsored event as it strives to close ranks with the big four fashion weeks in London, Paris, Milan and New York.

"A fashion week without a showroom would just be a series of shows held for their own sake," said Du Wenxia, one of the organizers. "A showroom provides a platform for real business to take place between buyers and designers."

The 5,000-square-meter showroom was located in an underground parking lot about 3 kilometers from Xintiandi, a downtown cluster of upscale bars and restaurants near a green park where about 50 fashion shows took place in a white tent from April 8 to 15.

Du said he is pinning great hopes on the showroom to bring Shanghai Fashion Week, now in its 13th year, "a step closer to the international level".