Xiaomi sponsored Maison Margiela’s Fall/Winter 2026 runway show in Shanghai on April 1 — the French fashion house’s first presentation outside Paris in its history.
The tech giant’s co-founder and chief executive Lei Jun posted images of the Margiela-branded YU7 on his Weibo account as the brand prepares to unveil the Performance variant of the SUV later this month.
Xiaomi used the event to market both the YU7 model and its flagship smartphone Xiaomi 17 Pro Max at the event.
Li Tianyuan, Xiaomi‘s head of design and the chief designer behind the SU7 sedan and YU7 SUV, wrote on social media that the fashion show’s invitations came with a tin of Maison Margiela white paint and a brush.
Select invitations also included a Xiaomi 17 Pro Max smartphone and a transparent phone case, with guests invited to hand-paint their cases using Margiela’s signature Bianchetto overpaint technique — turning the device into a one-of-a-kind artwork.
The Show
The April 1 runway presentation — held at a shipyard on the outskirts of Shanghai during Shanghai Fashion Week — was the first time Maison Margiela has shown a collection outside of Paris in its 37-year history.
It was also the debut of creative director Glenn Martens, who joined the house after the departure of John Galliano.
The runway presentation launched a broader initiative called MaisonMargiela/folders — a 12-day, four-city series of exhibitions and immersive experiences across China running through April 13.
Each city showcases a different “house code”: Artisanal in Shanghai, Anonymity in Beijing, Tabi in Chengdu, and Bianchetto in Shenzhen.
As part of the initiative, the house made its internal Dropbox folders — containing archival imagery, project timelines, and working documents — publicly accessible for the first time.
Maison Margiela entered China only in 2019 and now operates 26 stores in the country.
Chief executive Gaetano Sciuto told WWD in February that the “folders” initiative was partly motivated by a need to educate Chinese consumers about the brand’s heritage.
Fashion Sponsor
BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche have long served as official vehicles and sponsors at major fashion weeks and luxury brand events globally.
The Munich-headquartered brand has been the official automotive partner of New York Fashion Week for multiple seasons, supplying fleets of 7 Series sedans and X7 SUVs for VIP transport while hosting branded experiences for designers and influencers.
Mercedes-Benz has sponsored London Fashion Week for more than 16 years and was named the exclusive mobility partner for Paris Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week in 2026, providing the complete vehicle fleet across all runway events.
Porsche was the official electric vehicle of the 2024 Met Gala, transporting guests in its fully electric Macan and has partnered regularly with London Fashion Week for VIP services and after-parties.
Luxury Push
The partnership signals that Chinese electric vehicle makers are entering the luxury fashion sponsorship space that has historically been dominated by European legacy automakers.
The timing is deliberate. Xiaomi‘s YU7 GT, which has not yet begun customer deliveries.
Last June, the standard version of the brand’s SUV secured 240,000 locked-in orders within 18 hours of reservations opening, setting an industry record. The vehicle is positioned in China’s premium SUV segment.
Xiaomi delivered approximately 410,000 electric vehicles in its domestic market in 2025 — its first full year with two models on sale — and is targeting 550,000 deliveries in 2026.
The company’s EV and AI segment recorded its first full-year operating profit of 900 million yuan ($123 million) in 2025, on revenue of 106.1 billion yuan.
