The goal for the INDOCHINE is to combine the richness of visual elements of the South East Asian folklore with the latest European design to create handbags and accessories for a modern metropolitan lifestyle in Asia and beyond.
The brand will build a bridge between East and West, combine the old and the new, create a silk route in contemporary design in it’s winning combination of materials, design elements, graphic patterns and cultural references from both traditions.
It will express the imperial opulence of South East Asian history and the grace of European minimal classics, but it will also carry the humor and the pop art chic of post-modern globalization.
Contemporary materials will be mixed with rich silks, functional shapes with traditional Chinese ornaments, folklore patterns will be imprinted onto the lines of modern cut, cultural symbols not only from garments, but also from ancient painting and interior design will take on a whole new life and meaning in this new lifestyle re-incarnation.
INDOCHINE’s creator Cris Weer has always been the designer of artificial arrangements that would bring out the real emotions. Whether publishing a pop-culture magazine in his early twenties in Munich, shooting fashion internationally later on, or designing and producing fashion accessories in New York and Asia, he tunes on to the finest aesthetic frequencies on the air during right now. A musical teenager, a media addict, a mind alterations engineer, a Bikram body, a blender chef, a bicycle driver, and a curiosity victim, Cris is learning how to juggle.
Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Oceanto the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It includes the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailandand Vietnam.
The term Indochina (originally Indo-China) was coined in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing the cultural influence of Indian civilization and Chinese civilization on the area. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today’s Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam).
The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as indo-chinois in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term Indo-Chinese to describe the area’s inhabitants and their languages in 1808.[1] Scholarly opinions at the time regarding China’s and India’s historical influence over the area were conflicting, and the term was itself controversial—Malte-Brun himself later argued against its use in a later edition of his Universal Geography, reasoning that it over-emphasized Chinese influence, and suggested Chin-Indiainstead.[2] Nevertheless, Indo-China had already gained traction and soon supplanted alternative terms such as Further Indiaand the Peninsula beyond the Ganges. Later, however, as the French established the colony of French Indochina, use of the term became more restricted to the French colony,[3] and today the area is usually referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia.[4]
The Indochinese Peninsula projects southward from the Asian continent proper. It contains several mountain ranges extending from the Tibetan Plateau in the north, interspersed with lowlands largely drained by three major river systems running in a north–south direction: the Irrawaddy (serving Myanmar), the Chao Phraya (in Thailand), and the Mekong (flowing through Northeastern Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). To the south it forms the Malay Peninsula, located on which are Southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia; the latter is variably considered part of Mainland Southeast Asia or separately as part of Maritime Southeast Asia.
Mainland Southeast Asia contrasts with Maritime Southeast Asia, mainly through the division of largely land-based lifestyles in Indochina and the sea-based lifestyles of the Malay and Philippine archipelagos, as well as the dividing line between the Austroasiatic, Tai–Kadai, and Sino-Tibetan languages (spoken in Mainland Southeast Asia) and the Austronesian languages (spoken in Maritime Southeast Asia). The languages of the mainland form the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area: although belonging to several independent language families, they have converged over the course of history and share a number of typological similarities.
The countries of mainland Southeast Asia received cultural influence from both India and China to varying degrees.[6] Some cultures, such as those of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand are influenced mainly by India with a smaller influence from China. Others, such as Vietnam, are more heavily influenced by Chinese culture with only minor cultural influences from India, largely via the Champa civilization that Vietnam conquered during its southward expansion.
Today, most of these countries also show pronounced Western cultural influences, which began during the European imperialism in Asia and colonialism in Southeast Asia.