Taiwan is quietly becoming the newest go-to place for emerging design talent.Few international brands and retailers have discovered it - yet. But when they do, they’ll find a rich source of talent designers who are creating collections that have a unique East-West sensibility - in a way that is sophisticated and modern (without being forced and ending up looking costumey).East-West Market AppealAt a time when being able to sell into global markets (and that now includes a growing number of Asian markets) is becoming vital, Taiwan’s designers are producing intelligent, well thought out collections that will appeal to consumers ranging from sophisticated young professionals to stylish, more mature career customers.This is a market that is currently vastly underserved, and is hungry for fashionable, high quality, affordable (and we don’t mean cheap) apparel that’s not teenage-trendy. Most Western brands have no interest in this market, preferring to focus on Millennials and Gen Z. However more mature customers represent a huge - and growing - market. Taiwanese brands could score big here.Many of Tawian’s leading brands focus on using high quality, creative fabrics and then working them into garments that have the kind of clean design that today’s consumer wants - simplicity without being too simple. It takes a skilled designer to be able to get this right. Many of Taiwan’s brands are getting high marks here.Despite Taiwan’s strength as a producer of functional fabrics, fashion designers have not limited themselves to activewear.In fact, the real strength of Taiwan’s fashion sector is smart casual, where performance might or might not be factor. Likewise, although Taiwan is known for its synthetic fabrics, designers show an equal if not greater preference for natural fiber fabrics.At the recent Taipei in Style (Oct 4-6), both young designers and established brands presented collections that were innovative and had good market potential.The event included the annual Fashion Design Awards that showcased surprisingly mature design talent - a welcome relief from the typical young designer collections that try too hard to make a ‘statement’ and simply end up looking immature.Taiwan’s Time is NowThe collections from both rising stars and established brands were poised to be serious contenders in the mid-to-higher tier retail arena. Taiwanese designers presented collections with smart casual through to sporty themes. Most collections featured clean lines, yet with enough detail to be interesting. Color palettes pulled from nature, with pops of sharp hues as accents.Fabric choices reflected Taiwan's strength as a producer of sophisticated, high end fabrics - both for performance/function, as well as interesting fashion fabrics.The event, which this year combined Taipei in Style with Taiwan Fashion Week, offered two full days of catwalk shows along side a boutique-sized exhibition of apparel and accessories brands.It was just the right size to be easy to work and friendly, providing a great opportunity to discover Taiwan’s fashion brands.We’ve been watching Taiwan’s design talent develop for many years, and now is the right time to start bringing Taiwanese brands into the international fashion market.