In November last year, during the closing ceremony of the 2010 China Fashion Week, which handed out China's top fashion awards to both veterans and newcomers, Mr Cabbeen received the highest award of local fashion design, the "Jinding" or Golden Thimble award, achieving another peak of his career.

The designer is behind local established menswear brand Cabbeen, and the brand's CEO to boot. He is also the first Chinese mainland designer to release a collection for New York Fashion Week in 2007.

However, few would today imagine that two decades ago, Mr Cabbeen was an ordinary, family raised boy who studied boxing and had nothing to do with the fashion world. "I'm glad I have had my own life designed and controlled," he told the Global Times in an earlier interview.

Born into a poor family in a small town called Shishi in Guangdong Province in South China, Mr Cabbeen, at the age of 6, had to sell small items on the streets with his family members. Thin and somewhat weak in appearance, he was often teased by his classmates, so he took up vigorous training in the manly art of pugilism, or boxing, after graduating from junior high school.

"Since then, I've learned that to avoid being beaten by others, you have to strengthen yourself first; you cannot depend on others." After two years of practice, he developed a strong body and outstanding boxing abilities, but more importantly, he refined his winning spirit.

During these years, Mr Cabbeen also helped out at the small clothes factory the family owned. He used to watch and even give suggestions when tailors designed and cut the  clothes. "My suggestions were often used and they always said I had design talent; this might have been the inspiration for me to go on the path of being a designer."

After several visits to Hong Kong, the center of fashion and economics in South China, he started Cabbeen with some friends in 1989. The brand name "Cabbeen" comes from the cabbeen gun which was "the most masculine and powerful thing in the eyes of my generation."

And Cabbeen has found its unique design, thanks to Mr Cabbeen's efforts: modern, sensible, invigorated by change, free and exotic. And the style has been accepted and praised in both the local and international fashion worlds.

"Let the world understand China's fashion through the brand Cabbeen," he said.