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China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)

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  • djrajio
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 143

    China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)

    China's Designers Become Fashion Force

    By BLYTHE YEE and JUYING QIN
    September 29, 2006

    At her couture house in Beijing, Mary Ma, a former model, is busy creating opulent gowns for Chinese socialites and actresses under the Maryma label.

    From a base in Shanghai, Uma Wang is hoping to soon add boutiques in Germany and the Netherlands to those in the United Kingdom that stock her collection of high-end cashmere knits.

    And in the southern city of Guangzhou, Ma Ke -- who started her own label partly because she couldn't find anything she wanted to wear -- is the creative force behind Exception de Mixmind, a casual wear brand that has stores from Harbin to Zhuhai.

    Designers like these three women, all in their 30s, are beginning to change the way China dresses the world. Having turned itself into a factory floor for the global apparel industry, China -- through a new generation of young designers -- is positioning itself to become a force in creating clothes, not just manufacturing them.

    The international fashion industry is paying more attention to China's design talent, says Xiao Yan, deputy editorial director of fashion magazine Elle China. On the world style scene, though, "Chinese designers are still in the very early stage," she adds.

    Some elements are falling into place to give China's design industry critical mass. Xie Feng will be the first Chinese designer to open a Paris fashion week when he debuts there with his label Jefen on Sunday. Universities are bolstering their design offerings to overcome the talent shortage. Moves also are afoot to foster the kinds of strong ties between design schools and the fashion industry that exist in the U.S. and Europe.

    But Chinese designer wannabes say that at home they are constrained by a domestic market that -- while potentially huge in size -- generally isn't yet embracing cutting-edge fashion. And abroad, they say they are grappling with China's industrial image, and the fact no homegrown Chinese designer has scored the international name recognition of Japan's Yohji Yamamoto, or Vivienne Tam, who grew up in Hong Kong but built her business in New York.

    Ms. Wang recalls her first attempt to sell her line in London in 2004, which failed. "They thought, 'China is only good for factories, for making clothes...it's not creative,' " says the 34-year-old designer.

    While she's now gaining traction overseas -- her sweaters sell for several hundred pounds each in the United Kingdom -- Ms. Wang is frustrated with the local market despite its appetite for new clothes. According to China's National Commercial Information Centre, which tracks 500 urban department stores, apparel sales jumped to $7.3 billion in 2005 from $2.6 billion in 2000. But, "if you design something unusual," Ms. Wang sighs, "it's not good for (the) China" market.

    Yet, a radical design vision is the very thing that catapulted Japan, arguably Asia's most influential player on the world fashion scene, onto the international style radar, says Bonnie English, a senior lecturer at Queensland College of Art in Australia, who specializes in Japanese design. When Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo stormed onto Paris runways in the early '80s, their work grabbed headlines because it was "just so different...a form of antifashion and anti-Western fashion," she says.

    Japan also benefited from its access to global fashion, Ms. English adds. More international labels such as H&M and Zara now are joining luxury houses such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci in China's big cities. But the influx of foreign brands can be a double-edged sword. Indeed, notes Elle China magazine's Ms. Xiao, a lot of Chinese brands have cropped up, but many "copy the international designs," she says, because "that's easy to sell."

    Wang Qing, head of the China Fashion Designers Association, says that while there is "a lack of talented and top-notch designers," interest in opening more fashion-design schools is running "hot in China." Mr. Wang says the number of fashion design majors currently registered with his association has been steadily growing since 2001 and now approaches 200. But only 30 institutes appear to offer high-quality courses, he says.

    Besides universities, which have been beefing up their fashion department offerings over the past six years or so, there are private institutions, including those run by Singapore's Raffles Education Corp., which opened its first design school in Shanghai in 1994 and now has eight in China. One of the latest schools to add a fashion major is Beijing's prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts, or CAFA, which graduated its first-ever fashion design class in July.

    Over time, predicts Cao Ran, a fashion lecturer at CAFA, Chinese consumers will start looking for alternatives to the foreign labels that dominate the high-price, high-fashion segment of the market: "That is the space for our students."

    She and others, though, think the Chinese approach to teaching design needs honing. Most instructors "don't care where you get the inspiration from and how you develop the inspiration," says Ms. Cao, recalling how her own training in Milan stressed methods, not just finished garments.

    When Ms. Wang wanted to kick-start her career after eight years designing for labels in China, she headed to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. And although Mary Ma, the couturier, caters to mostly Chinese clients, she values overseas experience in her staff: "Design is all about how huge a perspective a designer can embrace," Ms. Ma says.

    Working for an international apparel company can be a big career booster. More international brands are setting up design studios in China to take advantage of the proximity to their manufacturing operations. While they generally send expatriate designers, they also hire local designers in junior positions, says Stephen Dixon, regional director for Greater China of Kurt Salmon Management Consulting, which specializes in the retail industry. With time, he speculates, those designers will assume more senior roles: "They speak the language...they can work with manufacturers much easier." Plus, he adds, they don't demand expat compensation packages.

    For designers who don't speak English, however, those jobs are nearly impossible to get, says Ms. Wang. She speaks English, and has a business partner in London who's invested some $350,000 in her line. Most aren't so lucky: "They want to build a brand, but they have no money. They (want) a good job (with an international brand) but they cannot speak English -- there are so many designers like that," she says. "Some designers are really good, but have no chance."

    Ms. Wang has yet to crack her home market, but she's hoping to start selling in Shanghai next year. The two Misses Ma, who aren't related, are among a handful of designers who have made it in China with their own labels.

    Mary Ma has carved out a high-end niche where she can leverage her network of affluent contacts in China. (Celebrities and diplomats' spouses are among her clientele.) In China, she's a society A-lister who pops up frequently in fashion glossies. And while she hopes to break into Europe (she's been commissioned to design a line of dresses for a Montblanc jewelry show in Geneva next February), the couture business is all about connections, she says.

    Ma Ke has targeted a different tier of the domestic apparel market with her Exception de Mixmind brand of casual wear, known for its urban and slightly earthy aesthetic. From a single store opened in Guangzhou in 1996, the chain now has shops in 29 Chinese cities.

    After graduating from design school in 1994, she turned down several jobs because they were "too commercial" and didn't offer much scope for creativity, she says. Now, Mixmind is one of just a handful of homegrown brands in Shanghai's Citic Square mall, which has boutiques from such upscale labels as Chloe. Branding experts say one thing that is holding other Chinese labels back is something the fashion industry has in common with a lot of other Chinese industries: lack of marketing expertise.

    "They might think a billboard will do it," says Mary Yan Yan Chan, Hong Kong-based founder and director of StyleCentral Ltd., and an exclusive agent of trend forecaster Peclers Paris. In China, fashion ads often show a Caucasian posing in the wares of a local brand, implying that the clothes are good enough for Westerners, she says. "That's very old-school thinking and that's been the traditional type of advertising."

    The overseas sell is even harder, given China's image. "The 'Made in China' brand might work for a mobile phone," says Martin Roll, chief executive of brand consultancy VentureRepublic in Singapore. "But when it comes to an aspirational product like fashion, which has a huge emotional value, you need to make sure you get the story right."

    One way to fast track the design end of China's fashion industry might be what Andrew Grant, a director of management consultancy McKinsey & Co.'s Greater China offices, calls "hybrid vigor" -- pairing with a Western company, such as Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's personal computer business, which could be instrumental in boosting a Chinese brand's profile world-wide.

    Another is to beef up the links between industry and academia, he says. Hong Kong lifestyle brand Shanghai Tang is one company pursuing such a tie. It sponsored the graduation runway show of CAFA's first fashion class in Beijing and plans to offer two graduates' creations -- contemporary cheongsams -- in its ready-to-wear collection in January.

    "I've never seen students with this depth of thinking," says Shanghai Tang creative director Joanne Ooi. "I am very, very heartened."

  • xcoldricex
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 1347

    #2
    Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)



    thanks for the article rajio. i didn't see much of anything of interest in china- unless it was a knock-off of something else- even in hong kong.



    "They might think a billboard will do it," says Mary Yan Yan Chan, Hong
    Kong-based founder and director of StyleCentral Ltd., and an exclusive
    agent of trend forecaster Peclers Paris. In China, fashion ads often
    show a Caucasian posing in the wares of a local brand, implying that
    the clothes are good enough for Westerners, she says. "That's very
    old-school thinking and that's been the traditional type of
    advertising."



    god this is so true... and the western models they hire are really ugly too...



    anyhow, i'd really like to see something come out of china- something that doesn't rely on reworking traditional chinese dress (shanghai tang)...

    Comment

    • Honey~Blade
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2006
      • 118

      #3
      Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)

      Last time I was in China, I didn't notice much either. There ain't enough crazy people willing to step up. I think the education system really turns people into robots there as well.

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)



        Interesting article, thanks. I am sure their time will come. I am only afraid that some of them will have to stoop down to making ethnic caricatures in order to penetrate Western markets, the way Russian Denis Simachev did.



        As far as made in China stigma - they will just have to prove otherwise by producing quality clothes, the way Shanghai Tang has been doing.

        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • xcoldricex
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2006
          • 1347

          #5
          Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)



          i had a nice long coat made in china. designed it and selected the fabrics.



          they're some good tailors in beijing that are doing some cool things. there's one woman that does a lot of experimentation with fabrics (like blowing smoke on silk to get different effects)- but her name escapes me... anyway, i had this done- it fits slimmer than it looks:



          Comment

          • Honey~Blade
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2006
            • 118

            #6
            Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)

            ^ that's totally awesome xcoldricex! The tailor sounds like a really happening person, would you by any chance recall the area where she is located? I might like to pay her a visit if I ever go there :pAlso is there any chance of there being a tailor like that in Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Shanghai?

            Comment

            • xcoldricex
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2006
              • 1347

              #7
              Re: China's Designers Become Fashion Force (WSJ Article)



              chinese designers in paris



              http://www.ateliergx.com/

              Comment

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