Brands with potential
For most Chinese consumers just learning the "luxury" concept, the items they want and have become familiar with are fashion products. Clothes, shoes, bags, watches and jewelry are on most wish lists.
But designing and producing these items are not China's strong suit. Due to differences in culture and custom, a typical list of luxury items in China is vastly different: liquor, tobacco, porcelain, furniture and tea. As a result, many firms that intend to create luxury fashion items fail to compete with brands from France and Italy and resort to copying their ideas.
"I am not producing a Chinese Cartier but a jewelry brand that belongs to China and speaks an international language," Wang Yunhe, president of Zhaoyi Jewelry, said on sina.com. Emerald with traditional Chinese handicrafts sounds a bit old-fashioned. But putting it into a modernized design and package can turn the "antique" into a fashionable luxury item with Chinese style. More importantly, it imbues the product with the Chinese culture of the emerald.
Qeelin, also a jewelry brand, provides China with another possibility of selling luxury items to the world. Its approach is to open a store in Paris targeting the foreign market firstly and directly. After seeing so many top luxury brands' stores in Paris, Chen Ruilin, the founder and designer of Qeelin, decided to become neighbors with them. Chen's shop is decorated with a bit of Buddhist style and each item purchased is boxed in the shop's signature look.
These brands along with Shanghai Tang, born in Hong Kong and now has dozens of stores around the world; and Franz Collection, originally from Taiwan and now selling fine porcelain in 56 countries, are all examples of companies profiting from China's well-established reputation for certain specialties.
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