Xiu.com screenshot | Source: Xiu.com

We continue this week’s focus on e-commerce by turning our attention on how to succeed in the rapidly expanding e-commerce market in China. 

BEIJING, China — According to a recent report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), China is set to become the world’s next e-commerce superpower, surpassing the United States to become the largest online commerce market in the world, with an estimated market size of $300 billion. In 2006, less than 10 percent of China’s urban population shopped online. By 2015, that figure is expected to have quadrupled, reaching 44 percent, while the total number of e-commerce shoppers in China will grow to 329 million.

What’s more, according to BCG, China’s massive geography, a middle class that is rapidly expanding beyond the country’s largest cities, and widely accessible, heavily subsidised high-speed internet — broadband in China costs just $10 per month, compared with $30 per month in India — make the country unusually fertile ground for e-commerce, with internet access far outpacing the reach of physical retailers. Indeed, up to a quarter of e-commerce demand in China is for products consumers cannot find in physical stores, with apparel and skincare amongst the fastest-growing online categories.

But for fashion companies aiming to crack the online retail opportunity in China, it’s imperative to understand that the country’s e-commerce market is very different to established markets in the United States and Europe and that online shoppers in China — much younger, on average, than their Western counterparts — have different expectations, preferences and patterns of behaviour.

“Chinese consumers’ recognition and preference for fashion brands is quite different from mature markets,” said George Wenhong Ji, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based fashion e-tailer Xiu.com, which sells international luxury brands like Gucci and Chanel, and last year raised $100 million in a second round of funding from elite venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

“Fashion brands that are not so popular could be received very well in China and vice versa. [Chinese consumers] are still price-sensitive and have poor loyalty towards brands,” said Ji. “It’s important to study Chinese consumers’ income and expenditure – how much money they earn in different cities of China and how much they would spend on fashion; how much they would spend on fashion online,” he continued.

According to the BCG report, 7 percent of online shoppers are responsible for 40 percent of online spending. For fashion retailers, the importance of these “superheavy spenders,” each of whom complete over 50 transactions a year and have a preference for heavily branded goods, cannot be underscored enough.

To entice superheavy spenders, first and foremost, it’s vital for online retailers to get the product mix right, Morgan Tan, vice-president of e-business at Lane Crawford, told BoF. These high-spending consumers are looking for must-have seasonal items that aren’t available elsewhere, she said, noting a growing demand for niche labels. Indeed, Xiu.com, which last year recorded sales of approximately $150 million, plans to carry more international and Chinese labels that competitors do not offer, while The Corner, a luxury e-tailer owned by the Yoox Group, which operates a China-specific site at thecorner.com.cn, recently launched The Vogue Talents Corner, an initiative promoting less known emerging designers in collaboration with Vogue China.

Compared to their counterparts in the West, affluent consumers in China have a lower baseline knowledge of fashion products and are ravenous for information, an opportunity for retailers to engage them more frequently with content and advice. “It is about engaging her daily,” said Jeff Yurcisin, president of Shopbop.com, which recently launched a site in Chinese. “We send out daily emails to our customers, so she gets her fashion fix every day,” he continued. “The opportunity is for us to be a personal stylist, to spend more time telling stories and introduce her to brands that the American customer already knows.”

But despite their hunger for information, Chinese consumers are distrustful of online retailers. Amongst the world’s most highly social shoppers, Chinese shoppers trust information and recommendations from their peers on blogs, social networks and user review sites far more than official brand communications. In fact, according to BCG, only 19 percent of Chinese consumers even visit official brand sites, as compared to between 41 and 60 percent in Japan, the US and Europe.

“Online shoppers in China are much more wary than the US and UK,” said Fabienne Pellegrin, Asia business development director for Salvatore Ferragamo, who also oversees the brand’s digital development. “They need more information than the average online shopper. There’s so much abuse online, so they are programmed not to trust anything,” she continued, emphasising the importance of peer recommendations and user reviews. In fact, over 40 percent of Chinese shoppers surveyed by BCG had both read and posted online product reviews, nearly double the rate in the US. “Encourage [consumers] to write reviews about your product because so many people read them,” advised Ms. Pellegrin.

As in the West, a high level of customer service is another essential part of a successful China e-commerce strategy. “[Chinese consumers] will become loyal to an e-commerce company because of high quality service,” said Mr. Ji. “It’s about making the online shopping experience as convenient and risk-free as possible with reliable deliveries and free returns,” said Ms. Tan. “Unlike many other online retailers, we offer a multi-channel approach for customers that allows them to collect or return their order to our stores,” she continued.

While shipping costs are low, China has a poor delivery network dominated by local, independent couriers that are neither efficient nor reliable, a major hurdle for online retailers. To address the issue, The Corner has partnered with international shipping service Fedex to provide couriers who wait at customers’ doorsteps while they try on their purchases and facilitate on-the-spot returns. The Corner also leverages sophisticated RFID technology to seal packages with anti-counterfeit microchips (according to the BCG study, 45 percent of shoppers worry that their goods will be swapped for fakes while in transit).

Alongside delivery-related services that lower risk and make shopping more convenient, affluent Chinese consumers also expect rewards for their loyalty. As a result, VIP reward programmes or other special incentives are critical to success. For example, VIP shoppers on Xiu.com can view fashion shows and pre-order next season’s products months in advance of others. “We find that for more high-end customers, they value additional services, such as VIP sales alerts, pre-order, seasonal gifts,” said Mr. Ji.

But for international retailers targeting China’s fashion e-commerce market, consistently delivering a high quality experience that’s localised to the needs, behaviours and expectations of Chinese consumers often means investing in China-based operations. Indeed, while Net-a-Porter has long shipped to China, the company recently announced that it would open a distribution centre in Hong Kong this summer to better serve the Asia-Pacific region.

“Throughout 2010, we set up local operations — an office and logistics centre — in Shanghai to run the business locally,” said Federico Marchetti, founder and CEO of Yoox Group. “A local structure and local team ensures we provide Chinese customers with a unique online shopping experience characterised by completely localised, best-in-class customer service,” he added. “Although e-commerce enables brands to have an international distribution, the online shopping experience still works better at a local level.”

Ultimately, a successful China e-commerce strategy is composed of the same fundamental elements that matter in the West: engaging content, great customer service, dependable deliveries and easy returns are all critical. But in China, these elements count in different ways and weights, with editorial-style content, peer-to-peer persuasion, risk-free deliveries and rewards programmes carrying particular importance.

Divia Harilela is an associate contributor at The Business of Fashion.

Miu Miu Event in Shanghai, China | Source: Miu Miu

BEIJING, China — According to Bain & Company, a consulting firm, China is currently the world’s second largest consumer of luxury goods, ahead of Japan and second only to the United States. McKinsey forecasts that by 2015, China will account for around 20 per cent, or 180 billion renminbi (US$27 billion) of global luxury sales.

With numbers like these, it’s no surprise that a major land grab is underway amongst fashion brands eager to open new stores in China. But rapid retail expansion is only one part of a comprehensive strategy for seizing the opportunity in China. Equally important are a focused approach to local PR and product strategy.

Local PR and Marketing

Currently, the most popular way for brands to build local awareness is to host large-scale, buzz-friendly events like Miu Miu’s recent 1940s-themed fashion show at Shanghai’s Park Hyatt Hotel. But while grand events like this certainly make a statement about a house’s spending power, some experts question their long-term impact. “It’s burning money — you feed a lot of people who are not your clients, then there’s another party and people forget,” said former Richemont Asia Pacific CEO and luxury consultant Francis Gouten. “It’s better to tailor make events to hit the potential clients [on a more personal level] such as VIP dinners.”

Also effective are educational activities, Gouten continued, like the kind of historical or archival exhibitions that have been used by brands like Comme des Garçons and Hermès. “We do lots of levels of education,” said Paul Cadman, CEO of Ferragamo Asia Pacific. “We’ve done several events where we imported part of our museum from Florence or brought artisans over,” he continued. “Consumers are hungry for information and we need to let them know why our product is luxurious or has a certain value. If you see what the brand is about, it’s likely you will have an emotional connection.”

“I believe the goal is to get the consumer to understand the concept of the brand,” added Nicole Chen, founder of NC Style, a consultancy that helps brands launch in China and counts Y-3 among its clients. “It’s not just about the name — you need to give people a reason to want to buy it,” she continued. “I believe Chanel became a bigger success in China because of the two films released about Coco Chanel. People in China really respect the stories and the history.”

In particular, stories that focus on craftsmanship or savoir faire resonate with Chinese consumers, said semiology expert and consultant Laurence Lim. “Certain products such as perfumes and diamonds have prestige because the Chinese still do not have the craftsmanship to make these products,” he said. “So it’s important that luxury brands communicate about their craftsmanship and differentiate themselves from other brands. There’s an appeal in how these products are made. This strategy is working like crazy.”

Tailored Product and Merchandising Strategies

When it comes to product strategies, a number of brands have experimented with China-inspired items, from Zegna’s mandarin-collared shirts to Ralph Lauren’s cheongsams. But experts advise that it is best to avoid these clichés.

“You cannot change your product completely,” said Gouten. “It’s like Shanghai Tang having a mandarin collar — it’s just a gimmick,” he continued. “[The Chinese] want to buy the name, the product and the quality. You have to be yourself, come with your DNA and be as strong as you are in your own country. Don’t try to change your identity and don’t try to be special for China.”

“They don’t want China-inspired products,” agreed Lim. “But you cannot generalise, it’s a balance,” he continued. “Brands can do unique products, but you need to keep the Western perception of luxury.” There are less blatant ways to connect product to Chinese culture, advised Chen, pointing to artistic collaborations like those recently used by Diane Von Furstenberg and Dior. “Try to bring the Chinese culture into your brand, but not through obvious ways such as Chinese design,” she underscored.

Instead, brands should focus on promoting their most unique and defining products: Chanel’s 2.55 handbag, Burberry’s trench coat, Cartier’s tank watch or Ferragamo’s Varina ballet flats, for example, that are an iconic part of the company’s history.

Some firms, like shoe designer Rupert Sanderson and sunglasses manufacturer Luxottica, are making localized products in a way that’s less about design and more about fit. “I think right now it is a smart way,” said Chen. “Many Western brands have certain cuts and styles that don’t suit the Chinese consumer.”

In terms of merchandising, there are certain product categories that offer significant opportunities in China. In a culture where gifting is prevalent, small leather goods are extremely important, while status-oriented items like expensive watches and monogram products (logos still rule the roost) also resonate strongly. Thanks to the Little Emperor Syndrome, a by-product of China’s one-child policy, childrenswear is also an important product category. Indeed, Burberry’s new Beijing flagship houses the brand’s biggest ever childrenswear department. Luggage is also a key focus. “We know people are travelling more than they did, especially in China, so the luggage business is a category that has developed dramatically,” said Cadman.

But overall, it’s important to note that the China market is evolving extremely fast. “Historically, Chinese men didn’t like to wear suede shoes but now they do,” noted Cadman. In this context of rapid change, it’s critical that brands keep a sharp eye on evolving client tastes, closely monitor their sales figures and be prepared to adapt their strategies and execute accordingly.

Divia Harilela is an editor and writer based in Hong Kong. She is founder of The D’Vine, a blog focused on the luxury and fashion market in Asia.

Screenshot of Gucci on Weibo | Source: Gucci

SHANGHAI, China — In the parallel internet universe behind China’s “Great Firewall,” where search engine Baidu is Google, etailer Dangdang is Amazon, and video sharing site Youku is YouTube, the microblogging service Weibo (pronounced Way-Bwah, literally microblog) — launched in August 2009 by online media giant Sina Corp — has emerged as the country’s answer to Twitter.

According to brokerage and investment group CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, China is set to become the world’s largest luxury market with demand from “Greater Chinese” to account for 44 percent of global sales by 2020. Analysts are also seeing a surge in China’s internet usage: according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center, by the end of 2010, there were over 457 million Chinese internet users.

Set against staggering statistics like these, Twitter-like Weibo — a platform with over 100 million users (growing at 10 million users a month) and the centrepiece of Sina Corp’s transition from a Web 1.0 news and entertainment portal to a social networking service — has recently captured the attention of the world’s leading fashion brands.

Back in October 2010, Louis Vuitton became the first global fashion brand to launch a Weibo presence. But in the first quarter of 2011, we’ve seen a rapidfire build up of fashion brands on Weibo, with Chanel, Gucci and Burberry all launching accounts within the first few weeks of the year.

Much like Twitter, Weibo lets users post messages of up to 140 characters, which in Mandarin Chinese is substantial, allowing for more detailed expression than is possible in English on Twitter. Weibo also offers threaded discussions, voting and polling features, and events, as well as Tumblr-like features which make it easy to post photos, videos and audio. Indeed, Weibo’s product roadmap points towards a robust Facebook-like social networking site, with expanded profiles and location-based services, according to a highly informative presentation put together by Bill Bishop, a US-born, Beijing-based China expert, blogger, investor and advisor to several startups.

While Weibo may not be the largest microblogging service in China — Tencent claims more microblog users than Sina Weibo — according to Mr. Bishop, the platform’s users are higher quality that Tencent’s “great unwashed” and include movie stars, singers and other members of the media and business elite. Like Twitter and Tumblr in the West, fashion has also emerged as an important topic on the Chinese platform, ranking 9th overall in terms of most popular profile tags.

But Weibo is largely personality-driven and the top ten Weibo accounts are all maintained by celebrities and other prominent individuals (Chinese actress Yao Chen currently holds the most popular account in China, with over six million followers). As a result, the personal accounts of fashion industry figures often attract more followers than the accounts of large fashion media brands. For example, Vogue China’s editor-in-chief, Angelica Cheung with almost 200,000 followers, has a higher following than both of the magazine’s two official accounts — one for print, the other for online. Chinese fashion models Liu Wen and Sun Fei Fei have followings that well exceed half a million, while fashion glossies like Harper’s Bazaar and Elle  have attracted less than a quarter of a million followers.

But for fashion media brands, Weibo is more than a place to build a following. It’s also an incredibly powerful real-time research and testing tool. “You can immediately see how the market and your following will respond to something if you want to do research,” says senior fashion editor of Elle China, Leaf Greener. Indeed, Weibo is a great way to test which celebrity or model will work best for a front cover, editorial spread or ad campaign.

The value of a Weibo account depends on a brand’s objectives, emphasized Jeffrey Sprafkin, managing partner at China-based media industry consulting firm Media Pacific. “If it’s awareness, there’s probably value there … If it’s for acquisition or activation, it’s got to be a part of a broader strategy,” he continued. “Maybe it’s tied to an event.”

Chanel has done just that, launching a Weibo account specifically for Culture Chanel, the brand’s current exhibition at Shanghai’s Museum of Contemporary Art. But while the content is nicely focused, with imagery and text relating to the exhibit, the account had only attracted 18,540 followers at the time of writing.

Gucci, another global luxury fashion brand to embrace Weibo, joined the platform on January 26th and has since developed a following of 16,195 fans. But Gucci believes that there is tremendous potential in Weibo. Robert Triefus,  worldwide director of marketing and communications at Gucci, noted that “55 percent of Chinese consumers like to read the history of their preferred luxury brand online, especially European brands,” adding that “50 percent of Chinese consumers like to share images and information on luxury brands.”

At the moment, it may be too soon to predict how Weibo will evolve — and what other alternatives may surface. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Sina in Beijing over the winter holidays, sparking much local speculation on the platform’s future direction, while Sina’s CEO, Charles Chao, intends to improve the service’s “stickiness” and has hinted at a bilingual, Chinese-English offering. But according to a recent blog post by Gady Epstein, Beijing bureau chief at Forbes, “China is in a very advertising-heavy brand-building phase with a potentially outsized e-commerce market, and the momentum for both brand-building and e-commerce ad dollars is in the direction of social networks.”

With this in mind, Weibo may well be the perfect place for global fashion brands to test and learn what resonates with their Chinese internet fan base and prepare for the future.

Elizabeth Peng is an Associate Contributor at The Business of Fashion.

Hung Huang | Source: Hung Huang

BEIJING, China — Imagine a brand new China where modern women reject increasingly ubiquitous foreign luxury goods, and their counterfeit reproductions, in favour of raiment designed by local Chinese fashion talent. This is the vision that Hung Huang, the entrepreneurial CEO of China Interactive Media Group and the oft-described “Oprah of China” — she also runs fashion magazine iLook, frequently appears on television as a cultural critic and pens one of China’s most widely read blogs — aims to achieve with her retail venture Brand New China, or BNC, a platform designed to encourage high quality, independent Chinese fashion.

BNC occupies a 540-square-meter space in Beijing’s hip Sanlitun area, home to global brands like Balmain, Balenciaga, Lanvin and Comme des Garçons’ new I.T Market. But, as a rule, the boutique only stocks fashion, accessories and lifestyle items made by emerging Chinese designers, whose products are sold on consignment.

What Chinese fashion needs more than anything now is curation. “You need a credible ‘editor’ to say, ‘I stake my reputation on this, and I’ve tried it, and it’s good, and I didn’t get paid for saying this,’ and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Ms. Hung said.

As BNC explores e-commerce, expansion into other important economic centres like Chengdu or Shenzhen, and the possibility of pop-up shops in Western department stores, Ms. Hung revealed exclusively to BoF her top designer picks from a growing scene of rising Chinese fashion talent.

UMA WANG
A graduate of Shanghai’s China Textile University, Uma first designed for a variety of domestic brands before moving to London to attend Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. In 2005, Uma established her namesake line and presented her first ready-to-wear collection at PURE London.

“Business-wise, Uma has the most sophisticated operation,” Hung explained, “in one season, in about four, five deliveries, [she can] give us about 50 to 60 different styles and SKUs…[providing] a complete line with range and production capabilities.”

Hung also characterized Uma’s design as being tongci, “which means that if you’re a super skinny person you wear it, there’s kind of a graceful fall, and if you’re a little bit chubby and middle aged, it still actually works with a belt. There’s something with the style that’s very universal but it’s very flattering on Chinese women because it doesn’t focus on the breast or the butt. [Her designs] have a very two-dimensional cut so that it flows with the body.”

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CHEN PING
Chen Ping, a graduate of Tianjin Polytechnic University is from Chong Qing in Central China. Chen has designed for almost ten years and, most recently, has showed at Shanghai Fashion Week under her brand name Pari Chen.

“She does a more classical cut except she has a twist to it, she’s not so much fashion forward as Uma is, but [her designs] are very pretty and tend to work very well with fashion conscious business women — she tends to attract the most wealthy Chinese women. For example, the CEO and founder of Dangdang.com, wore Pari Chen when she went to New York for their IPO listing,” Hung said.

“Last year, she gave us in one delivery for early fall, about 40 pieces, and we sold all of it except three pieces in about two weeks.”

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QIU HAO
From Suzhou, China, Qiu Hao originally studied interior design at Suzhou University, and later attended Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design’s M.A. Fashion Womenswear. Qiu won the prestigious Woolmark Prize in 2008 in Paris.

“Qiu Hao I think is really a genius, he is so talented, so incredibly well trained and versed in the language of fashion. If anything, his clothes are poetic,” Hung stated. However, Qiu, unlike his peers, is slow to produce. “Until October, we still had his spring summer collection on the rack because we didn’t get any pieces for his fall collection and finally by beginning of December, we had like five or six pieces. I managed to sell them right away. But I just wish some financier would back him and help him, he needs his Pierre Bergé.” Hung added that Qiu’s “fashion statements are so simple, it’s so easy to understand. His silhouette is usually very tall and lean, and yet everybody loves it. And, his clothes are not cheap partly because he doesn’t mass-produce. It’s very atelier.”

Qiu Hao was previously featured on BoF here.

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QIAO QIAO
Qiao Qiao runs One by One designer collective in Shanghai, whose output is currently found in Xin Tian Di and in Japanese multi-brand retailer Isetan.

“Qiao Qiao is one of those fashion designers that has a lot of staying power. Her designs are wearable, and her pricing is right on the dot. She does have this Japanese influence, you can see this sort of Yamamoto influence in her style,” Hung said. “She has the commercial knack for design. She knows what Chinese women like. She’s probably the only person who can design another commercial line similar to [Ma Ke’s Exception de Mixmind], except not cotton.”

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CHRISTINE LAU (or Liu Qing Yang)
Born in Beijing and raised in Hong Kong, Christine Lau also trained at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design as a textile designer. In 2009, Christine founded her line Chictopia in Beijing. Along with Uma Wang, Chictopia is one of the top two sellers at BNC.

“Her stuff just flies off the rack. She does pretty so well; pretty, feminine, young and at very reasonable prices,” said Hung. “She comes from a wealthy family so I expect that she will be very well financed and well managed,” she continued.

“She understands international trends and she has a very sophisticated production team similar to Uma’s production, which makes her one of the best Chinese designers to watch.”

Elizabeth Peng is an associate contributor at The Business of Fashion.

NEW YORK, United States — Making economic predictions isn’t easy these days, what with key indicators slumping one day and then bouncing back the next. But even as the global economy keeps market observers and analysts on their toes, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: the pre-eminence of the Chinese economy.

Last month, the Chinese government announced that it was depegging its currency from the US dollar, allowing the Yuan to appreciate within a defined band, slowly abandoning the exports-led growth strategy which has made Chinese goods cheaper in the global market in recent years. But now, as Western economies stop and start, the Chinese government is looking to sustain its growth by stimulating demand at home. Last week the IMF made projections that China’s growth rate will slow somewhat next year from over 9.9 percent in 2010, to 9.6 percent in 2011.

But still, for luxury goods companies, China offers the biggest opportunity for luxury brands in a generation.

According to the latest research from luxury thinktank L2, based at New York University, founder Scott Galloway said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, “when you look at the sheer size of incremental revenue that the Chinese market offers, especially online, you could hit singles in every market, but as long as you connect with the ball in China, your shareholders are going to be just fine.”

Percent of Luxury Consumers under 45 | Source: NYU Stern

The numbers are staggering. Galloway and his team report that 840 million people will be online in China three years from now, which means there will be more people online in China than the US, Europe and Japan combined. More than 80 percent of Chinese luxury consumers will be under the age of 45, a digitally savvy, voracious online consumer.

“You couple that kind of growth online with the fact that you have a younger more digitally native consumer, and you have the largest channel anywhere…for luxury goods, the online channel in China might be the biggest market worldwide in five to ten years,” says Galloway, with a luxury market growing at 15 percent per year.

For further information on L2′s China Digital IQ research, you can download the full report or register a free webinar from L2 to be held this Wednesday, 14 July at 10am Eastern time, 3pm London time.

BEIJING, China – My first glance at Beijing’s brand new airport (BCIA) was also the first sign of China’s stylish transformation since my previous visit here 7 years ago. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ceiling, which seemed to go on forever, as I zoomed through immigration and retrieved my bag. I was in and out in less than 30 minutes.

When I commented on the airport’s breathtaking design and efficiency to locals, they proudly informed me that BCIA was completed in only 4 years and has run without a hitch from day one. This is particularly notable when compared to the disastrous opening of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which opened around the same time as BCIA, but took 6 years to build and is still not running as expected. And, the success of BCIA also provides the perfect analogue for China’s nascent fashion industry.

First, it must be noted that the Beijing airport was designed by the UK’s Foster and Partners. So, whereas the Chinese are in the midst of a full-on architectural boom, their own design aesthetic is still in its infancy. For now, they must borrow design-savvy from the West, and combine it with local resourcefulness and entrepreneurship.

The fashion business here works very much the same way. Well-run Chinese factories churn out beautifully made, high-quality garments that are designed and sold in the West by fashion brands that we all know. Local Chinese retailers hire European and American designers who act as consultants and bring an advanced design sensibility to their collections. And, department stores like Lane Crawford employ fashion-savvy Westerners who up the style and sophistication quotient, while also educating local staffers on how to achieve international standards in luxury customer service and experience.

Beijing’s new Lane Crawford emporium, for example, is amongst the most sophisticated, well-curated specialty stores I have seen anywhere in the world. Six hundred brands are creatively mixed together in a welcoming and innovative environment designed by Canadian design agency Yabu Pushelberg. American department stores in particular could take a page out of the Lane Crawford book to bring their stores up to this world leading standard.

And, while there are certainly logo-happy Chinese looking for Gucci and Louis Vuitton, there are also sophisticated locals who are willing to spend serious money on world-class design. To wit, at the Walpole Luxury Seminar held in London in May, Bonnie Brooks, President of the Lane Crawford Group, noted that the very first item to sell after the Beijing store opened was a $45,000 Alexander McQueen dress. The second item to sell was the only other $45,000 McQueen dress that the store had ordered.

The other highlight of my first 24 hours in China was a visit to Beijing’s Danshanzi 798 Art District, currently home to noteworthy exhibitions by Maison Martin Margiela and Nike, two brands which have smartly planted their flags in this fertile ground for local contemporary art and design. The budding creativity in Dashanzi shows the promise for fashion design from China in the years to come. I don’t think the Chinese will be importing designers forever.

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Lane Crawford (courtesy of Lane Crawford)

798 Art District – Martin Margiela

798 Art District – Nike