SHANGHAI, China — It's Qixi time again, which means the WeChat Moments and Weibo newsfeeds of people all around China will be filled with posts from women showing off the gifts their husbands and boyfriends have given them for the local equivalent of Valentine's Day.

Sometimes that item will be a hotly-anticipated, limited edition bag released expressly for this purpose. This year luxury collaboration machine Tao Liang, better known as Mr Bags, chose Chloé to be his Qixi limited edition partner with his take on the Aby bag, priced at 13,800 yuan (around $2,700) for each of the 199 available bags selling out weeks in advance of the actual holiday, which this year falls on August 7.

Prada also went big on bags, with limited editions of its Odette and Cahier styles available through an immersive WeChat mini-program in which users can stroll through an illustrated virtual garden.

Dior, YSL and Giorgio Armani's WeChat mini programs selling limited edition Qixi lipsticks | Collage by BoF

Lipsticks are always a popular Qixi gift, with a cursory search on Alibaba's Taobao platform showing Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford, YSL and Dior all rank in the top five when searching for "Qixi lipstick gift" — all in shades of auspicious red for the occasion.

All of the Valentine’s Days

Qixi Festival has become one in a parade of Valentine’s-like events in China, alongside Western Valentine’s Day in February and 520, which falls on on May 20.

It seems no coincidence that a growth of sharing on social media, and an increased desire for Chinese people generally to “show-off” their luxury lifestyles, or in this case, luxury-infused love, has coincided with a growth in the number of such festivals.

Valentine's Day first hit Mainland China in the 1990's, as the country's economy boomed and a fascination with all things Western was at its peak. Meanwhile, 520 — the numbers read in Chinese sound like "wo ai ni" ('I love you', in Mandarin) — has only been celebrated in a wide-spread way over the last few years.

At the other end of the spectrum, Qixi Festival is known as a traditional Chinese holiday, and has been celebrated in some form or another since the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago.

In China, love has become increasingly complicated, intertwined with consumerism.

The way it is celebrated today, however, is a far cry from the original story of ever-lasting love between a cowherd and a weaver girl, or even how it was initially celebrated, with young women making offerings to the weaver girl in the legend, asking for skills, knowledge and a good husband in return.

As China’s society has become rapidly and intensely commercialised, romantic relationships too can be seen “like a commodity, traded and exchanged in the market,” claims Pan Wang, senior lecturer in Chinese and Asian studies at the University of New South Wales and author of “Love and Marriage in Globalising China.”

“[In China] love has become increasingly complicated, intertwined with consumerism, [and] in this sense you can say love is tagged with a price like other products in the market. To some people, the value of love can be measured by the price of gifts,” Wang explained.

While this can be said of some social demographics in countries across the world,  there are some unique drivers to consider in China.

I Do … Not

Chinese society is changing, with marriage rates falling to a five-year low in 2018 (only 7.2 people out of every 1,000 got married in China last year, the lowest marriage rate since 2013, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Civil Affairs). Meanwhile, the divorce rate has climbed every year for the past decade and a half.

Chloé and Mr. Bags' limited edition Aby Lock Bag | Source: Courtesy

As these traditional markers of commitment falter, or increasingly lose value in society, especially in China’s most developed cities (Shanghai and Beijing, unsurprisingly, have the lowest marriage rates in the country), men and women are increasingly looking at expensive gifts as a way of signifying the seriousness of a relationship.

“While people tend to get married later, they exchange gifts of love more often and longer,” says Tim Schlick, chief strategy officer at Platinum Guild International (PGI).

According to data from PGI’s 2018 China Platinum Acquisition Study, precious metal jewellery love gifting from boyfriends is becoming more popular among millennials in higher-tiered cities. One quarter of tier one millennial women received precious metals jewellery from a boyfriend last year, up from 20 percent in 2016.

“When my mother was getting married in the 1970’s,” Shanghainese teacher Zengdong Yang, 35, explains, “A man might buy them a bicycle or a sewing machine, which was then a major expense, to show that he wanted to get married. This is the same kind of idea, it’s just that the kind of presents have changed.”

Quite famously, men in China (and their parents) are under pressure to own both a home and car before a woman’s family will accept any potential marriage. But according to Pablo Mauron, partner and managing director China at Digital Luxury Group, even in cases where marriage is not immediately on the table, these signifiers of economic dependability and desirability are just as important.

While people tend to get married later, they exchange gifts of love more often and longer.

“It’s important to show some sort of financial commitment to [legitimise] a relationship and show that you are serious about it,” Mauron said.

“The romantic gifting culture, no matter whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Qixi or 520 is directly on that trend, ‘You’re going to have to show that you’re not afraid of spending money on me to show that you value and take our relationship seriously’.”

WeChat Wishlists

The growth of social media and digital commerce has only intensified this phenomenon. Just about every luxury brand bases their Qixi campaigns around WeChat, with an interactive marketing campaign (perhaps including some kind of clever gamification) accompanying a mini-program selling Qixi-themed limited editions.

But WeChat also facilitates women suggesting purchases from boyfriends or husbands by sending them a link to their desired gift, which can then directly be purchased by the giver within the WeChat eco-system, or financed with a digital "hongbao" (red envelope.)

In three clicks you get to show that you are serious about your relationship.

"It just makes the act of gifting so much easier," Mauron said. "[Pretty] much in three clicks you get to show that you are serious about your relationship."
Prior to WeChat, hongbao were traditionally given only on certain occasions, such as weddings and at Chinese New Year, but the ease of giving digital money within WeChat has meant that hongbao are now a common gift for all occasions.

Because of traditional hongbao gifting, there isn't the same resistance in China to giving the gift of cash as there is in the West, where it seems like a slightly unfeeling, certainly unromantic choice, and hongbao giving explodes on Qixi.

Most popular are hongbao involving the numbers 1314520, which, when read in full in Chinese sounds like, "yi sheng yi shi wo ai ni" (I love you forever.)

To Thine Own Self

As women postpone marriage to build careers and become economically independent, some brands are banking on self-gifting to be a rising trend around holidays. Why, if a single woman wants a luxury lipstick or handbag on Qixi, wouldn’t she buy it for herself?

This is a question that has occurred to Burberry, which for its Qixi campaign featured four videos exploring non-romantic versions of love, including the "significant self" as opposed to "significant other."

Though Mauron says Digital Luxury Group has also seen self-reward as an important recent trend among Chinese luxury consumers, he is not convinced that this trend “will apply to these romantic-themed celebrations” as the practice is more closely associated with personal milestones.

It seems in an age in which traditional markers of love and commitment are on the way out, there is still a great appetite for romance — a pragmatic and consumerist appetite, certainly — but a love for love nonetheless.

时尚与美容
FASHION & BEAUTY

Youtopia by Labelhood | Source: Courtesy

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The Award for Best Brand Ambassador in China Goes to…

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Domestic Brands Now Account for Majority of China's Beauty Favourites

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科技与创新
TECH & INNOVATION

Xiaohongshu's user interface | Collage by BoF

Xiaohongshu Disappears from China’s Android App Stores

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How China's Different Generations Use Social Media, Revealed
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消费与零售
CONSUMER & RETAIL

Van Cleef & Arpels’ Alhambra collection | Source: Van Cleef & Arpels

Chinese Consumers Look for Lucky Luxury

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Shanghai Retail Development Shines in Developer’s Interim Earnings

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Is Chengdu Getting an SKP Mall?

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政治,经济与社会
POLITICS, ECONOMY, SOCIETY

Chinese tourists | Source: Shutterstock

Beijing's Ban on Solo Travel to Taiwan Could Cost it $900 Million

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Chinese Netizens Offended by Marvel’s First Asian-led Superhero

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China’s SpaceX Successfully Launches Commercial Rocket

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China Decoded wants to hear from you. Send tips, suggestions, complaints and compliments to our Shanghai-based Asia Correspondent casey.hall@businessoffashion.com.