China: Manufacturers Wake Up to Home-Grown Talent

NEW YORK, NY, Apr 29 (MARKET WIRE) --
WGSN, the world's leading fashion and style forecaster, has today
published its comprehensive Greater China Fashion Report, which includes
Taiwan and Macau. The report gives an invaluable overview of China's
sourcing and designer culture, retail and government issues and
highlights its transformation from an export-oriented manufacturing
country to a design-rich nation that puts its domestic market and talent
first.

Increasingly, 'Made in China' is replaced by 'Created in China.' Sandra
Halliday, WGSN's global managing editor for business resource and analysis
at WGSN, says: "China's status as the world's largest manufacturing
country has given its fashion designers a low profile internationally.
But we now expect this to change as Chinese creativity moves center stage
in the years ahead and the country's role as a leading consumer market
with home-grown brands strengthens."

While designers in the region are just as concerned about the economic
conditions as designers everywhere else, Chinese designers are also
extremely concerned about building and maintaining their brand image, an
area where they recognize their lack of experience. For new independent
designers in this highly competitive environment start-up funding is hard
to come by; their most likely routes to finance are private family funding
or links to manufacturers to develop small lines. Chinese domestic
customers are increasingly interested in independent designers as their
sophistication in fashion increases.

Manufacturers have understood this trend and are increasingly turning to
their home market for future growth. Halliday comments: "Manufacturers are
creating their own-label apparel brands to sell in the Chinese market or
acquiring international brand licenses to develop their expertise in this
area. What's more, the Chinese government, which has traditionally been
supportive of the textiles industry, urges these companies to maintain
their international market share while exploring the huge domestic market
as China has longstanding concerns that its textiles sector is too
dependent on exports."

WGSN's Hong Kong team, led by the head of Asia-Pacific content Angelia
Teo, has compiled its Top 10 designers to watch from the Greater China
region:

-- Ma Ke: Exception design director Ma Ke created the Wuyong label and
showed it in Paris. She is widely considered the most important young
fashion designer in China today. Exception is sold to 60 stores across 30
cities in China, drawing an eclectic mix of clients from artists,
academics, entrepreneurs to fashionable youth and elegant older women. She
is a philosophical purist who seeks spiritual and artistic attainment
through her clothes
-- Liang Zi: Tangy's Liang Zi was trained in New York and Paris and
returned to China to create the label. She uses traditional cottons and
silks, blending them with influences from art and Western fashion, creating
in the process a widely-distributed brand that also has an international
profile
-- Guo Pei: Operating at the haute couture end of the fashion sector, Guo
Pei has been in business since the 1980s and was chief designer of Tianma
(Heavenly Horse) Clothing Company, one of China's most popular womenswear
brands of the 1990s. She launched her own company, Rose Studio, in 1996 and
has been a stalwart of China Fashion Week since the 1990s, once turning
down a Milan Fashion Week invitation in order to show domestically instead
-- He Yan: After working in Shanghai for large fashion companies, He Yan
went solo in 2003. In 2007 she opened her first shop and launched her
fourth collection, Spring Republic, inspired by the mesmerising
construction of the elaborate costumes of the Beijing Opera
-- Li Xiaoyan: FangFang's Li Xiaoyan was named womenswear designer of the
year at the last China Fashion Week and is seen as a key up-and-coming name
-- Liu Xing: Miidii's Liu Xing offers an almost-Japanese feel for the
avant-garde with layering, tying, ruching, gathering, pleating and dyeing
that challenges traditional approaches to womenswear
-- Qi Gang: SEC's Qi Gang made the move from the Botao label and was
named Designer of the Year at the last China Fashion Week. His collections
have been likened to the work of John Galliano
-- Lu Kun: Shanghai-based womenswear designer Lu Kun has seen his career
take off after being named the Best Young Designer by the Shanghai Fashion
Federation in 2004. Lu is a self-taught designer. His aesthetic mission is
to build a bridge between the heady days of the 1930s Jazz Era of Shanghai
and the fashion needs of today. Lu Kun has already generated interest in
Europe and the US and his designs have been worn by stars including Paris
Hilton.

About this research

WGSN's Greater China Fashion Report is based on a survey of 700 of the
country's leading retailers and manufacturers, all of whom are WGSN
clients, carried out in December 2008. The results together with WGSN's
own design and business intelligence offers an essential reference for
executives of retail companies who are exposed to or are planning to enter
the Chinese market. The study is available exclusively from WGSN for
US$750 for subscribers or US$1495 for non-subscribers. For more
information please visit www.wgsn.com/reports

About WGSN -- The global leader in fashion and style forecasting

WGSN (Worth Global Style Network) is an online subscription service that
delivers information, analysis and inspiration to the apparel, style,
design and retail industries. WGSN's forward-looking trend analysis,
real-time intelligence updated every hour and 10 year archive of reports
and images provide information and inspiration for industries across the
world. Our global team of 200 experts design, analyse, photograph and
write about style, sourcing, distribution, consumer insight and the
business of fashion. For more information, please see www.wgsn.com

For further information please contact:
Nancy Tam
WGSN, Marketing Manager
212-201-2808
Email Contact

For sales enquiries, please contact:
Guy Burton
Email Contact
or see the website: www.wgsn.com/reports

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