The british fashion house Burberry and the French couture Louis Vuitton were dueling in a creative fight. It was already impressive to experience the new website fashionshow.louisvuitton.com, we again experienced a new storytelling writing of the Burberry fashion show in Beijing this April 13, created by its art-director Christopher Bailey.

Beijing and last Burberry 1,000 sqm boutique were chosen to represent the various technologies breakthrough. In a 2,000 sqm the audiences could see holographic models associated with real ones on the stage. Many other choregraphies and live shows, such as british rock-pop band Keane, DJ Tom Guiness and Chinese DJ ShanXi. An impressive broadcast made the show available in 200 other partners websites and many small cinemas prepared for the occasion at some Burberry boutiques.

Let’s see what Louis Vuitton is preparing back…

Ermenegildo Zegna’s catwalk show during the Milan Fashion Week which debuted late this week is all about China and the inspiration of the Great Wall. The Zegna Group is also preparing for a major event which will take place in Shanghai marking the 20 years of presence of the brand in China.

Prada presented last year a collection entirely dedicated to the Chinese market and produced a movie inspired by Shanghai’s history which was presented online worldwide as well as at the Prada Foundation Exhibition in Milan. Prada, which has seen a 51 percent surge in revenue from the Asian region in the first nine months of 2010, is planning to restage its Spring 2011 fashion show in Beijing on Jan. 22. Both Prada CEO Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada are expected to attend, and Prada plans on creating a series of new items specifically for the event.

Chanel’s first fashion show in Shanghai included European models wore yellow face make up to play Chinese characters. Lagerfeld defended this as a reference to old films. “It is an homage to Europeans trying to look Chinese,” he explained. “Like in ‘The Good Earth’, the people in the movie liked the idea that they had to look like Chinese. Or like actors in ‘Madame Butterfly’. People around the world like to dress up as different nationalities.”

Dior created last year an advertising campaign dedicated to the Chinese market, which later proved controversial due to discrimination issues. Chinese top model Tang Wei who appeared on the Chinese Vogue cover is a regular model for the shows of Dior or Ferragamo in Paris and Milan, as well as for all luxury fashion shows that take place in China.

Marc Jacobs’s latest collection for Louis Vuitton is inspired by Shanghai, yet instead of the sophistication that usually comes from fashion’s wonder boy, the clothes were bogged down with Oriental stereotypes. And so is the entire 2011 advertising campaign of Louis Vuitton, entirely Chinese inspired. Fashion critic, Suzy Menkes wrote, “By the time the first models had sashayed out in slim dresses slit to reveal the leg, you didn’t need a master’s in Mandarin to get the message that China is hot retail property for Louis Vuitton.” As luxury brands expand to different parts of the world where so many people cannot read English or French, they can recognize and remember initials better and that is why, it is obvious that brands should not create special collections, but rely on the amazing power of the logos.

Oliver does not appreciate all efforts made by luxuty brands to adjust to the China market.

But just how far can this ’’Chinese’’ spell over collections and advertising go for the top luxury brands without producing a negative impact on sales in the U.S. or Europe. Even if the actual fashion show takes place in China, obviously targeting Chinese consumers, the news with images travels at light speed through the internet worldwide. For instance, I believe Louis Vuitton’s 2011 campaign no longer has a subtle or implicit Chinese inspiration but the entire ultra bling product line is also targeting Chinese. The traditional LV monogram is replaced by huge VUITTON letters the size of the entire bag. The atmosphere depicted is one of overt show off and bling. This type of branding is considered bad taste, not only in the mature markets but in the young markets such as Eastern Europe, where the financial crisis has made people think twice before wearing an overtly branded product.

The fact that China is becoming the number one market for many international luxury brands provides a financial motivation for brands to adopt such strategies. However, I wonder how, in long term, luxury consumers in mature markets such as the U.S. or Europe will react to this ‘’Chinese influence’‘. From the Chinese consumers in all major luxury stores in Paris or Milan, the Chinese sales assistants in stores from New York to Dubai, the Chinese inspired advertising, to the Chinese models and actresses on all major catwalks, China is everywhere! and you can’t miss that on fashion blogs, web sites (lifestyle or business) oriented, it all sums up to a phrase : ‘’Luxury is Chinese’’

We don’t believe that China influence are going too far. The whole Asia is embracing all aspects of luxury universes.

VIVE’s experiment in selling premium “made-in-China” cosmetics was risky. So how has Shanghai VIVE been received since its official relaunch after 6 months existence ? Founder Demos Chiang, grandson of Chiang Kai-Shek, explains the strategy of the brand:

With its 1080 yuan (US$163) “Yurong cream” and 220 yuan ($33) “Xiren” soap, Shanghai VIVE is clearly positioning itself as a true luxury brand. Shanghai VIVE’s appeareance on the scene means that China’s lack of a home-grown luxury cosmetics brand has come to an end.

In its comeback campaign, Shanghai VIVE decided to continue to use the “Qipao calendar girl” image originally used in the “Two Sisters” days. Meanwhile, parent company Shanghai Jahwa hired DEM Inc. to create the new logo, product packaging and store design. The grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, DEM Inc. founder Demos Chiang has become a key part of Shanghai VIVE’s brand’s resurrection. This is not only because he’s a popular media figure and writer, but also because of the international perspective of his design team.

When preparing Shanghai VIVE’s design, Demos Chiang said he did a lot of research about 1930s Shanghai, while also studying popular fashion magazines at the time. Finally, Chiang settled on a black and rose-red motif for the brand, feeling it best depicted the mysterious and sexy nature of Shanghai women.

Despite the success of Liushen and Herborist, Shanghai Jahwa doesn’t want to follow their model with Shanghai VIVE. In contrast to Herborist, Shanghai VIVE doesn’t use herbal ingredients as a selling point. Rather, it uses culture as its main selling point.

Currently, all of Shanghai VIVE’s packaging is imported from France, as “no domestic suppliers meet our requirements,” according to Lei Yuanzong of the brand’s design center. Added Lei, “It’ll probably take 10 years for China to develop its own luxury capabilities.”

Nonetheless, Shanghai VIVE has begun to attract attention from Europe and the US, though the brand isn’t yet available overseas.

Source: Jing Daily

Shang Xia will include ready-to-wear and decorative arts inspired by Chinese culture and traditions of craftsmanship. These are to be made using Chinese raw materials and artisanal know-how, Hermès said. Shang Xia’s creative director is Qiong-Er Jiang, daughter of a noted Chinese architect.

According to Patrick Thomas, President of Hermes International, the new brand will be tailored for the Chinese market where Hermes lags behind its competitors. The objective of this move is to offer cheaper products, as well as capitalising on the growth of the luxury market in the country in 2010. The brand will also be distributed in Paris in one of the large department store. This is the first time the fashion label will get in from the ground up, so it’ll be fascinating to see the results. Chinese luxury consumers don’t want to feel that China is the ”dumping ground” for cheaper or excess inventory.

The report shows a shift in Chinese consumers’ attitudes to luxury purchases, one that has seen them graduate from mindlessly chasing fashion to making far more informed choices – and even beginning to set international trends. In the long-run, says the report, the move to a more mature and knowledge-based consumption pattern in the luxury sector will add to its vitality and sustainability.

As a result, manufacturers in the luxury sector are now paying far more attention to the opinion and demands of Chinese consumers, swayed by their enthusiasm for such products and their more informed purchasing decisions.

Organized by the 21st Century Business Herald, a leading Chinese business daily paper, and supported by Ipsos, a global market research firm, and Fudan University-Bocconi’s fashion and luxuries management team, the report analyzed the behavior of China’s high-end business people – the newspaper’s primary readership group – with regard to luxury purchases. The report is aimed at promoting mature and informed decision-making throughout the luxury sector. During three months of extensive research, more than 150,000 individuals across the country responded to questionnaires about their purchasing patterns and the factors that influence them. In addition, the average number of daily visits to survey’s official website was more than 10,000, with nearly 1,000 online surveys filled in each day. The questionnaire, designed by Ipsos, analyzed a wide range of the target group’s defining characteristics, including industry preferences, purchase motivation, lifestyle choices and social standing. The raw data was subsequently analyzed by the Fudan-Bocconi team.

Professor Lu Xiao, head of the team and an expert in luxury brand management, interviewed scores of participants in randomly selected focus groups. The qualitative data sourced via these interviews, combined with a detailed analysis of the respondents’ opinions, allowed the professor to deliver in-depth insights into the sector. Alongside the report, the favorite brands of the business people surveyed have also been announced. The results show that the China Minsheng Banking Corp was the only Chinese mainland homegrown brand to make the list.

Commenting on the initiative, the event’s organizers said: “The essence of any luxury brand lies in the historical values it embodies. These values need to be continuously nurtured in order to retain their aspirational appeal across all cultural boundaries.”

The majority of China’s rich now live outside of the mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, said a study published 16th April by the Hurun Report.

About 825,000 people in China have net personal wealth of more than 10 million yuan (1.47 million dollars), according to the magazine, which tracks China’s wealthiest. But about 52 percent live outside the three biggest traditional centres for wealth — Beijing, Shanghai and southern Guangdong province, which includes Guangzhou and Shenzhen. “People are always shocked when they go to the sticks — to the secondary, the third tier cities — and they realise ‘My goodness these places are booming like nobody’s business’,” Hurun’s publisher Rupert Hoogewerf said. “We’re seeing very clearly there’s a trend of the luxury brands moving into the secondary cities.”

Management consultants McKinsey also warned in a separate report published this month of the dangers companies face in focusing on Beijing and Shanghai while underestimating the importance of China’s smaller cities. “In Beijing, the biggest brand names often have several retail outlets, but many go unrepresented in Chengdu or Wenzhou, even though Chengdu has more wealthy households than Detroit, and Wenzhou as many as Atlanta,” McKinsey said.

The southwestern city of Chengdu, with a population of 10 million, and eastern Wenzhou, with 7.9 million residents, are only two examples of dozens of fast-developing cities with populations of more than five million. The number of households with annual incomes of more than 250,000 yuan (36,765 dollars) hit 1.6 million last year and is expected to rise to more than four million by 2015, McKinsey said. Three quarters of the growth in China’s wealthy consumer segment will come from people who currently live outside Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, McKinsey said.

Another recent wealth study by China Merchants Bank and consultants Bain and Company reported similar findings. More than 20,000 people who held more than 10 million yuan each in private equity were in the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang alone, it said. Bain’s banking study said 320,000 people across China would have more than 100,000 yuan in investable assets by the end of this year, representing a pool of nine trillion yuan in assets.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence remains unusually high among the country’s rich, with 80 percent of Chinese millionaires saying the economic crisis had not hurt their lifestyle, Hurun said, citing 67 interviews done in February.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

China’s Rich and Super-Rich Broken down by Region

* Excludes Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao
** Source: 2007 National Bureau of Statistics

As China sets out to rebuild its artistic heritage, support is coming from an unexpected source: the global luxury industry. The big brands have targeted China – both for exhibition displays and for collaborations with contemporary artists.

When the new 8,000 square meter, or 87,000 square foot, contemporary art and design museum is constructed next to the iconic “bird’s nest” Olympic stadium, its contents might include a portrait of Christian Dior, created in incense ash by the artist Zhang Huan.

Or, alongside the wine bottles in iron by Zheng Guogu, there may be a similar contemporary copper work re-creating Dior fragrances.

Those two objects will go on display next week as “Christian Dior & Chinese Artists” opens in an industrial space in Beijing, developed as an interior Chinese garden and displaying a capsule fashion history focusing on the founder Christian Dior and the current designer John Galliano.

Over the last two decades, there have been numerous collaborations between art and fashion. But it seems that the Chinese cannot get enough of fashion as art – and of their own artists at the epicenter of high fashion.

Two exhibitions have shown the heritage of European fashion houses to the Chinese. In March, Ferragamo held its 80th birthday celebrations in Shanghai, with an exhibition of Salvatore Ferragamo at the Museum of Contemporary Art; and with a fashion show staged at the new Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal.

“The ‘Evolving Legend’ exhibition was inaugurated in Shanghai to celebrate the anniversary and our 15 years relationship with China,” said Michele Norsa, CEO of Ferragamo. He says that after the exhibition of the Florentine shoemaker’s work moved on to Milan’s Triennale, where it closed last week, there are now plans to take the show elsewhere in  Asia.

Ferragamo established itself in Asia in the early 1970s and its first Chinese art collaborations go back to 1992, when an exhibition of 11 Chinese artists in different disciplines was held in its New York store, along with a sponsorship of a Chinese video art and photography exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York.

MaxMara, another Italian design house, opened its traveling exhibition “Coats” last month at the Namoc Museum in Beijing with a fashion show and a dinner at the Tai Miao temple that was attended by internationally known Chinese celebrities. They included the actress Maggie Cheung, famous for the movie “In the Mood for Love,” and Guo Jingjing, a gold-medal-winning diver at the Beijing Olympics.

Louis Vuitton, whose roots in China go back to 1979, has seen its artistic collaborations flower. As well as sponsoring a Sovereign Asia Art Prize in 2007, Vuitton brought art this year to its two Hong Kong stores, with Zhan Wang creating a steel sculpture in the Central district, and the shop in the Tsim Sha Tsui area across Victoria Harbor displaying work from the famous Chinese actor and photographer Chow Yun Fat.

Earlier this year, Vuitton held in its Champs-Elysées flagship store in Paris an exhibition inspired by André Citroën’s epic journey down the “Silk Road” in 1931, including Chinese video artists and photographers.

For next week’s exhibition, Sidney Toledano, CEO of Dior, was determined to do more than sponsor an art show.

“It’s not about branding and marketing – it is about having a cultural impact,” Toledano says. “We could just have supported the artists, but the idea was to let them work a Dior theme, to see how they looked at Monsieur Dior himself and the Dior universe. When I saw the finished works, done over three months, I was impressed by their creativity. It was almost like watching a couture collection develop.”

The 21 artists whose works go on display from Nov. 16 at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing include some of China’s edgiest artists. Their work, as seen currently at the new Charles Saatchi Gallery in London, might raise a few eyebrows in a dialogue between art and fashion.

Zhang Huan’s personal and politicized sculptures and ash paintings will face off with the personage of Christian Dior; while Li Songsong is exchanging three paintings – of Boccaccio’s “The Decameron,” of the National People’s Congress and of the crumpled wings of a fallen airplane – for the ultimate fashion statement: a giant Lady Dior bag in neon lights.

It seems unlikely that Liu Wei’s sculpture of a turd will be redeveloped for Dior. But the hollow, robotic eyes of Zhang Xiaogang’s paintings will be viewed in a vision of Dior Homme, designed by Kris Van Assche; and Liu Wei’s extraordinary effects with dog chewings will be applied to Dior’s “Cocotte” dress.

Pearl Lam, the director of the Contrasts Gallery of Chinese contemporary art which opened in Hong Kong in 1992 and later in Shanghai and Beijing, says that the line between art and commerce has never been drawn in China, because traditionally “artists” and their work were not defined. Known as “literati,” they might paint, write calligraphy, compose poetry, literature and music, while at the same time designing with craftsmen anything from teapots to houses.

“In ancient times in China, art was not created for selling – only for self-cultivation,” says Lam, explaining that the artworks were given away to those who had been appreciative and the literati’s highest standing was to be qualified to join the imperial court.

Cut to the 21st century, and commercialism and consumerism have inevitably entered the equation, with the catalyst in the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and his collaborations with Louis Vuitton.

“When a Chinese artist, like Zhang Huan, accepts a commission from Dior to create works about Dior, he is in fact pushing the boundaries to react to the Chinese traditional values of art and to question: what is art in the context of China’s 21st century,” says Lam, who claims that all artists understand the power of marketing by fashion houses and know that through fashion exposure, the artist’s name might become a brand.

It might sound like a collaboration between two hungry groups – the Chinese dignitaries, eager to find the home-grown art to fill a new architectural wonder; and Western brands trying to create a name and good will in China. But if commerce encourages art, whatever the motive, it seems a positive step. And with the Chinese, even in tough economic times, acting as suppliers of products to the world, is it surprising that the country’s art has become a marketable commodity?

By Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune