Cir – Lesson 523(2)
Riding on more mainstream movies such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and the proliferation of Asian film festivals across the world, China-born actresses such as Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li and Maggie Cheung have been propelled into international magazines and endorsements.
Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li both have appeared in People magazine’s 100 most beautiful people list, with Zhang making her third appearance this year.
The rise of these Chinese actresses has helped fuel a surge of Western interest in Asia, Hong Kong-born New York-based designer Vivienne Tam said.
Perceptions are changing, says Kyeyoung Park, associate professor of anthropology and Asian-American studies in University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
“In general people in the United States are more accepting of Asian aesthetics and Asian beauty,” she said, although people are quite confused about what exactly being Asian and beautiful means.
Still, all this has indirectly benefited Asian models.
“Because of globalization, in particular of Chinese actresses, we have a trend pulling for more and more Chinese models,” says Alain Deroche, executive director, publishing, Asia-Pacific for Hachette Filipacchi Media, which licenses several titles in China, including the fashion magazine Elle.
But this only partly explains the emerging trend. A more important driver is big business. “Fundamentally, the attraction is the market,” Vogue China’s editorial director Angelica Cheung said.
Dollar signs
Models.com’s Sterling puts it more bluntly: “The wider acceptance of Asian models comes down to one thing: dollar signs. All of [New York], London, Paris and Milan is buzzing right now about the possibilities of the Asian luxury goods market.”
According to a 2005 Ernst and Young’s report, “China: The New Lap of Luxury,” China is already the third-largest consumer of luxury goods, accounting for 14 per cent of global sales, behind only Japan (41 per cent) and the United States (17 per cent). The report says that by 2015, Chinese consumers could match the Japanese in influence.
“We don’t think it’s mere optimism,” Ernst & Young partner Conway Lee said in an e-mail message.
“First of all, one should take consideration of China’s vast population, which is also a huge consumer base of luxury products. Second, one should take consideration of the growth rate of the luxury goods market in China.”
Lee cites estimates, one of which comes from the US Department of Agriculture, to show that by 2020 China’s middle class could expand to more than 500 million and that China could equal the size of the entire US middle class if only 8 per cent more of its population could achieve the standard for middle class.
Market growth predictions are also tantalizing. China’s luxury goods market will grow by 20 per cent a year till 2008, then slow down to 10 per cent till 2015.
So far, many luxury goods firms share the idea that good times are coming. LVMH is expected to add two to four stores a year to its 100 that already operate in China.
Giorgio Armani intends to set up 20 to 30 stores by 2008, when Saks Fifth Avenue also will open a store in Shanghai.
Seibu, controlled by Dickson Concepts (International) Limited, is opening a five-floor 140,000-square-foot department store in Chengdu later this year. High-profile tenants will include Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tod’s and Michael Kors, whose presence in second-tier cities reflects their confidence in the growing Chinese market.
All this has meant more work for the Asian models.
“Before, [they] might not do a show in China, but now they come every year,” says Wing Wong, model movement executive at Elite HK China Model Management in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
More importantly, Chinese models now have a certain cache, as companies strive to appeal to the Chinese market by incorporating more Asian looks in their brands.
“Many luxury goods brands rapidly open stores in Asia, and it is a natural move for these companies to add Asian faces in their advertising campaigns to fit in with the market need,” designer Tam said. “It is part of their business strategy.”
(Source: xinhuanet.com)