The End of Copycat China by Shaun Rein

Author:Shaun Rein [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118926765
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2014-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Buying a thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton (LV) or Gucci handbag in the 1990s was a dream most Chinese never thought they could achieve, like buying a quarter-million-dollar Ferrari or Rolls-Royce for most Americans today. Foreign brands, even mass-market ones, such as Prell shampoo or Nike sneakers, represented success. Consumers bought counterfeit clothes and knockoff bags plastered with fake Ralph Lauren and Prada logos at markets, such as Silk Street in Beijing or Xiangyang Market in Shanghai, as a function of poverty rather than from any lack of morality. The wealthiest gained prestige from toting the right handbag.

Luxury items remained out of the reach of many by the turn of the millennium. Conspicuous consumption and showing off bling became integral to gaining social status. Handbags, pens, and watches with easily recognizable logos from brands such as LV, Omega, and Mont Blanc flew off the racks. The bigger, louder, and more in your face the logo was, the better.

By the late 2000s, Chinese had become the new Japanese of the 1980s. Chinese accounted for about 20 percent of worldwide luxury goods by 2012 and crowded boutiques along Fifth Avenue in New York and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Luxury retailers hired Mandarin-speaking sales clerks.

Bling still reigned supreme. Middle-class consumers purchased LV and Prada apparel in droves; by 2013 consumers there accounted for 50 percent of LV's global sales. By this point these objects were now officially for the mainstream—and therefore no longer desirable to the truly wealthy. One wealthy Chinese woman from Beijing told me she would not buy anything from LV because it was “too common”—even office secretaries making $800 a month were saving up, often by skipping lunch, to buy LV-print polyvinyl chloride (PVC) handbags.

Billionaires switched to more exclusive brands, such as Chanel, Bottega Veneta, and Hermès, and started focusing on acquiring bigger-ticket items, such as cars. The nation in 2014 became the largest market for Porsche and Rolls-Royce. Wealthy consumers bought private jets and high-end wines, and started sending their children to the top boarding schools, such as St. Paul's and Andover in the United States.

To find out more about the shopping habits of China's ultrawealthy, I interviewed Marty Wikstrom in 2014. Wikstrom headed the fashion and accessories division of Compagnie Financière Richemont, the world's second-largest luxury goods holding company, from 2009 to 2013 as CEO and now serves as the chair of Harrys of London, one of the finest purveyors of handmade shoes with rubber soles that has emerged as the go-to brand for the young royals, counting Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of Westminster, and Tom Parker Bowles as clients.

I'd met with her in Paris and Shanghai over the past several years and always found she had her finger on the pulse of the lifestyles of China's rich and famous.

“The Chinese consumer is becoming much more discerning in their taste level and spending habits,” Wikstrom told me. Her Harrys of London brand is a prime example. Worn by Emmy-winning English actor Damian Lewis for his upcoming film, Harrys' shoes are

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