Trevor Lai from Thoughtful China, speaks with Mary Ching founder Alison Yeung and Shang Xia’s Philippe Lamy, about the emergence of homegrown Chinese luxury brands
The Rise of Chinese Luxury Brands

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
Trevor Lai from Thoughtful China, speaks with Mary Ching founder Alison Yeung and Shang Xia’s Philippe Lamy, about the emergence of homegrown Chinese luxury brands
Trevor Lai from Thoughtful China, speaks with Mary Ching founder Alison Yeung and Shang Xia’s Philippe Lamy, about the emergence of homegrown Chinese luxury brands.
As of the end of March 2011, China’s total consumption of luxury goods reached $10.7 billion, and the country now accounts for a quarter of consumption worldwide. As foreign luxury brands have come to recognise the importance of the market, they have rolled out stores in second, third and fourth tier cities on the Mainland, in a bid to capture the new luxury hungry middle class consumer.
China’s luxury retail is dominated by foreign luxury marketers, who have been fighting for growth in the mainland. Whilst they have certainly ruled luxury’s very infant past in the region, will brands like Shang Xia and Mary Ching have the ability to change the landscape in the future? Can local luxury brands provide the status that Chinese shoppers want? And finally, are westerners ready to accept a “made in China” luxury brand?
Speaking at CEIBS’s 2011 Prestige Brand Forum, Professor Mark Ritson mused; “China will have some of the world’s greatest luxury brands but not in the old categories of the old world. There will be new categories…”
For Luxury Society conversations with the CEO’s of Shang Xia and Mary Ching, please see the below links:
– Jiang Qiong Er, Shang Xia’s CEO & artistic director
– Proudly Made in China: Alison Yeung, Mary Ching

Creative Strategist, Digital
Sophie Doran is currently Senior Creative Strategist, Digital at Karla Otto. Prior to this role, she was the Paris-based editor-in-chief of Luxury Society. Prior to joining Luxury Society, Sophie completed her MBA in Melbourne, Australia, with a focus on luxury brand dynamics and leadership, whilst simultaneously working in management roles for several luxury retailers.