Fashion fetishes in Asia
June 23rd, 2008 - by Nazia Vasi
Would you buy a US$1,000 dress if you knew the tag on it said “made in China”? A recent report by the Guardian thinks otherwise. In an article on the increasing influence of Asian shoppers, the Guardian says - Asian shoppers are particularly origin-conscious as French and Italian luxury goods are important status symbols in the newly affluent region. The opinions of Asian shoppers are beginning to matter more and more as growth in more mature markets slows down.
“In Asia, in a certain segment, you can’t offer a product made in China or made in Asia,” said Patrizio di Marco, president and chief executive of Bottega Veneta, on the sidelines of a luxury goods conference in Tokyo. “They are very aware of where the product was made, and whether it was made in Italy, made in France.”
But that only represents Asia’s fashion elite, when it comes to more accessible designer brands, consumers may be less prejudiced than some producers think. They might even by willing to indulge in fakes - for you never know where the fakes come from.
The medieval Italian town of Prato in Tuscany sits at the very heart of Europe’s fashion industry. Amid the Tuscan hills, well-paid craftsmen, low-paid immigrant workers and peddlers of fake designer handbags jostle for space.
In 2007, Prato’s tax police confiscated more than 8 million forged products, including fake designer goods and kilometres of Gucci-monogrammed fabric, made in Asia or in clandestine factories in Italy, added the Guardian.
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