SHANGHAI — The three-day 2005 ShanghaiMart for Spring
Women’s Apparel Fair wrapped up last week with both excitement about the
nonquota world and concern over its impact.
The fair, which ran
March 21-23, was organized by ShanghaiMart, one of the city’s first
exposition centers, in cooperation with the Dallas Market Center, the
Guangdong Association of the Garment and Garment Articles Industry, the
Fujian Province Costume and Finery Association, the Jiangsu Federation of
Industry and Commerce Garments Chamber and the Shanghai International
Merchandising Center.
Richard Chen, vice president of marketing at
ShanghaiMart, said the fair attracted 3,000 visitors in its first two
days, including some 300 international buyers from 15 countries. Companies
attending included Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Gap, Ann Taylor and
KarstadtQuelle of Germany.
ShanghaiMart plans to make the fair a
regular, biannual event; the fall 2005 fair is scheduled for Oct.
24-26.
There were 117 mainland Chinese women’s apparel producers
exhibiting last week, with the goal of increasing their business with
Western retailers. Liu Junquan, chief executive officer of ShaXi
Hi-Fashion Manufacturing, which participated in the fair's first edition
last fall and also has a permanent showroom at ShanghaiMart, said both
times were very valuable. The Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province-based
ShaXi manufactures women’s formal wear — 95 percent of which is for
export, primarily to the U.S. — at a factory employing 1,500
people.
Liu and other exhibitors said the fair was useful primarily
for networking, while orders would follow after retailers visited the
factories. Guo Bei, production and trade department vice manager of Sanyou
Group, described the fair as “extremely well-managed”compared with most
trade fairs they attend annually. The 50-year-old Sanyou Group, in Nantong
City, Jiangsu Province, employs 5,000 and produces entirely for
export.
Special events during the fair included several fashion
shows, primarily of participating exhibitors, and an international forum
on March 22 titled “Trade and Buying in the New World of Women’s Apparel,”
jointly organized by China Textile and the Dallas Market Center. It
featured talks by Thomas Burns, senior vice president of Doneger Group;
trade lawyer Roy Delbyck; Larry King, director of Li & Fung Shanghai,
and Wei Lin, vice chairman of the China National Garment
Association.
King and Wei spoke mostly regarding trade policy and
domestic production, with Wei describing how Chinese textile and apparel
production is segmented into geographic clusters of expertise to gain the
most benefit from economies of scale. There currently are more than 200
such clusters, but the Chinese government has recognized and named only 99
of them, said Wei. These account for about 25 percent of the country’s
textile and apparel production.
There already are concerns about
cost and labor pressures in China, however, Wei indicated. In Eastern
China, the scarcity of labor is causing costs to rise. In coming years, he
predicted that production would migrate from the coastal regions where it
currently is centered to central and western China, where land and labor
are abundant and costs are lower.
But the audience, predominantly
Chinese garment suppliers looking to expand exports, seemed more
interested in the international speakers’ exposition on recent trends and
developments in Western, primarily American, markets than in China’s
industry. Delbyck, an American attorney with offices in Hong Kong and Mill
Valley, Calif., discussed the end of quotas and explained the minutiae of
safeguards, which currently are being discussed by the U.S. government and
which he described as “old wine in new bottles,” in American trade law. In
his view, “safeguards will come; the question is when.”
“Duty will
become the chief differentiator,” in production of textiles and apparel,
Delbyck said. “People will factor duty into their sourcing
decisions.”
Burns served as emcee and provided the forum’s opening
address. His wide-ranging talk touched upon fashion’s role in the larger
global economy, the latest consumer trends and the changing retail
business. As fast-moving consumer goods besides apparel become more shaped
by fashion, he said, they start to directly compete with fashion. This is
becoming the case particularly with electronics, and he cited the iPod as
the most notable recent example; consumers “are more interested in buying
the latest cell phone than the latest jacket.”
He stressed the need
for producers to market to specifically targeted consumers with
differentiated products to respond to the age of mergers and consolidation
and online shopping to create a “strong brand experience.” He provided as
examples of this more integrated department stores that combine dining and
spa options along with shopping. Burns concluded by identifying a trend
toward a simple, streamlined, unostentatious “deluxe minimization” in 2005
collections, along with looser fits, a revival of vintage retro looks,
rustic motifs in casual wear and quality over whimsy in accessories.
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