The newly appointed Valenti, the first woman to lead the group since it was founded 40 years ago in Paris, said revenue in the model management sector in the United States and Europe increased by 20 percent year-on-year in 2012, but she predicted that the company will gain 20 percent of its total global revenue from China in the next three years.
The company reported having almost 40.5 million euros ($52.3 million) in modeling revenues last year.
Confronted with the slowdown of the fashion industry in the West, Elite is hoping to strengthen its global assets by moving from traditional markets to newly emerging markets, especially China.
"We have gained some revenue from our Elite Model Look contests here in past years as we expanded into China in 2004," Valenti added.
In December 2011, after two years' preparation, including scouting for models, selecting a management team, and researching the needs of the market, Elite decided to end the relationship it formed with a licensing company eight years ago and began to run its business directly.
"We started with the Elite Model Look China contest to find models in different regions around China, and we have selected 10 girls who have signed contracts with us," said Yan Lei, Elite senior brand manager in China.
Having a management agency is essential to driving a model's career. But in China at present, said Valenti, there is no modeling culture, although there are numerous local model agencies. "It is not possible to train the models or to take part in a lot of fashion shows, let alone map the long-term career of a model," she said.
The French fashion designer Pierre Cardin held the mainland's first fashion show in Beijing in 1979, and by the following year, there were said to be only 11 professional models in the mainland.
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