Fashion you can touch (3)

A 32-year-old native of Foshan, Guangdong province, with a degree in fashion design, Mai had been working at a local "bricks-and-mortar" womenswear company for seven years, until two years ago when she decided that "the future of fashion lies in the Web world".

She now leads a team of about 20 young designers, who altogether produce at least 10 new pieces every week for Amii. The store features what Mai calls "off the rack, high quality, soft, body conscious clothes from fine fabrics like those from Chloe or Chanel". Mai says online fashion design is a much more demanding job than its offline counterpart, though the pay is similar.

"It's like playing a videotape of the real fashion world 10 times faster," she says. "That is not only because we need to put so many new pieces on the shelf every week, but also once you miss the pace (of fashion), your works die out every quickly."

To keep up, Mai and her team read whatever fashion magazines are available and watch fashion shows from the Big Four (fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris) whenever they are not doing design work.

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