A model poses for a photo at a fashion show held by Taobao in Shanghai on Friday, as part of the Shanghai Fashion Week. (China Daily/ Gao Erqiang) |
Domestic fashion brands and designers are in the spotlight for the first time at the twice-a-year Shanghai Fashion Week, although it has claimed to be a stage for "designed in China" since its establishment in 2003.
Highlighting the interest in Chinese brands — mostly due to China's first lady Peng Liyuan wearing all-made-in-China outfits during her recent foreign tour — is a fashion show with collections that are all from taobao.com.
This is the first time the country's largest online shopping platform, which has long been accused of selling pirated and counterfeit goods, has held a real fashion show since it was founded, in the same year as Shanghai Fashion Week.
"We want to build the image that Taobao not only has a substantial number of clothes, but also original designed-in-China clothes," said Shen Ting, marketing chief of Taobao's womenswear department, after the show.
Statistics from the website showed that 1.3 million stores sell womenswear on the platform. Up to half of the stores that have their own designers are on the list of the 1,000 best-selling stores, though Shen acknowledged that not all garments sold by stores with designers are necessarily original designs.
Bird flu takes toll on poultry industry