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China's next generation of yuppies
Big spending, in any case, is not a big problem. The average car bought in China was sold for 140 percent of the buyer's annual income (compared with 30 to 40 percent in the United States). HaagenDazs shops (which have introduced icecream mooncakes) are packed with families, but very few buy pints to take home. Starbucks, which has 66 outlets in Shanghai alone, projects an image of being a fashionable place for trendsetters to meet. A young woman takes out a Chanel lipstick at a club, but she uses something cheaper at home.
A young man listens to his iPod while checking his cellphone at a hip coffee shop in Shanghai.
A company like De Beers was able to push exactly these buttons when it came to China. The storied diamond purveyor first entered the country in 1993, when there were absolutely no diamonds exchanged in China and nothing in Chinese culture linking diamonds and love. At weddings, the groom's mother typically gave gold and jade, if anything, to welcome the bride into the family. No more. Christine Cheung, the head of the Diamond Marketing Group at advertising giant jwt, runs through a presentation called "Creating a Diamond Wedding Ring Cultural Imperative." Diamonds are portrayed as the link between romance and security. "It's more than selling a product," Cheung says. "It's creating a culture." The company has been so successful in its creation that now, in Shanghai, 70 percent of all brides are given a diamond wedding ring. In Beijing, it is 80 percent (up from 45 percent just over five years ago). Japan, despite being a much wealthier society, has a "diamond acquisition rate" of only 50 percent across the country. Every year, De Beers cosponsors a "Rose Wedding Ceremony" with the Shanghai municipal government, in which up to 100 couples exchange vows diamond rings an event broadcast on television. Photographs from last year's ceremony show brides and grooms exchanging vows next to a 12foothigh model of a diamond ring.
On Nanjing Road, the famed shopping street that snakes through the heart of Shanghai, glittering storefronts line both sides. Prada. Louis Vuitton. Hermes. Since 2002, when government regulations were eased to allow foreign brands to open up their own retail stores rather than have to go through a Chinese partner, highend stores have been coming in fast and furious. Just last week, Saks Inc. announced plans to become the first foreign luxury department store in China, featuring prestige products like those in Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the United States. fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, whose first China store opened here in 2002, now has 40 stores in 23 Chinese cities and plans more. Immediately after launching this year's spring line in New York, Hilfiger flew to Shanghai to showcase the new fashions. "Just in the past couple of years, during the fashion season,[url=http://www.fcgeo.ca]ugg outlet[/url], you see more shows than in New York!" says Tito Tan, who used to run an eventmanagement company in Shanghai. "But it's not just product launches; it's relaunches, or to let people know a store is open, or because a ceo is in town. Here, if Armani does a fashion show, Gucci has to do one. They'll spend $1 million and invite 1,000 people." Five years ago, buyers from mainland China represented just 1 percent of world sales of luxury handbags and other accessories. Now, the Chinese are the thirdlargest consumers of luxury goods, accounting for more than 12 percent of global sales, according to a study by Goldman Sachs. Within a decade, China will almost certainly surpass Japan and the United States to become the No. 1 luxury market in the world.