Taiwan Today

From to to , Shiatzy Chen is developing into an international label.

The lights come up. The muic starts. Twenty-four international models sashay from backstage and walk gracefully down the runway. They quickly draw the attention of more than 200 international buyers, members of the media, celebrities and fashion aficionados, impressing them with 48 outfits that have distinctive design features drawn from Chinese culture.

Some designs include a mandarin collar, an essential element of the qipao, an archetypal Chinese dress for women known for its slim fit and slits at the side of the skirt. Other creations are decorated with abstract patterns such as those found in a Chinese ink painting. Even the pure white, minimalist backdrop has its roots in the white porcelain of Chinese ceramics, with the silhouette of many outfits reminiscent of the curved lines of a Chinese vase. In fact, the whole show has a Chinese theme, which is apt for Shiatzy Chen, a Taiwan-based fashion house that has long been inspired by traditional Chinese culture.

Taiwanese designer Wang Chen Tsai-hsia, the co-founder of Shiatzy Chen, presented the show on October 5, 2008 at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts on the Left Bank in central . The event was of great significance for the fashion label because it was one of the official shows on the Paris Fashion Week schedule for the 2009 spring/summer ready-to-wear collections. Admission to Fashion Week is exclusive, not only because of the expense involved--preparing for and staging a show costs at least NT$10 million (US$312,000)--but because only the world's top designers are invited by the organizers to take part in the official lineup. Other Taiwanese designers have staged shows in the capital of fashion, but to date only one other Taiwanese label has been invited to join the official event, which is held in February and October annually. That first coveted invitation went to fashion label Shawnyi, which was created in 2000 by two young men in their 30s, with the brand taking part in the shows in 2005 and 2006.

While both design houses have appeared at Paris Fashion Week, the approaches taken by Shiatzy Chen and Shawnyi have been quite different. The Taiwanese duo behind Shawnyi set up shop in before their label's market presence in , but for Shiatzy Chen, that has worked the other way around. Moreover, both of Shawnyi's founders received formal academic training in design, whereas the designer behind Shiatzy Chen learned her skills on the job.

Nevertheless, making a Paris Fashion Week debut means a lot for all fashion designers the world over. The Shiatzy show lasted less than 15 minutes, but it introduced the Taiwanese label to an international audience.

"The Chinese feel remains but the lines are simpler than before, which should appeal to Western tastes. So should the abstract-looking Chinese painting, and it's not easy to embroider patterns on the thin gauze of the dresses displayed this time," says Liao Hsiu-nien, vice editor-in-chief of the edition of Harper's Bazaar, of the designer's exhibition.

While the show may have been short, it represents decades of effort. This milestone in Shiatzy Chen's history came just as the brand celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Birth of a New Style

Born in Changhua in central , Chen Tsai-hsia--Wang is her married name--was a dressmaker in her uncle's factory in the late 1960s. In 1972, she met her husband, Wang Yuan-hong, a salesman with business acumen in the textile industry. The couple moved to soon after their marriage and founded Shiatzy International Company in 1978. Shiatzy, literally translated as "styles of ," has become known mainly as a women's clothing label, although it has also been designing men's wear since 1987. However, its styles have been refined as Chen follows a concept she describes as "Chinese style as the fundamental concept, Western style for practicality." That is, the clothes have simple and clean Western lines, but maintain distinctive Chinese features such as mandarin collars, knotted buttons and other Chinese cultural elements.

Chen's attempt to go for the neo-Chinese chic that merges styles from the East and West came at the right time. In the late 1970s, mainland 's 10-year Cultural Revolution, which saw the destruction of Chinese cultural traditions, came to an end. Mainland was ready to begin opening up, while the rest of the world was just starting to make contact with the Middle Kingdom and begin exploring its culture. For Shiatzy Chen, this was a good time to ride the wave of interest in all things Chinese, and an opportunity to begin marketing the charm of chinoiserie.

The " fever" continued into the 1980s. In 1987 the movie The Last Emperor, the winner of all nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated, sharpened global interest in Chinese design and inspired fashion designers worldwide with its imperial costumes. The popularity of movies with a strong Chinese aesthetic such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000, and Lust, Caution in 2007--where the leading actress is seen in no fewer than 27 qipaos throughout the film--has had a similar effect.

Nevertheless, Chen Tsai-hsia emphasizes that the key to brand recognition is the diligent attitude of people working for the label, not the development of mainland or the craze for Chinese-style goods and entertainment in general. Such an attitude is shared by Shiatzy's team, which currently consists of more than 400 staff members, including 20-odd designers led by Chen.

After exporting to , Europe and the during the 1980s, Chen looked to , setting up a workshop there in 1990 as a way to continue the label's development. "She was quite farsighted in doing so," says Vanessa Yu, fashion director of Marie Claire Taiwan, adding that the move helps to keep Chen's designs current. At this outpost abroad, Shiatzy designers can gain help from a French patternmaker and familiarize themselves with international fashion trends, current cutting styles and Western culture in general. The experience can also broaden their horizons to take in a variety of the arts. "A creative fashion designer shouldn't just do research related to clothing and look at works by other [clothing] designers," Chen says. "He or she should also appreciate arts and culture, so that they can very naturally design highly creative clothes." In 2001 the label opened its first store outside , a boutique in in the building that also houses the workshop.

It seems inevitable that a fashion brand featuring Chinese aesthetics would eventually take off in mainland . In 2003, the company set up its first mainland Chinese shop in downtown , and opened its flagship store there in 2005 on the Bund, an area in the city where historical buildings are home to luxury goods shops and famous hotels. According to media reports, more than 700 celebrities from mainland and showed up for the flagship store's opening day, attesting to its status in the economic capital of the mainland. To date, Shiatzy has 11 points of sale in Hong Kong, Macau and mainland . In , the label has opened a total of 38 retail outlets.

After years of running a factory in suburban , the company opened its second one in in 2007. "Few young people in want to work in a factory, so most workers in the factory are over 40. That's not a problem in ," she says. More than 100 workers including dressmakers and embroiderers are employed by the company to produce tens of thousands of items of clothing annually based on more than 400 styles created by its designers.

Delicate Craftsmanship

"Much of a piece of clothing's value lies in the embroidery on it," says Jerry Hsieh, the label's marketing and public relations manager, showing the delicate craftsmanship of a quilted jacket for women in the flagship on 's . With intricate patterns of embroidery on satin, the jacket will fetch NT$49,800 (US$1,600), an average price for a Shiatzy Chen customer, many of whom are in the political or corporate arenas, celebrities or socialites. Clients include Lien Fang Yu, wife of former Vice President Lien Chan and Sophie Chang, wife of business tycoon Morris Chang.

"One of the major factors in deciding the price of an article of clothing is whether there is a lot of embroidery work and how complicated the work is," he adds.

However, a label can be widely visible only when it is marketed well. For the market, which remains the major source of revenue, the company stages fashion shows twice a year. Unlike most big international fashion shows abroad that present clothing half a year ahead of time, however, Shiatzy's shows in launch collections only for the current season. This is because the shows are mostly for Shiatzy's VIP clients, who purchase the clothes for their own use, rather than commercial buyers.

One activity that both promotes the label and offers a public service has been Shiatzy's charity sales, according to Anthony Hsieh, creative and marketing director for the fashion house. The charity sales have been held for many years and have included a major fundraiser to celebrate the label's 20th anniversary in 1998 that raised money for breast cancer research, as well as an event in response to 's 921 Earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 2,400 people. The most recent charity event, which was scheduled for late 2008, offered 3,000 quilted jackets for sale.

The label has also been trying to diversify its product line and about three years ago began expanding its catalogue with accessories, sold in all Shiatzy stores, and furniture, available at its three flagship stores in , and . It even opened a teashop in downtown this past November. "When a label develops to a certain level, you have to take care of your clients in other aspects," Chen says.

Shiatzy's choice of location for its boutiques is another promotional strategy, such as its five-story flagship building in Taipei flanked by Gucci and Louis Vuitton. "In fact, department stores and malls have already placed us alongside world-class luxury labels," Anthony Hsieh says.

Of course, the most significant boost to marketing for Shiatzy was the official invitation to Paris Fashion Week, with every detail of taking part in that event planned out carefully to be sure of making a good first impression. "They have been talking about this for years. But they wanted to be careful about the label's debut in the event," says Liao Hsiu-nien of Harper's Bazaar.

New Horizons

Liao thinks the recent Paris experience is a starting point for the next stage of the Shiatzy Chen story. Now the fashion house plans to take part in the biannual event regularly in order to build a global reputation for the label and gain exposure in the international market. It will also ramp up its advertising in high-end Western publications. Until now, the single shop in Paris was the sole point of sale in the West, meaning that large-scale advertising in such magazines was not cost effective. With the label likely to become available at more outlets soon, that strategy will change.

"About six department stores in Paris placed orders after the show and that's why we've now allocated a budget for advertisements in the French editions of influential fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle," says Anthony Hsieh.

For this label, ascending to the heights of the fashion world has been a steady rise built on successive years of acclaim. In 2003 the Asian Wall Street Journal considered Shiatzy the most popular local fashion brand in Taiwan, and the following year the London-based Financial Times included the label on its "what's hot" list for 2004. Still, Chen is modest about her company's achievements. "There's still a huge gap between Shiatzy and the world's top labels," she says. Perhaps she is right, but certainly Shiatzy Chen seems to be one of the homegrown fashion brands most qualified to expand globally.

Chen recalls receiving a text message on her cell phone the moment before she boarded a plane heading to Paris for the Fashion Week show. The message was from a senior designer who had worked for the label for the past 16 years. It said simply, "We made it. This is the day I have been waiting for my whole life," referring to the Paris event. "I was so touched," Chen says. "Shiatzy Chen was on that catwalk because of my team's hard work for so many years."

All world-famous fashion brands achieve success because of decades of hard work and the dedicated attitude of their staff. With its 30-year history and devoted designers, Shiatzy Chen undoubtedly has the potential to join their ranks.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw