"Awful," says Hsu Yu kuei (許玉葵) when asked about the taste of Taiwan women and the styles they choose to wear. "They like expensive, flashy, and overly fancy clothes. For them, clothes are above all else status symbols." Fashion and style are Hsu's main preoccupations as a fashion writer for the Chinese language variety daily, Min Sheng Pao. She writes on the garment industry, introduces foreign designers, and points out the Taiwan designers who she feels are worthy of more attention.
Her columns, which include tips on combining colors and choosing accessories, assert that style speaks louder than words. To make her message clear, Hsu often snips at the lack of fashion sense among celebrities and other public figures.
Who does she think she is? One who has the credentials: Hsu is Taiwan's first professional fashion writer. "I have been watching fashion and the development of the Taiwan fashion industry for over ten years," she says. Her involvement with the fashion scene began with the Taiwan Textile Federation, where she worked for seven years as a senior specialist. "My job was to develop relationships between local textile manufacturers and designers, and the outside world," she says. And because the textile industry serves export interests, her perspective of fashion had become internationalized long before the island's clothes horses realized there were more styles out there than what was brought in from Japan. Hsu began writing on fashion for a woman's magazine, and in 1983 became a regular contributor to Min Sheng Pao.
What's best for me? Advertising, fashion magazines, and expanded imports have made choices about suitable clothes and accessories more complex.
"At that time there were four distinct looks," Hsu says. "They were defined by financial circumstances." According to Hsu, the Western style was for the very rich, and was worn by fewer than 10 percent of the women, most of whom were well-traveled. Western clothes in the contemporary Japanese style - traditional, prim, and of fine quality-were worn by about 25 percent of the women. They were well-educated, and for them timelessness and durability overrode all other considerations. About 50 percent of the women wore ready made imitations of popular Japanese fashions, or had their own seamstresses copy designs out of Japanese catalogues known as "bu-ku," a transliteration for the English "book."
"For the rest," Hsu says, "style was of no concern. How could there have been, when it was hard enough to afford a new dress? My older sister remembers a time when people were wearing secondhand clothes donated by American relief organizations. We have really changed since then."
The early 1980s was a turning point. The economy was charged with energy, and people in general had more disposable income. Besides being able to afford luxuries such as televisions and washing machines, they also bought clothes that in earlier days would have been considered unnecessary. At the same time, more women sought jobs, leading to a rise in household incomes. And since they now had more money to spend, especially young, unmarried women who still lived with their parents, they made more demands on the fashion industry. No, the women of Taiwan did not just want to look decent, they also wanted to look attractive. Most of all, they wanted variety.
Happier choices in the 1980s - her grandmother went to school barefoot and her mother wore hand-me-downs.
There was also greater access to fashion information from around the world. Chinese-language fashion magazines such as Phoebe, Diana, and Nung-nung were foreign in orientation, their pages featuring the latest collections of renowned American, European, and Japanese designers. But they also gave space to promising Taiwan designers. (Today, a whole range of foreign-language fashion magazines line the racks of most bookstores. Also available are the Taipei editions of Bazaar and Cosmopolitan.)
The department stores found them selves in the midst of a fashion revolution. There were already a few boutiques selling expensive, imported clothes. To win more of the women who were now increasingly selective about their clothes, the department stores began to import women's wear first from Japan, and gradually from the U.S. and Europe. They had an abundant supply of Japanese imports because women in Taiwan had always been fond of clothes and things Japanese. It seemed too risky to bring in brands from the West. "The majority of the women were still quite conservative," Hsu says. "Popular Western fashions were considered too wild or too exotic. Besides, there weren't enough people to teach shoppers how to coordinate Western clothes and wear them to flattering advantage."
Even up until five years ago, prevalent styles still carried a strong Japanese flavor, according to fashion designer Nadia Lin (林巨英). She says, "Aside from the clothes directly imported from Japan, the best-selling styles either carried Japanese labels or were quality imitations of well-known Japanese lines." For instance, young career women are drawn to Azur and Se, two of the more popular fashion labels. Although the clothes carry Japanese labels, they are manufactured in Taiwan under a licensing agreement. The lines are simple and clean, and the colors do not stray too far away from basic black, blue, gray, brown, and cream. And Lin points out, "Rarely do they have a dress that com bines more than two colors."
Men's fashions are in a time warp stylishness, quality, and variety are still difficult to find in Taiwan's retail shops.
Young ladies tended to imitate the girlish models in Japanese magazines by dressing in sailor suits, jumpers, and straight skirts with polo shirts. In short, they liked the classic preppie look. While young women in the U.S. and Europe wanted to look sophisticated and mature, Taiwan girls wanted to project an innocent, neat, and proper image.
In 1987, customs duties began to slide, making imported clothes more affordable. The Japanese influence in fashion also began to diminish; the stiff appreciation of the yen resulted in little promise of profit. Besides, after the exposure to the freer styles and bold color combinations of Western fashion, women were ready to try something new.
While the Japanese were already going mad over Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Chanel, Taiwan shoppers were just beginning to cultivate a fascination with brand names. But they were soon to catch up with yuppy trends in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Wearing clothes that carried famous brands, especially Italian or French, became a fashion trend and a matter of social prestige. Fashion houses that were once limited to the Western hemisphere were quick to jump into the lucrative and spendthrift Asian market. Says Hsu: "They made adjustments in styles, sizes, colors, and even prices so that their products would be more marketable in Asia."
Today, department stores and boutiques are filled with fashions from France, Italy, Germany, England, Spain, and the U.S. And the cosmopolitan styles of Hong Kong companies are favored by shoppers who cannot afford high-priced European fashions but like their smart, chic look. Despite all the beautiful clothes now available, Hsu says that women in Taiwan are still learning how to dress with style and creativity. They are also making a lot of mistakes in the process. "There are so few role models," she says. "In other countries, the people who have a good sense of style tend to be the well-educated. Here, the general perception among the cerebral is that fashion is petty and frivolous. Maybe it has something to do with our educational system. It has left out the appreciation for art and beauty."
"What women here don't appreciate is that part of good fashion sense is knowing when and where to wear certain clothes," says boutique designer Fong Wen-shen (馮文伸). "I see women who report for work in cocktail dresses." He also points out that many women continue to follow trends without noticing that certain styles are very unbecoming to the Asian figure.
"We might be economically successful, but we still have to acquire some refinement, some sophistication," says Hsu. As critical as Fong and Hsu are, they agree with fashion designer Isabelle Wen (溫慶珠) when she says, "I think that people are beginning to understand that less is more. They are no longer afraid to try something straight and simple. They know that's elegant, too. Isn't that a big step?"
"There's nothing here for me to wear" is a common complaint heard from men walking around the men's section of department stores. It was, after all, only a few years ago that retailers began to see men as fashion objects. And although today they are no longer dressed in nondescript outfits, men still are largely overlooked when it comes to fashion.
At present, there are two types of men's clothing in Taiwan: threads for the young and hip, and conservative dress for the mature businessman and professional. According to Ting Erh-hui (丁爾慧), manager of the menswear department at Taipei's Evergreen Tokyu Department Store, most of the men's fashions produced in Taiwan are geared toward teenagers to men in their early thirties. "They don't usually have a large budget for clothes," he says, "and they aren't too concerned with quality."
On the other hand, older professionals and executives often choose to buy imported clothes that are on the traditional side. "They are quite conservative and stay away from styles that they think are a little fancy or too wild," adds Ting. "So there go the fitted jackets, the wide lapels, and the loose, pleated trousers that are popular features in locally manufactured menswear."
The middle segment of the market, ranging from twenty-five to thirty-five, complain they are being neglected. Boutique designer Fong Wen-shen says: "Taiwan clothes make them look too young, especially at a time when they want to be taken seriously in their jobs and by women. And if they take their pick from imports, they'll look old and conservative." Fong remembers a time when he could not find suitable clothes for himself in Taipei. Instead he shopped in Japan where he felt men's clothes had more sophistication. "I still go to Japan," he says, "because stores there have clothes specifically for men like me, in an in-between age. There's a wide range there as well, from casual to very formal."
In the past, when a man needed the rare suit, he went to a tailor to have one made. And often, that suit lasted him all his life. Today, men have more occasions than weddings to wear suits, but they prefer to buy them ready-made. At least they have become a little more adventurous in mixing and matching blazers, trousers, shirts, and ties.
But men's taste in fashion is still very traditional. At the end of a working day, men flock out of the office in a sea of gray, blue, and black. "They dress safe," Fong says. "For Chinese men, the office is not the place to be stylish. In Japan, men wear light-colored jackets ivory, khaki, and egg-yolk yellow to work."
"Women have more open minds, and are easier to sell to than men," Ting says. "As affluent as we have all become, the men are just not as fashion conscious as women. They are also more cost-conscious." He points out that men buy shirts more than anything else, especially when they are on sale. But as market researchers are finding out, women make the purchasing decisions in the family. So when it comes to men's, clothes, the real customers are the women behind the men. Advertisers take note. •