May 2010, Salvatore Ferragamo released its new series, including bags, purses and T-shirts, with Chinese artist Xue Song at Ferragamo’s store in Shanghai. The Ferragamo team met Xue during a visit to the Hong Kong International Art Fair in 2009 and they started their cooperation then.

In order to feature the Shanghai Expo magix, Xue made a special painting with red signifying happiness and a tiger for 2010, the Tiger Year in the Chinese zodiac. These two later became the key elements of this unique series. How will luxury items designed by Chinese be received? We will see.

Chinese recently invented a new name for cross dressers, Wei niang (伪娘 in Chinese) because of the contestant Liu Zhu on Happy Boy talent show. As it turns out, undergarments for cross dressers are being sold on Taobao.

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Trendspotter

Vicky, 21

College student, Beijing

We noticed that an online event supporting gays in China called “Smile for Gays” started spreading May 20^th. In the blog Hello Gay, Eric, the initiator said, “May 17^th this year is the day the world will show no fear.  (Picture on the left: Wanted - 1000 smiles from hetero netizens.)

On that day, gay people from dozens of cities all over the world walked down the street, appealing against sexual orientation discrimination and cheering for themselves. Some Chinese people from developed cities got involved too.”

Currently, there are estimated to be 50 million gay people in China. Most of them are confronted with pressure, social discrimination and feel frustrated that straight people cannot understand them.

“We hope we can convey our understanding, encouragement and support and make an appeal to society to accept homosexuals by collecting smiles and blessings from 1000 heterosexual people. We will address this to the 50 million homosexuals in China, especially those who are in trouble.” Ocean noted.

The event was held from May 20^th to June 30^th. Participants wrote down words (or drawings) to encourage homosexual friends and took a photo. They then uploaded the pictures to the Hello Gay blog or a micro-blog on Sina.

The event is only open to heterosexual people and posted its 1000^th smile on June 3^rd. One of the postings said,” We are the same. My roommate and my best friend from college are gay. We had a deep friendship and I don’t feel anything weird between us.”

Heteros shows their support to gays – “Love, makes a better world”, “Homo is normal too”, and “Bless you guys!” etc.

“I’m a big fan of manicures and the German soccer team. Since the World Cup is on, I wanted to do something for my team, and it occurred to me that polishing the German national flag on my nails would be great. Apart from that, my German friends and I also got cheerleader’s uniform tailored, which goes perfectly with my nails. Go Germany go!!!” - Nancy, 23, Shanghai

World-famous liquor brand Absolut Vodka displayed its new product at the Swedish pavilion of the Expo in May. In collaboration with Chinese contemporary artist Yu Gao, Absolut created a product especially for Chinese consumers. The story behind the art is based on the old Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West,’ which features the Monkey King and how he conquered the world with his 72 transformations. This limited edition bottle will be launched in China in August.

Local Chinese youth are too excited to hear this news. Zach, a trend magazine editor from Shanghai said, “I have been collecting Absolut Vodka bottles for a couple of years and this monkey bottle is definitely going to be the next one.” Also, a college student from Dalian noted, “Most designers will use Chinese knots and Beijing opera facial masks when it comes to Chinese elements. But this bottle is Absolut(ely) something new.”

Over 100 thousand posts were made on Sina twitter to observe the one year death anniversary of late pop king Michael Jackson today.

“One word: love. I will always miss you!” one fan wrote. Another posted, “Angel, you didn’t leave us, instead, you are just living in another way. I’m waiting for you to come back and sing another song for us. God bless you.”

Continuing our conversation with Elsa, we discuss what her assumptions are about luxury consumers and also listen to her introduction of her favorite skin care and perfumes.

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