Taiwanese Fashion House Plans To Open 100 Mainland China Locations By 2020
Taiwan’s Shiatzy Chen is trying to position itself as one of Asia’s top premium fashion houses (Image: PR)
The Business of Fashion speaks this week to Harry Wang, CEO of the Taiwanese fashion house Shiatzy Chen. Founded in 1978 by designer Wang Chen Tsai-Hsia and her husband, Shiatzy Chen currently operates stores in Hong Kong, mainland China and Paris, with annual revenue of around US$60 million. As a brand known for infusing traditional Chinese elements into its generally Western-style designs, Shiatzy Chen is now looking at more rapid expansion throughout Asia, where the brand senses greater opportunity and easier access in comparison to more mature markets like North America.
In his interview with the Business of Fashion, Shiatzy Chen CEO Wang shares some insight into his company’s vision for the next ten years, particularly in regards to its courting of China’s emerging consumer class. Wang also reserves some choice words for his competitors in the “luxury with Chinese characteristics” game. From the interview:
Wang adds later that Shiatzy Chen is placing all of its eggs in the Asia basket, particularly in mainland China, with plans to open 100 stores there by 2020. That’s quite ambitious, considering the brand currently operates just 10 mainland China boutiques, with plans to open eight more by the end of the year. In all, Wang hopes to operate “100 stores in China, 50 in Taiwan, 25 in Japan, and…another 25 worldwide” by 2020. So can Harry Wang succeed in outpacing foreign-owned Chinese brands like Shanghai Tang and Shang Xia and position Shiatzy Chen as the pre-eminent Chinese-infused premium brand, not only in Asia but globally as well? It’s possible, but as Wang himself conceded, it will take years for China’s current preference for Western designs and Western brands to fade.
However, by kicking off an aggressive expansion now, and (presumably) losing some money in the mainland China market for the next several years, Wang is apparently quite confident that his brand will be well-placed to reap the rewards once that Western fashion bias does change. The problem here, though, is that dozens of other Chinese brands have the same idea.