Western Fashion Brands Struggle To Compete With Asian Counterparts

Seoul: With Asian consumers getting more confident about their home grown brands, Fashion brands from China, Japan and South Korea are prevailing the market. Along with this, the Asian consumers are considered as the world’s biggest buyers of high-end fashion brands and products and represent almost half of the significant consumers, said reports.

Compared to the leading western brands, the Asian brands are young and mostly are belongs to the first generation of designers. Reports are that most of the Asian brand- owner are within 35-years of age, is tech-savvy and always in search for different fashion staples ‘that will make them stand out and look different.’ Also, these fashion brands are always ready to experiment with textile and materials, and hunts for ‘small, cool and original features’ in their designs.

According to reports, the Asian brands, mostly from China, Japan and South Korea is considered as a ‘growing threat from the East’ by the big western brands like Prada, Tod and Kering’s Bottega Veneta. Also, brands like Ms Min and Comme moi from China are growing fast and getting sold at the departmental stores of Lane Crawford.

“You sense there is a pride about seeing China develop its own creative community and seeing China emerge as a creative force,” Lane Crawford chairman Andrew Keith told. Most of the Chinese fashion brand products are sold online, to the Chinese nationals living abroad to offer them a sense of their home-grown brands.

Following the home-grown brands, the south-Asian countries now are sponsored by local industrial brands to organize fashion week to encourage the budding brands. Fashion brands, which were always thought as a cup of tea of the western countries, have now shifted the notion.

Korean electronics company Samsung’s fashion division chairman said: “Before many Asians thought luxury goods had to come from the West. But they are becoming more sophisticated and discerning and now more people are interested in local designers who have their own point of view and unique style.”