{"id":1382,"date":"2010-12-04T15:49:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T07:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dailydozencreative.com\/weblog\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2010-12-04T15:49:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-04T07:49:06","slug":"traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?p=1382","title":{"rendered":"traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

the wrong<\/strong>: competing from weakness<\/em><\/p>\n

last month, the latest intertextile was held in shanghai. textile mills (and their agents) all over the world were exhibiting their fall \/ winter 2011 fabrics collections and competing for share in the fastest growing market. bucol carries the best fancy silk. for lace, you just go to soltiss. solbiati provides top quality natural-fiber woven such as cotton, linen and wool. cut-and-sewn knits belong to mario boselli. denim? kaihara. no question.<\/p>\n

that got me thinking: what made them who they are today? the money? the history? the passion? it is all of the above and more. it is the tradition. and, it was a very nice way to work in the pre-internet era. information was restricted. techniques were passed down from generation to generation within the family. it would take decades to master all the little tricks and secrets of the trade. but this business model does not work neither in china nor the post-internet economies.<\/p>\n

i disagree with the western point of view of china being merely a copying nation. modern china is relatively young comparing even to the us. we are only 60 years old and we are in the economics adolescence for the pass 25 years. speaking of tradition within such a short time is like examining the cooking skill of a chief of mcdonald \u2013 there is none to be found. copying is how you learn. copying is part of growing up. look at japan in the 70\u2019s.the first skyline by toyota was an effort to \u201clearn\u201d from the americans how to build a muscle car, only cheaper and smaller. i bet a ford mustang owner was laughing at the skyline back then. but somewhere along the way, the toyota found its own way (the manga culture and the rising video gaming industry lent a great hand). the latest skyline is nothing to sneeze at – with the million renminbi price tags and its performance, it is more like a ferrari then any ford.<\/p>\n

drawing parallel between the two counties in different era is a mistake. unlike japan in the 70\u2019s, because of the internet, new china has an abundance of information, which crowded out both traditions and new ideas. so i would argue that copying is more a by-product of the time and place in history for the chinese.<\/p>\n

with the backing of herm\u00e8s, shang-xia is aiming to be a chinese luxury brand building on the tradition of chinese craftsmanship and nothing else. according to its website, it is \u201cchinese and asian heritage crafted for contemporary lifestyle\u201d. it could be very beautiful and extremely successful financially, but it sounds very boring to me. where is the excitement? what is the new idea here? to truly build a modern chinese hi-end brand, the idea of tradition would be a negative one. we can\u2019t compete on the history and heritage with the western companies. nor should we. chinese customers will dominate the new luxury market. so why are we playing their game of tradition?<\/p>\n

(first published in the dec. 2010 issue of his life magazine)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the wrong: competing from weakness last month, the latest intertextile was held in shanghai. textile mills (and their agents) all over the world were exhibiting their fall \/ winter 2011 fabrics collections and competing for share in the fastest growing market. bucol carries the best fancy silk. for lace, you just go to soltiss. solbiati […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[120,112,114,27,116,119,23,115,117,118,113],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-wrong","tag-bucol","tag-chinese-paper-cutting","tag-heritage","tag-hermes","tag-intertextile-shanghai","tag-kaihara","tag-knock-off","tag-shang-xia","tag-solbiati","tag-soltiss","tag-tradition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.deaconyu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/tradition.png?fit=1018%2C680&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pp6zn-mi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":91,"url":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?p=91","url_meta":{"origin":1382,"position":0},"title":"shanghai & fashion","author":"deacon","date":"10 Dec 08","format":false,"excerpt":"during my trip to shanghai last week, i was curious to see the local fashion creations. by chance, i found them on both change le lu and xin le lu. names like even penniless, liu2, na(too), ne!ther nor (onebyone), estune, jade en plus are all part of the emerging scene.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the wrong"","block_context":{"text":"the wrong","link":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?cat=19"},"img":{"alt_text":"shanghai-t","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dailydozencreative.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/shanghai-t.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?p=1366","url_meta":{"origin":1382,"position":1},"title":"east meets west?!","author":"deacon","date":"3 Oct 10","format":false,"excerpt":"being in hong kong in the 80\u2019s, all the cool magazines were talking about east meets west. it seemed like an interesting concept back then. i was thinking maybe that was hong kong, a place where all the westerners would wear cheongsam (qipao), all the chinese would drive their mercedes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the past"","block_context":{"text":"the past","link":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.deaconyu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/east-meets-west.jpg?fit=850%2C430&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.deaconyu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/east-meets-west.jpg?fit=850%2C430&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.deaconyu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/east-meets-west.jpg?fit=850%2C430&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.deaconyu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/east-meets-west.jpg?fit=850%2C430&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1443,"url":"https:\/\/blog.deaconyu.com\/?p=1443","url_meta":{"origin":1382,"position":2},"title":"co-incident 10?","author":"deacon","date":"3 Jun 12","format":false,"excerpt":"on the left, it is the burberry storefront in beijing. on the right it is a 'buebelly' storefront in shenzhen. really? 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