Mainland consumers pick up the threads on luxury consumption

Mainland consumers - long-time lovers of 'Made in Italy' and 'Made in France' tags - have surprisingly been converted to a high-end brand closer to home.

'Made in Xiamen' may not appear on the face of it to be a selling point. But for Ports Design, the Hong Kong-listed fashion house which produces from factories in the mainland city, it has worked. Ports last month posted a 41.6 per cent increase in first-half earnings to 142.8 million yuan, driven by the growing mainland appetite for quality luxury goods.

Vogue last year ranked Ports as the third most preferred high-end fashion label in the mainland, following Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

Ports chief executive Alfred Chan Kai-tai said producing locally had definite advantages: for one, the company could hire young women with 'sharp eyes' to do close work such as sewing. In Europe, it was common for senior citizens to take up these jobs and their eyesight may not be as good.

'We are not a pretentious company,' Mr Chan said. 'The way to look at our company is like the translation of our name, Ports; we call it Bao Zi, which is very Chinese. We don't pretend like other companies that have western names.'

Pierre Lu Xiao, assistant professor in marketing at Shanghai's Fudan University, said a 'Made in China' label was not necessarily a negative if the quality was the same as in Europe.