Red Fashionistas (Chinese Luxury)

Shanghai,

Mao Zedong… are you listening? Today’s booming de facto capitalist economy is creating a whole new class hierarchy of haves and have-nots, so much for a common proletariat, today’s China praises the rich.  These nouveaux riche are rushing to acquire pricey, top-of-the-line luxury goods as fast as they can be imported from France, Italy and the US.


Chinese fashionistas are enjoying Hong Kong and Shanghai shopping sprees. Among their favorite brands: Armani, Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Manolo, and Prada.  Coinciding with this boom-de-luxe, Chinese-language versions of such Western magazines as Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue have been launched in China, targeted primarily at consumers in big cities. Western manufacturers and medias alike have seen the future, and the future is a populous, post communist China eager to spend.


Studies show that China's affluent class is growing and that, given the country's relatively inexpensive cost of living when it comes to certain basic goods and services, the disposable income of the rich and fashionable set is proportionately larger and can go further than in North America or Europe. In U.S. dollar terms, China may boast more than 500,000 millionaires today.  In terms of purchasing power parity, the spending power of the roughly 10 million Chinese who earn $30,000 or more a year is equivalent to that of Americans who earn around $140,000 annually.

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