Through the looking glass: China and its wonderful brands in the fashion, technology and food & beverage fields
When we think about China and the world of fashion and industries, the first image that comes to mind is that of the small shops, now ubiquitous in our cities, marked by ideograms and red lanterns displayed at the entrance. But it’s not like that. Thanks to the technological progress, huge economic development and advanced manufacturing techniques, China has not only created its own unique and authentic brands, but also of the highest level, which can match the big international fashion brands. In fact, more and more Chinese designers are making their way into the world of haute couture and they even inspire their experienced western colleagues, bringing to the catwalk unique and fabulous models, able to interpret their own tradition with great originality. It’s no coincidence therefore that the MET in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has dedicated an exhibition entitled Through the Looking-Glass to the influence of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion (the title recalls the world of wonders discovered by Lewis Carrol's Alice).
Needless to say, it was the museum's most visited exhibit. But it’s not just the fashion sector that stands out among the "made in China" productions. Certainly the first place is the sphere of high technology, with an infinite range of products with a practical, modern and innovative design, ranging from home appliances to telephony, among which the leading brand Huawei, the second smartphone manufacturer, stands out in a challenge to the latest software only with the American giant Apple, and Xiaomi, which has already surpassed Samsung in sales. Then there are the e-commerce sectors, with Alibaba in the lead, tourism and education, which has grown of the 46% more than previous years, and the telecommunications macrocosm headed by Tencent. This important company from Shenzhen is a mix between our Google and Facebook, whose infinite potential all converge together in a single app, Wechat, the Chinese instant messaging program capable of carrying out any type of activity. Chat, social media, payments, reservations, medical visits, taxi and so on and so forth, all in one amazing app.
Tencent now has almost a billion users. It’s therefore evident how the Chinese brands are becoming more and more numerous to have a strong economic weight on the global market and how some of them have even exceeded the value of multinational granitationals such as McDonald's or the holding company of Luis Vuitton and Moet Chandon in stock market prices, two giants of the French luxury market. China in fact marks a new point also in the food & beverage sector, with the exclusive production of the Maotai or Moutai liqueur, from the name of the city of the same name in which it is produced, in the south-west of the country. This fragrant distillate, which is the most famous of all China, is very ancient, dating back to around 2000 years ago and is said to have been the favorite drink of the emperors of the Han dynasty.
Wheat and sorghum based, this liqueur has a reddish color following the fermentation that takes place in particular tanks, made of a reddish soil called cinnabar. Finally, the distillate is aged in jars of a special porcelain, until it reaches an alcohol content of about 55% vol. Whether it’s a refined product is obvious, especially if we think that Mao Zedong offered it to the then American president Nixon during a State dinner. And although it’s not as well known in the West, nevertheless the Moutai has reached a market capitalization of 145 billion dollars, a mind-boggling figure ... and this is not because of the alcohol content. In addition to McDonalds, it also outperformed well-known British brands such as Baileys, Johnnie Walker and Guinness. From this perspective, an image of China emerges that is far from the shops of our cities. We are instead facing a real economic power in continuous growth, which is greatly contributing to the new world economic structures of which we are spectators. On the big global green table, China is now the most tenacious player, certain of its abilities and who knows if it won’t have the last word with four aces.
