Designs On China

Image: Getty Images

The World’s Tastemakers are descending on New York for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, but the real action in the rag trade is across the Pacific.

“Asia is our biggest growth opportunity,” says Tadashi Yanai, the billionaire head of Fast Retailing, which controls Theory, Helmut Lang and Uniqlo. New markets: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea.

Designers are falling in line. Last month’s Paris shows featured searing red from Jean Paul Gaultier, reams of silk by Alexis Mabille and dragonlike embellishments at Armani Privé. (Witness also Louis Vuitton’s bustling new stores in Mongolia, Mandarin-speaking shop girls at Chanel Paris and Ralph Lauren’s recent Old Shanghai-themed runway show.)

Designer Vivienne Tam can attest to the shift. Her Asian styles have gone from struggling to sizzling. “When I started my collection people told me, ‘Vivienne, you will never be successful. Nobody will buy it because you’re Asian, your inspiration is from China.’” Last year sales at her Hong Kong boutique grew 40 percent; she expects more of the same in 2012. Talk about chasing the dragon.