Five Designers' Dialogue with Taiwanese Fashion

1. Lu Fong-chih

Some 30 years ago, a group of young artists exploded on the Taiwan art scene, starting a movement that gave rise to the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and the Little Theater Movement, as well as a number of architects and fashion designers. These young artists helped one another, spurring each other's creativity and raising it to a professional standard. In the process they moved to the forefront of the arts in Taiwan and achieved acclaim on the international stage. Fashion designer Lu Fong-chih is one member of that group.

"I majored in fine art. As a clothing designer, I'm self-taught," explains Lu.

When Lu graduated from Chinese Culture University, he planned to go abroad to pursue his studies in the arts. But those studies required money, so Lu first tried his hand at making batik shirts, selling them to a just-established clothing company. Much to his surprise, his shirts were well received and sold well, pricking his interest in fashion design.

"I was the first fashion designer in Taiwan to set up his own designer label," remarks Lu, who has always been right at the cutting edge.

After designing the costumes for Cloud Gate's classics Legacy and Nu Wa, Lu emulated Western designers by starting his own label and hiring a renowned architect, Huang Yung-hung, to design his flagship store. Ten years ago, Lu entered the mainland Chinese market with a store selling his own designer label clothing. Then, six years ago, he went on to create a more down-market label aimed at the younger market. Lu created quite a stir with his business endeavors, and also helped put several fellow designers, including Hung Wei-ming, Liu Lung, Chao Chi-chien and Pun Dai-lee, on an equal footing wjith European and American designers.

"Unfortunately," says Lu, "these rash moves put me deeply into debt."

His Shanghai store, which was located in an exquisite building, has already folded. Worse, the Shanghai municipal authorities named the building a "highly representative historic monument," imposing restrictions that caused him heavy losses. But Lu, who has been pouring massive amounts of money into grand schemes since he first came onto the scene, laughs, describing himself as a trailblazer who never considers retreat.

Over the last 30 years, Lu has scrupulously adhered to a design concept that combines the Asian spirit with Western methods, an approach that keeps the design simple but allows for complex and avant-garde permutations when worn. At times, the demand for his clothes has exceeded his ability to produce them. These days, although he maintains his own-label counters in ten high-end retailers and department stores, he feels keenly the heartless pragmatism of the ever-changing market.

"The situation," he says, "is that those who like my designs can't afford them. And those who have the money prefer international designer labels."

The international labels have the backing of large business groups, which allows them to use the finest fabrics, to advertise widely, and to consult with professional marketing teams. These labels have become marks of status for those who wear them. In contrast, domestic designers have no help in their fight for market share. They handle the design, manage the retailing, oversee the production and arrange credit lines all on their own. How can they succeed in such an unequal battle?

Lu, who is participating in the program for the cultural/creative industries jointly developed by the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Taiwan Textiles Federation, thinks the unprecedented NT$360,000 that the IDB is awarding to individual designers to develop fabrics and produce 20 items of clothing for exhibition is a good first step.

"But what we need even more is help from marketing professionals," says Lu. He explains that Taiwan's designers have neither packaging nor marketing skills, nor do they have the support of large business conglomerates, all of which makes it very hard for them to survive in any market. He says he has seen many wealthy Taiwanese women put upwards of NT$1 million on their credit cards at one swipe, and notes that such women are constantly flocking to Taiwan's high-end retailers. To him, this proves that the domestic market is booming and could be developed. The question for us all is how to direct that spending to the work of Taiwanese designers.

2. Chiang Wen-chi

Designer Chiang Wen-chi's progress from unemployment to establishing her own designer label was rapid, to say the least. Within a few weeks of receiving an invitation from the Idee department store to open her own counter, she had set up a studio and had her own label. It all seemed very sudden.

Chiang has long, wavy hair and dresses in something of a BoBo (Bohemian-bourgeois) style. A graduate of Fu Jen Catholic University's Textiles and Clothing Department, she did planning and design work at a casualwear company for four years after finishing her degree. Although she had earned an important position at the company, the work wasn't challenging, and she began to think about advanced study abroad.

Chiang decided to go to France, where she spent four and a half years studying at two different schools. At a fashion design school, she learned to negotiate and cooperate with people in her field, and immersed herself in the real world that undergirds success in fashion. Before returning to Taiwan in 1995, she borrowed NT$100,000 from her husband and held her first fashion show. After she returned she had innumerable interviews, but couldn't find a job. By that time, Chiang had already developed an extremely creative, avant-garde style of her own, but her designs were too adventurous for local firms, which tend to stick to more bland and conservative items.

"I was without an income for a year," says Chiang. "And not knowing what else to do, I decided to hold another show for my work."

As before, Chiang spent NT$100,000 to put on a small show. This time, however, it attracted unexpected media interest, which led in turn to a letter from Idee's "New Designer Square." Chiang immediately set to work renting an office, hiring people and borrowing money. In a flash, she had her own business.

"At the outset," she says, "our sales were very good and we made money. But right on the heels of the economic downturn, clothing sales began to fall."

Chiang's T-shirts sell for an average of NT$2,000-3,000, while her slacks sell for NT$3,000-4,000. Her unique designs are most popular with artsy, hip young people in advertising or who are self-employed.

"A whole group of people depended on me for their salaries," she says, "so I had to take on outside work, doing things like consulting on wardrobes for ads and designing costumes for theatrical productions, to keep the label afloat."

When Chiang had earlier borrowed money from her family to put on her fashion shows, they couldn't understand why a 30-year-old woman was spending money on this kind of event instead of looking for a "real" job. Even after she established her own designer label, her family still didn't think of it as "real" work. But when Chiang began considering adding consulting and other services to her business, her family came around.

"I haven't been able to find my place or an approach to the market," admits Chiang. "I'm not even sure whether my pricing strategy is correct." Chiang, who feels that she has little talent for marketing, is at a crossroads, wavering between running her own business and working for someone else. When she received an invitation from the Taiwan Fashion Designers Association to participate in the Taiwan Fashion Party, she felt it might be an opportunity to breathe new life into her label.

"The government's talent development plan could get involved in the educational system at an earlier stage," suggests Chiang, who also teaches. She notes that fashion design departments in Taiwan tend to be more rigid than those abroad, and that most of the teachers are academics who have never worked in the industry. As a result, it is very difficult for them to explain the current market situation to students, much less teach them how to pick up hints of where the market is headed next. In contrast, instructors overseas have worked in the industry and maintain close contacts with working designers, which allows them to offer real-world experience to their students.

"Take graduation shows, for example," says Chiang. "In France, the teachers select representative works from a student's design sketches. The number of designs that are selected varies from student to student, and for some, this process is their Waterloo. But once the designs have been chosen, the school provides the students with the fabric to make them free of charge, and the finished works represent the school in shows in France, Germany and Switzerland. The Taiwanese education system could learn from this approach."

3. Jane Hu

"I'm very happy that we are no longer just something pretty to look at," says fashion designer Jane Hu. After nearly ten years on the fashion scene, Hu says she is ecstatic to see the Council for Cultural Affairs realizing the importance of fashion designers. Hu had always felt the fashion industry was something of an orphan, and notes that even the Taiwan Textiles Federation's annual fashion show addressed itself mainly to fabric industry clients from overseas, benefiting the local textiles industry rather than designers. The clothes were simply the vehicle by which the textiles were shown, and the designers nothing but a foil.

"This time," says Hu, "the designers are getting involved with the design and development of the fabrics, which is a step forward." Hu admits that because this was the designers' first attempt at cooperation with textiles manufacturers, there were communication problems as well as conceptual divides to be bridged. But she says that on the whole, the results were gratifying.

Hu loves creative work, and still remembers the feeling of freedom and of the possibility of limitless development she first enjoyed while studying at Parson's School of Design in New York. She decided then that when she graduated, she would make this her career. Nonetheless, it hasn't all been easy.

"Once," she recalls, "when Donna Karan, who is a Parson's alumnus, was giving a lecture at school, she mentioned that for her the most unforgettable part of her academic career was never sleeping. This struck a deep chord because my own workload at school was such-45 pieces of clothing a week for three years on end-that I never got a good night's sleep."

Fortunately, her hard work paid off-and all that training and preparation made establishing her own label seem relatively easy.

On the subject of design, Hu says: "I usually have this ridiculous feeling of time being turned on its head. We have to make the next season's fashions in advance, so I've always got my hands buried in thick wool fabrics while the summer heat blazes outside my window. There's this kind of confusion in which my head and body are going through different seasons."

On the other hand, it is Hu's immersion in this world, her love of fashion, that allows her to cherish the fleeting season-long lives of her designs.

Before going abroad to study, Hu had worked at an apparel company. When she returned to Taiwan after completing her studies, she sought out a job in this familiar environment only to discover that the domestic market had changed while she was away.

"I suddenly realized that I was enveloped in a world in which I was incapable of communicating my ideas," says Hu. "I couldn't find my own creative vocabulary."

"Excessive accessorizing" was the word of the day in Taiwan's fashion markets 13 years ago-big shoulder pads, complicated accessories, a mishmash of design styles.... This kind of design-Hu refers to it as "working-girl costume" design-left her feeling trapped in a creative prison. Although locked away, her desire to create never cooled, and eventually burst forth.

"I couldn't bear it anymore," she says. "I had to find a creative outlet for myself." Hu grabbed her brother and with him cruised the city streets and byways on a motorcycle looking for a storefront. She soon found one and realized her dream of having her own designer label, handling both the designing and retailing of her work by herself.

"I started the shop with only NT$100,000, and hadn't given any thought at all to follow-up plans like how to sell my work," says Hu. "If I could turn back time and do it over again, there's no way I would choose to open my own shop."

Hu, who says of herself that she's not much of a businesswoman, currently has ten exclusive counters in various locations, and sales are growing steadily. But she notes that all of these locations were set up by other people; she herself has never made any effort to develop her market.

"I don't have any business strategy," says Hu. "I just want to focus on developing my creativity and designing clothes. So maybe I'm more suited to working for someone else."

The heart of Hu's style has always been the simplicity of her designs and the sharp freshness of her work. She has only ever thought of the joy of creating, and never considers who might buy her clothes. Once a clerk working at one of her counters told her about a wealthy woman who had come to look at her clothes. The woman had been clad from head to foot in designer-label clothing but had had an air of real class. Hu was surprised, and realized that there were opportunities in Taiwan after all. The key to unlocking them is a deep understanding of the domestic market.

4. Elsie Huang

Elsie Huang's career path in the fashion industry has been smoother than that of most designers. Because her parents worked in the industry, and had their own company, factory and business partners, Huang was able to avoid many of the difficulties that go along with building an organization and raising capital when she established her own label.

"But I had even more pressure to bear," she says, "because more than ten people's livelihoods were in my hands."

Unlike most designers, who need only support a small studio and three or four employees, Huang could not permit even one season of poor sales.

Huang has a girl-next-door sweetness about her, but her designs incorporate a variety of different elements. These, together with her sharp eye for the cut of her designs, give her outfits a sophisticated air that has made them popular with teachers, civil servants and management professionals.

"When I first entered the market," she says, "I was still feeling around for my style. Virtually everything I designed was in the neutral colors that I personally prefer-black, white and gray. But when I began to bear responsibility for running the company, I became profoundly aware that clothes are made to be sold, and that their designs had to match market demand."

Once this idea took root, Huang began to keep tabs on the prices and styles of competing products, and to demand that her clothing and accessories meet exceptional standards of quality and style for the price.

It is this kind of attention to detail that has made Huang the most successful of Taiwan's new generation of designers. In fact, Huang has a number of awards to her credit, including first prize in the Republic of China Best New Designer Awards and fourth prize in France's Young Designers Competition. She was the best-selling designer in the Idee department store's "New Designer Square," where she had her own counter for four years, and she has received innumerable invitations to show her designs at shows overseas.

Huang's willingness to design for the market has helped her label achieve steady growth in sales, and she now has ten counters in stores around Taiwan. But producing the 180 clothing and accessories designs her company rolls out every season keeps her in her studio almost around the clock.

"I was very gratified when I received an invitation to participate in the Taiwan Fashion Party," says Huang. "The Council for Cultural Affairs hadn't forgotten about fashion designers after all."

But she sighs, too, noting that in the past the government's cultural policy focused solely on supporting and promoting "the arts," such as painting, dance and film. Businesses and foundations followed the government's lead, also directing their support to literature and the arts. Everyone ignored fashion designers in spite of the fact that their work has closer ties to people's lives and truly gives expression to those characteristics that make our culture unique.

"When I look at the market," says Huang, "I don't see a new generation of designers emerging. Most of the young people who study fashion design go into other fields because they feel that our generation has not been successful, and that there is no future in the market. It's a worrisome situation."

Huang hopes that the government will continue to promote the "Fashion Party" program on into the future so it can shine a little light and warmth on Taiwan's fashion designers as they weather what has been a long, cold winter.

5. Carole Chang

"Several years ago," says Carole Chang, "I wanted to hold a fashion exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Unfortunately, my request was denied because it 'wasn't art.' Who would have guessed that we'd be holding a fashion show at the Taiwan Museum this year?"

Chang, a fashion designer for ten years, says that fashion designers have long occupied a very awkward position. Are they businesspeople, cultural workers, or artists? Everyone seems to have an opinion on the issue, and even designers themselves can't agree.

"I don't think of myself as having an artist's powerful spontaneity or boundless desire to create," she explains. "I'm simply a public servant who goes to work at ten every morning and leaves at nine every night. My work involves fashion design, image consulting, product planning, following fashion trends.... I do whatever I can."

Chang says that overseas, designers are viewed as a cultural asset. In Japan, for example, the Ministry of Education provided assistance to designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto that lifted all three onto the international stage. The ministry even hired professionals to analyze international fashion trends to help them make a name for themselves quickly. Ultimately, these 1980s-era designers took the world by storm, leading the trend to deep, Zen-inspired blacks and placing Japan on the international fashion map.

Before she became a designer, Chang worked at the Taiwan Textiles Federation design center as a fashion analyst and promoter of designers. Her work kept her in close contact with what was going on in fashion around the world, and taught her that the success of a label has little to do with the size of the company. Instead, the key is professional marketing and management. With it, even a small company with only five employees can successfully establish an international brand.

"When I was in France," says Chang, "I came across two examples. One was a company selling bedding and housewares designed by a British girl. The other was a fashion shop in Paris' 6th arrondissement."

Chang notes that neither studio employed more than six people, yet both had remarkable success. The British girl's company sold only a few simple styles of bedding, but it had put itself closer to the markets it was developing and reduced its transportation costs by setting up its manufacturing in Malaysia and establishing a representative office in Hong Kong. The Paris shop, on the other hand, had only one employee, a skilled professional at everything from receiving clients to helping them assemble outfits.

"Marketing is really an alien field to most Taiwanese designers," says Chang. "They also lack professional marketing coordination. Instead, they attack the market individually, and even their successes are only luck."

Chang, who was one of the first group of designers selling in Idee's "New Designer Square" believes that it used to be easier for Taiwanese designers to establish themselves in the market because the economy was booming and few foreign labels were being imported. In addition, the media was fond of domestic designers and regularly ran reports on them. New outfits by local brands Shiatzy, Jiarjia and Mag sold out the moment they showed up in stores. Chang says that that sort of thing rarely happens these days.

"Nonetheless," she says, "consumers in central and southern Taiwan are still very supportive of domestic designers, so the market there remains pretty active. Consumers in the north, on the other hand, have a lot of labels to choose from and are more discriminating. The economic downturn has made them even more inclined to haggle over every cent, and they think about their purchases forever before making them. Consequently, the market for domestic designers is gradually moving south."

After participating in the Taiwan Fashion Party, Chang feels that local designers don't yet have enough history under their belts, that they aren't yet prepared for the international stage.

"But we have to take this step," she says. "The slower we move, the further behind the market we will be."

Chang feels that the "party" should also embrace related industries-not just fashion designers and textiles makers, but modeling agencies and department stores, too.

"Apparel trends, markets and fashions evolve very quickly," says Chang. "We need enormous amounts of creativity and market data if we are to upgrade the industry and keep pace with the international fashion scene."