Expanding into the world
Adept at recognizing its clients’ needs, Pretty Fashions soon established a solid foothold in the wedding-gown industry and began to grow. But, in the early 1990s, the company began to face stiff competition from mainland China. The mainland’s ODM wedding-gown industry was beginning to take off and its low cost of labor relative to Taiwan eroded the company’s price advantage.
Huang explains that wedding dresses are a very labor-intensive product, commonly decorated with beads, appliqués,
embroidery, and layer upon layer of lace and muslin that need painstaking hand stitching.
With that in mind, Pretty Fashions had little choice but to offshore its own production to reduce its labor costs. Huang established the company’s first overseas factory in Shenzhen in 1994.
In 1999, David’s Bridal, a large wedding-gown chain in the US, approached Pretty Fashions about jointly establishing a factory in Sri Lanka, a low-labor-cost country. Though a number of people urged Huang to think the offer over very carefully, Huang was determined to raise Pretty Fashions’ global profile and deepen its capacity for international cooperation, so he leapt at the opportunity.
As a result, Pretty Fashions now has two factories in Sri Lanka employing some 1,700 people, and is the only company in that nation capable of producing fine wedding gowns.
This lovely pink gown would be an excellent choice for a bride-to-be’s engagement party.