Post date: Sep 17, 2013 2:0:20 PM
As fashion week hits London, Chinese designers are making a splash at one of the city's top department stores.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (SEPTEMBER 13, 2013) (REUTERS) - As London Fashion Week gets underway, Hong Kong fashion giant I.T.'s teamed up with top London department store Selfridges.
It's the first time the company's sold its clothes in the UK, with seven of its top brands on sale for the next seven weeks.Labels like Fingercroxx and Minicream don't mean much to British consumers yet, but in Asia they're well known.
The collection is aimed at teenage consumers, with a mix of street wear labels offering bright colours and funky textures.
"We have the colours, we have the special prints, we have a sense of humor, like an Asian touch of the sense of humor, and also the styling and the silhouette would be different from what you can right now on the high street inLondon," said I.T. Vice President Deborah Cheng.
Despite her confidence, the UK fashion market is hard to crack, high-end label Bosideng is so far the only Chinese retailer with a high-street presence in London, opening a store last year.
Retail analyst Isabel Cavill says building brand awareness can be tough: ''They don't have the same history that say an Italian brand like Prada has. But at the same time they do have to start somewhere. They're probably appealing to Chinese shoppers shopping in the UK, as well as UK or European consumers looking out for something new or something different."
Many of Selfridges customers are in fact Chinese, and the collection so far has been a hit. After just four days, the I.T. brands are in the store's top three sellers.
At the moment the company doesn't have any shops in Europe, however depending on how the next seven weeks go that could soon change.