Week In Review: February 10-14, 2014

In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of February 10-14, 2014. Will Kate Spade’s ‘Chinese Takeout’ Bag Win Fans In China? From reactions on Sina Weibo, it looks like most Chinese users don’t find the Chinese takeout bag offensive, but that doesn’t mean they like it. “That fast food case turned into a bag makes me laugh so hard that I want to cry. Later, I can go out carrying a water bucket,” mocked one user on a comment thread about the bags. Many others made fun of it as well. Another commenter joked, “Once you’re done eating Chinese food in the United States, you can carry the container down the street and be the most fashionable!” What Chinese Consumers Were (And Weren’t) Buying Over Chinese New Year China’s state-run media is touting the fact that luxury sales growth has slowed this year as a result of the government’s crackdown on corruption. Xinhua reports that sales of luxury gifts such as expensive alcohol and rare seafood have “fallen sharply” during the Chinese New Year, with Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian province, reporting a 70 percent sales decline in luxury alcohol in the first four days of the holiday. In addition, rare seafood sales were down 50 percent, despite the fact that “sales of ordinary goods went up in general.” From DVF To DKNY, Chinese Stars A Front-Row Fixture At New York Fashion Week This week, actress Zhang Lanxin (张蓝心) (who starred with Jackie Chan in the less-than-stellarChinese Zodiac) made appearances at Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg, and Tadashi Shoji during the first five days. Sitting next to her at DVF were ballet dancer Hou Honglan (侯宏澜) and TV host Li Siyu (李斯羽). The list definitely doesn’t stop there: Li also attended Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, where she was snapped by New York Times street style photographer Bill Cunningham (whom she affectionately called “Grandfather Bill Cunningham” on her Weibo page). Chinese actress Jiang Xin (蒋欣), a star of the wildly popular TV drama about imperial concubines The Legend of Zhen Huan helped promote both Vivienne Tam and WeChat with her front-row presence at the designer’s show. Baidu Users Care More About High Luxury Prices Than Fake Goods An article on iFeng states that Baidu’s data center reports that the term “price” was by far the most common search term associated with luxury bags and watches in 2013. For all watch-related searches, the term was included 15.7 percent of the time, far exceeding the search for the term “brand,” which was only used 1.4 percent of the time, and “authenticity,” which was used 1.2 percent of the time. Liquor’s Loss Is Red Wine’s Gain For China Austerity Drive (Shutterstock) According to a recent report by Vinexpo, wine consumption as a whole suffered a predicament similar to that of high-end liquors such as cognac and baijiu as the government cracks down on luxury gifting and fancy banquets paid for by public funds. When looking at red, white, and rosé wines combined, total consumption decreased by 2 percent in 2013 after growing by 27 percent between 2007 and the previous year. China actually saw a 10 percent decline by value in wine imports from France, which make up 40 percent of all the country’s imported wine.

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Week In Review: February 10-14, 2014