Week In Review: January 3-7

Jing Daily’s Top Posts for the Week In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of January 3-7. 2011 Trend Watch: Chinese Collectors, Modern Western Art? Mainland Chinese collectors have been making splashes at Hong Kong auctions and sales specifically targeted to this clientele. While Chinese collectors are sweeping many areas, including Chinese contemporary art, wine, and jewelry, Western impressionist and modern art has yet to emerge in any serious way on their collecting agendas. But this fall, Picasso popped up in the Asian market, in an exhibition of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s and in Picasso-focused shows by two Western dealers, Ben Brown Fine Arts and Edouard Malingue Gallery. While these presentations have provided Chinese collectors with unprecedented opportunities to buy close to home, the overwhelming interest that may have been expected has thus far failed to materialize. Will China Soon Get Its Own “Burj Beijing”? People’s Daily reports this week that a joint Saudi-Chinese consortium is planning to build a “seven-star” hotel partially modeled after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — currently the world’s tallest building — in the west of Beijing. According to the newspaper, officials in the city’s Mentougou district say they will invest “at least” US$1.3 billion into the project, along with an undisclosed amount to be contributed by a group of Saudi partners. Speaking on how far the planning stage has progressed, senior Mentougou official Wang Hongzhong said that preliminary blueprints and graphics were ready, and that the hotel is being designed “as a stream-lined building like the Khalifa Tower in Dubai.” Of course, what exactly Wang means by this is open to interpretation. Top Marques Luxury Exhibition To Debut In Chengdu It’s perhaps no surprise that Chengdu is set to be the next host of the Top Marques luxury exhibition, held previously in Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Nanjing, and Shenzhen. Co-organized by Borrison and Yanlord Land, Top Marques Chengdu will take place from January 14-16 at the Yanlord Landmark (仁恒置地广场). Top Marques Chengdu will see many high-end brands make their debut in western China, with 50 companies expected to exhibit more than 400 products, from automobiles and fashion to jewelry and watches. As Top Marques founder Lei Sheng told Chengdu Business Daily (Chinese), Chengdu was a natural fit for the exhibition. Said Lei, “Chengdu is the center of Sichuan province and the western [Chinese] consumer, and the attitude of Chengdu consumers is really advanced." Wine Expecting A Chinese New Year Boost Industry observers expect the Asian boom for wine to continue, after fine wines enjoyed a record year in 2010 – as wine investors are banking returns as high as 32 percent. As the economy continued to be an factor, Barry Schuler, a proprietor of Meteor Vineyard in Napa Valley, sees the global market as coming back, with “people looking at Asia, where all of a sudden there’s an interest in fine wine and high-end wine, both from collectors and young entrepreneurs who are acquiring some wealth for the first time.” While many are simply turning to wine as yet another status symbol, China is in the midst of a lengthy education process, as many high-end consumers become more interested in appreciating wine. Taobao Sees Cosmetics “Boom” In 2010, Names Top-Ten Brands This week, the Chinese online shopping portal Taobao (previously on Jing Daily) released its sales data for 2010. Following recent predictions from PricewaterhouseCoopers that China will soon see an online retail “explosion,” categories like luxury cosmetics — a closely watched consumer segment — recorded a significant rise in sales last year. This, according to the Chinese-language news site CCW, indicates an important shift in the development of China’s online retail sector, namely that higher-end online shopping has now made its way firmly into the mainstream. Considering the brand’s impressive brick-and-mortar sales and popularity among mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong, it’s perhaps no surprise that Estée Lauder was the best-selling cosmetics brand on Taobao last year, followed by Mary Kay and Clinique.

Week In Review: January 3-7

China’s luxury interlude that never really was

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Week In Review: January 3-7

China’s luxury interlude that never really was