Magazines, Shares and Chocolate

A few interesting happenings:

– Conde Nast China Managing Director Cao Weiming discusses the rise of Vogue, GQ, AD, and Self in the most important rapidly growing market for print media. Vogue China now has the third highest revenue among the 15 international editions of the publication. I also heard recently that GQ China is expected to surpass the UK one to become the top grossing GQ, right after the US version. More from China Daily on Conde Nast in China.

– Not all is as buoyant as what fashion industry watchers were promised though. Shares in HK-listed Prada have slumped 34% from their price at listing in July. With 42% of its sales in Asia, Prada enjoyed 25% growth in the first nine months of the year and 39% in Asia (outside Japan). Like everyone, investors are worried about slower than utterly exuberant growth in 2012, though Prada in China must still be a very good bet in the medium to long term. The world’s largest listed jeweler, HK’s Chow Tai Fook, also saw its share price drop 8%. Both of these are probably more cases of investors accepting that growth in the Chinese luxury market will be merely strong, rather than overwhelming, at least in 2012.

– On a lighter, or hopefully darker, note, a new chocolate theme park north of Beijing hosted a show with fashions made from chocolate.

Efficiency-Minded

Photographer Wang Peng has evolved his own rather versatile way of dressing. He has five tailored suits in this exact cut each in a different color. They can be either worn as a suit or mixed and matched. I will have to ask him next time if there are really are a total of 25 potential outfits or if some of the colors don’t really go together. The fabric is canvass that he purchased at Muxiyuan.

 

Mega Glamour

Among the collaborative projects at the Lane Crawford and Modern Weekly ‘A Plus’ exhibition was a pop-up photo studio by designer Xander Zhou and photographer Trunk Xu. Here is Mega Mengmeng being photographed. Xander Zhou and Trunk Xu collaborated before on the famous Gay China issue of Hong Huang’s Ilook magazine. Here are photos from that issue.

 

 

 

A Plus Student

Former Hang on the Box frontwoman Gia (Wang Yue) is working on a tee-shirt brand called Bad Taste (more from the Global Times).

She was at the launch of Lane Crawford and Modern Weekly‘s ‘A Plus’ exhibition, which features collaborations between China’s fashion designers and international artists.

Flea Marketer

Yesterday, despite the strong winds, a horde of hip retro kids migrated to northeastern Beijing for a vintage flea market. The setting was the yard around 2 Kolegas, one of the city’s best known rock bars located in a former drive-in movie theater that never made it commercially.

Charmmy is fashion design student who also sells vintage clothes at markets like this and on Taobao shops for men and women.