新闻周刊 国产奢华

十年前，中国多数慷慨的主人会给参加晚宴的宾客提供进口的红葡萄酒，在该国开始向西式铺张开放之时，这是难得的款待。如今，他们仍然提供价值5000美元的拉菲（Chateau Lafite），往往和番茄汁和雪碧混合（酒仍然无关品味，但关乎炫富）。然而，餐桌上越来越的迎合本地口味的东西：优质白酒，如五粮液、水井坊、文君等牌子。

　　这是一个备受期待的转变。多年来，富裕的中国人（如今代表全球奢侈品市场的12%）一直追捧香奈尔、阿玛尼、卡地亚、劳斯莱斯和路易斯威登等西方品牌。高盛预计，到2015年，中国将是世界最大的奢侈品市场，占销售的29%，大约是115亿美元。难怪西方品牌在中国开店开得忙不暇接。

　　但如今，随着中国人开始对他们在世界上的地位感到更惬意，他们也愿意把钱花在规模不大但日益成长的国产品牌，不仅包括优质白酒，还包括宝姿和Passerby等高端的时装品牌，或者羽西（2004年被欧莱雅收购）等化妆品品牌。法国ESSEC商学院奢侈品管理项目主任、阿玛尼和罗夫罗伦的前CEO莫里斯特（Denis Morisset）表示，“奢侈品中有两个重要的要素：独特、令人做梦。在某种程度上历史和文化变得重要。”“中国二者皆有。”

　　越来越多地，它也拥有质量顶级的产品，这对建立奢侈品牌至关重要。当中国制造标准最近在一系列丑闻曝光后遭到声讨，许多海外奢侈品品牌在这个中间王国加速生产。生产标准在提高，特别是在南方，而且所获得的技能将支持国产奢侈品行业。香港理工大学设计学院院长朱斯特斯（Lorraine Justice）表示，皮革工艺如今相当于欧洲水平，政府支持二百多家设计学院的蓬勃发展，推动北京眼中的“文化产业”。

　　大陆还在掌握营销的艺术，这对奢侈品销售来说是至关重要的。名人在发挥作用。

　　把白酒变成奢侈品纯粹是造势。这种饮料是大众化的，深受农民工和体力劳动者的喜爱，占中国酒类市场的99%。伎俩在于合适的包装——许多公司用特别的水晶瓶装酒，让人想起中国富有的帝皇历史。上海尼尔森消费者研究公司的叶丽莲（音译，Lilian Yap）表示，在这里，价格点表明一切。在深圳去年的一个拍卖会上，一位鉴赏家以破纪录的11.7万美元买了一瓶不超过半公升的、九十年之久的陈年五粮液。

　　如今这些价格吸引了外国的钱，在1月，Johnnie Walker和Smirnoff的制造商帝亚吉欧（Diageo）收购四川水井坊母公司43%的股权。在5月，法国LVMH集团收购文君55%的股权。这些西方买家无疑指望世界其他地方某天也会效仿中国，向宾客举起一杯白酒。（作者 Alexandra Seno）

Homegrown Luxe
Asia's elite have fueled the growth of Western high-end brands. Now, they are creating their own.

Ten years ago, the most gracious hosts in China provided dinner-party guests with imported vintage reds, a rare treat as the country began to open up to Western-style extravagance. Today, they still serve $5,000 bottles of Château Lafite the way they did back then, often mixed with tomato juice or Sprite (wine isn't yet about enjoyment, but about showing wealth). Increasingly, though, tables are filled with something more palatable to local tastes: premium baijiu, a fiery, traditional Chinese grain-based alcoholic beverage (from brands like Wuliangye, Swellfun or Wen Jun), which outsells all other spirits.

It's a much anticipated shift. For years now, rich Chinese, who today represent 12 percent of the global luxury market, have been snapping up Western brands like Chanel, Armani, Cartier, Rolls-Royce and Louis Vuitton. Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2015, China will be the world's largest luxury market, accounting for 29 percent of sales, some $11.5 billion. It's no wonder that Western brands can't build stores in the country fast enough.

But now, as the Chinese begin to feel more comfortable with their place in the world, they are also willing to pay top renminbi for a small but growing tribe of homegrown brands, including not only premium baijiu labels, but also high-end fashion brands like Ports 1961 and Passerby, or cosmetics like Yue Sai, acquired by L'Oreal in 2004. "There are two elements that are important in luxury: exclusivity and making people dream. History and culture become important at some point," says Denis Morisset, a former CEO for Armani and Ralph Lauren, who now heads the luxury-brand management program at ESSEC, a French business school. "China has both."

Increasingly, it also has top-quality production, crucial to building a luxury industry. While Chinese manufacturing standards have come under fire recently after a raft of safety scandals, many overseas luxury-goods brands are boosting production in the Middle Kingdom—Armani, Paul Smith, and Coach to name a few. Production standards, particularly in the south, are increasing, and the skills gained will support the homegrown luxury business. Lorraine Justice, head of Hong Kong Polytechnic University's design school, says that leather craftsmanship is now equal with Europe and that the government has supported the flourishing of more than 200 design schools, a boost to what Beijing considers "cultural industries."

The mainland is also mastering the art of marketing, which is essential to selling luxury. Leveraging celebrity helps—Yue-Sai Kan, the founder of Yue Sai cosmetics, is one of the most famous women in China. Born in Guilin, she left in the 1950s for Hong Kong and then the United States, but returned in the 1990s as a tremendously successful author, TV presenter, and lifestyle guru. Her blog gets approximately 150,000 hits a day, and her personal Web site features pictures of her art-filled Shanghai apartment and her New York townhouse. Later this year, she plans to open her own 5,000-square-foot lifestyle store in Shanghai inspired by how she lives.

It was pure spin that made baijiu a luxury product. The drink, a favorite of farm workers and manual laborers, is mass—if not down—market, accounting for 99 percent of China's wine and spirits market. The trick was in proper packaging—a number of companies evoked China's rich imperial past on fancy boxes containing bottles with crystal decanters—and pricing ($3,600 for fine, aged baijiu). "Price-points communicate everything here. Most people still use price to assess quality," says Lilian Yap, a director in Shanghai for Nielsen, the consumer-research company. Last year at a public auction in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, a connoisseur bought a bottle, no more than half a liter of Wuliangye 90-year-old baijiu, for a record $117,000, the equivalent of the lucky-sounding 880,000 renminbi.

Now those prices are attracting foreign money. In January, Diageo, the maker of Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff, acquired 43 percent of Sichuan Chengdu Quanxing, parent company of Sichuan Swellfun, China's oldest baijiu distiller. In May, the French conglomerate LVMH bought 55 percent of Wen Jun from Jiannanchun, the No. 3 producer. These Western buyers are no doubt counting on the fact that the rest of the world may someday mimic China, and raise a glass of baijiu with guests.

With Quindlen Krovatin in Beijing