Qiaodan: China’s biggest fashion comer
From Godfrey Deeny

BEIJING—If any brand sums up the ambition of China to become a major global player in fashion it is Qiaodan, a label the Chinese pronounce as Jordan.
Though unknown in the West in a few short years since the advent of market communism in “Red” China, Qiaodan has grown into a one billion Yuan ($125 million) brand in ready-to-wear alone with over 3,000 sales points.
Qiaodan’s next goal is to cash in on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, taking on western giants like Nike, adidas and Puma; before then competing with them on the world market.
Executives at Qiaodan are savvy enough to know they cannot compete directly with major global active sportswear labels, as the massive show they staged in Beijing Friday underlined they are going to be a significant player.
“There’s 1.3 billion people in China but the vast majority are lower or barely middle class, so there is no point in producing the sort of expensive goods you get from the West,” explained Ding Guo Ding, Director General of Qiaodan.
Qiaodan’s response is to use comparatively old-fashioned fabrics, the sort that one associates with Atlanta, not the “breathable,” high-tech that expected to dominate the materials used by athletes in two years time in the Chinese capital, currently undergoing a massive reconstruction project for the games.
There other tactic is to bet on youth. So, Qiaodan’s spring summer 2007 show here turned out to be a talent contest between 24 young designers, themselves selected from 600 entries from all over the country. Most relevantly, the general standard was pretty impressive, with at least a half dozen youngsters turning out miniature-collections of four or five pieces cool enough to earn them contracts in the ateliers of Y-3, Diesel or Puma. Yep, that good.
A jury of ten fashion experts - local professors, the host of China’s top style show Fashion Circus, Dandan Qian, Chinese editors-in-chief and the author of this piece - awarded three bronzes, two silvers and one gold to the fledgling designers.
Silver medalists Xiao Feng and Xie Yang Zhen did bling bling meets surfboarder to the tune of French rap and graphic dragon print meets Sister Sledge respectively. Gold medal winner Zhang Han showed a brilliant take on Eighties denim skier celebrates the Stars and Stripes.
Above all in the age of Internet, these kid designers seemed remarkably connected to the current Premiership and NBA obsessed zeitgeist, all of them freely rifling through Americana, hip hop and eastern imagery with self-confidence. That’s not unlike what Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel and DSquared have been doing for years.
“There’s a new craze for exercise in China, and we intend to supply the gear people need for it,” stressed Ding, who noted that Qiaodan has already established a 7% market share in China.
That said, Qiaodan does have an Achilles heel: its name. Qiaodan sounds very much like Jordan when spoken by a Chinese, in effect it’s the transliteration of the great player’s name.
Asked about it, Ding responds very carefully. “This is very sensitive matter and we note that our brand name is fully legal here. We have registered the name a long time ago and have even done so in the West, for instance, Spain.”
One can’t help thinking that legal challenges are in the pipeline, especially as the Qiaodan logo is very similar to that used by Jordan on his sneakers for Nike. That said, whatever happens Qiaodan’s future seems bright, especially seeing the type of talent on display today in the Banquet Hall of the Beijing Hotel. This is one Chinese giant that is not going to go away.
There other tactic is to bet on youth. So, Qiaodan’s spring summer 2007 show here turned out to be a talent contest between 24 young designers, themselves selected from 600 entries from all over the country. Most relevantly, the general standard was pretty impressive, with at least a half dozen youngsters turning out miniature-collections of four or five pieces cool enough to earn them contracts in the ateliers of Y-3, Diesel or Puma. Yep, that good.