Jade Dragon Goes to China: Yiwu and Shanghai

Recently I spent a month in China teaching English to primary school students. While a great experience in and of itself, I also found time to learn something about the jewelry and fashion market in China. The city I stayed at, Yiwu, about three hours southwest of Shanghai by bullet train, turned out to have a vast small commodities market called Yiwu International Trade City. Many cities in China have their own specialties in industry, and Yiwu is the center of China's small commodity sales. The International Trade City is composed of five buildings, each with four to five floors dedicated to different types of small commodities. District 1, of most interest to readers, had jewelry sales composing the entire second floor.

Yiwu International Trade City District 1

Yiwu's jewelry market is entirely mass production work. Jade jewelry is sold, as well as plastic, metal and glass necklaces, earrings, hair clips, and bracelets. Copies of ethnographic work are also for sale, as well as jewelry featuring either semi-precious stones or possibly replicas. Despite this, the work can be fairly expensive. Jade bracelets, highly popular among Chinese women, start around $400 US dollars and can go up, depending on the type of jade, into the range of thousands of dollars.

Case of jade bracelets at District 1 booth.

Yiwu takes pride in being the fashion jewelry capital of China. What the market lacks in innovative art it certainly possesses in quantity.

A wall of plastic ornaments in
one of District 1's many booths.

A booth containing metal jewelry and
pieces with colored stones.

To convey the size of this market, one needs to know each building is about the size of a convention center. By District 4, stall numbers were in the thirteen  thousand range. There are hundreds of  booths making up District 1's jewelry  floor. The floor has several sections; head ornaments being one example. Each  section has perhaps a hundred booths. The District buildings are very regular, with open parts containing stairs and elevators breaking up the labyrinthine aisles of stalls.

Close-up of rings with colored stones or glass. With the number of
fake materials in China, it is difficult to tell whether these are replicas
or the genuine article.

District 5 is also relevant to readers, in that it is the Import portion of the International Trade City. The sections that include jewelry and clothing are the African imports, and several higher end jewelry stores which contain even more expensive jade, turquoise and other work using precious and semi-precious stones.

While there is indeed a range in price, from District 1's various categories all the way to District 5, what's most interesting is that the price point goes so high at all. While it can be hard to get a grasp on the economic status of Chinese, I learned that Yiwu at least has a substantial number of nouveau riche. This could account for the expense of many of these items. Much cheaper jewelry, such as plastic hair clips and jewelry using glass or rhinestones, is prolific, but one should consider how American jewelers might be able to enter this market. Previously, I'd believed price point would be an issue, but clearly that is not the case.

A wider shot of International Trade City District 1, to convey scale, and to capture the bridge
connecting District 1 to District 2, spanning Shangcheng Avenue. The bridge itself sports
street sellers and small booths.

Near the end of my trip, I returned to Shanghai in preparation of returning to the United States. There, a good friend took me to Tianzifang, one of many cultural districts in the city, and the site of some of the more upscale, experimental and independent art and fashion stores in Shanghai.

Although my time in China certainly didn't give me the opportunity to become an expert, I was able to visit several cities, and get a general feel for the commercial fashion market there, particularly with clothing. In Wuhan, a city with a population of ten million people, and Yiwu, a much smaller city, still with more than a million, what could clearly be observed was the lack of originality, quality of clothing, and the prevalence of brand stores. In addition, clothing at any of the fashionable stores was surprisingly expensive; the most popular brands of pants were 200 RMB and up, which is more than thirty dollars. To understand Tianzifang's significance, this perspective is necessary.

Tianzifang, while containing chain stores, possesses not only independent shops and art galleries, but those chain stores are small, possibly limited to Shanghai, and sport high-quality products, often with good taste and materials. They also, unlike most of the major brands, are more likely to incorporate Chinese styles into a fusion between the contemporary and the traditional. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera that day, and was unable to take photographs.

An examples of this is the fashion and clothing store Feel Shanghai, or Jinfenshijia (the website has only one page thus far). A store known for making traditional Chinese clothing, Feel Shanghai is clean and hip, with staff who speak some English, and most impressively, a line of men's clothing alongside their women's qipao. The work, while "traditional", sports bits of modern materials and motifs that subtly bridge the gap between the old and the new. It is this, along with the good quality and beautiful work, that sets Feel Shanghai apart from the legion of big brand stores that populate most of China. Most notably, the branding itself is both notably Chinese, as well as modern. Feel Shanghai is one of these small chains, containing three branches, two in Tianzifang, and one in Beijing.

Juedaijiaren, or China Beauty, is another store which I visited, which sells silk scarves as well as a handful of other accessories. Although none of the designs were unique, I'm not comparing these stores to handmade craft artists in America; rather, their equivalent should be upper echelon products in department stores, as well as the more exclusive chain brands. In this regard, places like Feel Shanghai and China Beauty compare quite favorably. Chic store layout, good material (this especially should be emphasized when compared with what's used in the big brand companies like Semir, Me&City and Meters/bonwe, the few stores I actually viewed the products of), Asian style, all set China Beauty apart from mainstream stores where the focus is on being Western.

Unique Hill Gallery sells just t-shirts for clothing, with the main emphasis on old Shanghai posters and photos. But it should be mentioned because of the wit displayed by their designs. The best t-shirts aren't found online, but as an example, one shirt that sported the iconic drawing of President Obama in communist cap and shirt captioned "Oba Mao" shows what the new generation of Chinese designers is capable of.

Finally, Shanghai Harvest Studio stood out as one of the few stores selling ethnic jewelry and clothing, albeit at a lower quality, in a metropolitan area. Those readers who are familiar with Chinese ethnic minorities will readily recognize the Miao, whose works were sold in this store. Two Miao ladies were staff there. Again given the preponderant focus on Western trends, what makes a place like Shanghai Harvest Studio exceptional is their interest in selling and propagating traditional Chinese styles.

While I've broached the idea of American involvement in the Chinese marketplace when I was describing Yiwu's International Trade City, I also had conversations with my friend about Chinese companies, specifically smaller scale innovators like those I found in Tianzifang, breaking into the American market. In my eyes, proper cross-pollination will be helpful to both sides of the divide economically and culturally.

Several giant pieces
of turquoise.

More pieces of turquoise. Note the water goblet for scale: the
water is to maintain humidity within the case.

I'll end with a bit of eye candy from my vacation to Wudang Mountain, where according to legend Daoist Zhang Sanfeng created Taichi. Wudang is in Hubei province, where apparently there is a large source of turquoise mines. At the bottom of the mountain, there's an extensive tourist district which included one store selling turquoise jewelry and chunks of the semi-precious stone itself.

Of course in China, one must always be careful of imitations, but it seems very likely that the large turquoise pieces are legitimate. Probably with a turquoise mine in the same province, the jewelry is as well, although most pieces aren't the same quality as the ore. Although only a short encounter, this begs the question of how much semi-precious stones like turquoise China possesses. Certainly of interest to jewelry artists.

The store was quite large, with not only turquoise pendants, necklaces, and
rings for sale, but also some examples of jade. My friend Eric Wang learned
from the sales associates about the turquoise mines that exist in Hubei
province, relatively near to Wudang mountain.