A dark face with gray hair at the temples, rough, calloused hands wearing a well-worn but clean brown pullover, and his feet in outdated leather shoes, Liu Shuangwu looks like a typical factory worker.
Yes, Liu once labored in a factory, but his humble appearance belies the fact that for more than 20 years he has designed and manufactured seamless, elegant and expensive Chinese gowns for his Yijue label. As befitting the embroidered lace (or Chinese paper cut-like design) for which Yijue gowns are known, the name means "unique clothing" in Chinese.
In a small and quiet teahouse arranged by Liu for the interview, as his wife carefully puts one of his creations on a dress form, a sparkling full length embroidered gown, his eyes shone and twinkled like the fabric.
The dress is what 60-year-old Liu has been devoted to for the last two decades and what he will continue to improve on in the future.
"It's not a common gown, it is a seamless lace embroidered one," he says. "The dress is made only using embroidery with no seams for it," explains Liu, who has registered a patent for this technology and mainly produces the gowns for the foreign market.
He is a man with an authentic old Beijing style, talkative and somewhat overly self-confident. When talking about his experience and his business, Liu became so excited and passionate - his voice is high and loud, punctuated with body language - that the quiet of the teahouse was broken.
Second occupation
"I have never been an ordinary or common person since I was young," notes Liu, who became a machine worker of a State-owned vinylon (a synthetic fiber similar to cotton) manufacturing factory in 1966, when he was 18 and had graduated from high school.
At that time, China was still under a planned economy and private business was strictly forbidden. Because his work was neither busy nor challenging, Liu, then an energetic youth, was unsatisfied and started a small, side business for fun.
He caught small fish in a river behind his factory and sold them to people for their home aquariums every weekend morning at an "illegal" open market. Compared with his fixed monthly salary of 39.8 yuan, the earnings from this small business - around 40 yuan per morning, were rather considerable.
As others followed him to sell fish, Liu turned to making and selling fish bowls in the mid-1970s, which was also profitable. The second occupation helped Liu get married and to buy a house in Xuanwumen, southern downtown Beijing, in 1978.
However, part-time businesses were still regarded as a serious "error" at that time and some jealous colleagues reported him to the factory leaders in 1985. Liu was suddenly faced with two choices: giving up his second occupation or his secure "iron rice bowl" job.
"I still remember when I told my family my decision to leave the factory, nobody said anything, my wife just told me to 'do things you want'," recalls Liu, with tears in eyes.
New beginning
But thanks to China's opening up, Liu struck out on his own in various livelihoods that found him at different times becoming a millionaire or a heavily indebted entrepreneur. None of it really mattered, he says, until he needed money for his daughter's college education and began thinking about starting a "real business".
"I am not a common person, I always pursue unique and new things," Liu repeats. In 1997, he bought four sets of computer embroidery design machines from a bankrupt State-owned company and processed decorative embroidered lace for exported clothes from OEM factories in coastal China. At that time, computer driven and executed embroidery was new and increased production efficiency.
"I started to think, could I use embroidery technology to make unique clothes?" Liu recalls.
A friend's off-hand idea inspired Liu. "I think a seamless garment would be incredible," the friend said.
Liu then devoted himself to studying seamless clothes and theorized that it might be possible to use the computer embroidery machinery to make a seamless lace dress, rather than with needles. With his wife, who also had a textile-industry background, he spent days and nights researching.
Liu, due to his technician background, was experienced at machine adjustments and upgrading, while his wife focused on reprogramming computer embroidery machinery. The redesigned machines made all the difference, Liu says.
"The machines we are using now are not the machines originally delivered by the manufacturer. I can say, nobody can produce a machine the same as we are using in our plant," Liu says loudly with obvious pride.
His first seamless embroidered lace gown was born in 1999, with traditional Chinese style. "Embroidery is a traditional Chinese art, which combined with a traditional Chinese gown style attracts foreigners who are quite interested in China," Liu says, adding that he always believes in his business instinct.
According to Liang Qi, who sold the computer machines to Liu and has been his close friend for over a decade, Liu is a man with a sensitive business instinct who knows what the market needs.
"But I don't think he can do very big business. He is not aggressive and ambitious enough and lacks professional business management training," says Liang, who is a former general manager of a large State-owned company.
But Liu's strategy has worked. He sold his first gown to Marilyn Killian, wife of International University Sports Federation President George E Killian.
She visited Beijing in 1999 for the 21st World University Games. When she shopped in Yansha Friendship Store, where Liu's products were presented, she was stunned by the gown and ordered one immediately.
She wore the blue, short sleeve full-length gown decorated with pearls at the University Games closing ceremony where she received lots of applause. In a letter to Liu after the couple returned home to the United States, she wrote: "Of course, you made the visit to Beijing very special for me The dress was exquisite and I look forward to wearing it again in the future."
Liu was impressed by the letter and still has it, showing it to people nine years later when he tells them who bought his first dress.
Liu declines to say how much Marilyn Killian paid for the gown, saying that all his clothes are priced depending on the fabric, and decorative materials.
Since Marilyn Killian's purchase, Liu says 90 percent of his gowns have been sold to foreigners.
In 2004, Liu's patent for his seamless embroidered lace making was approved and in 2005, he registered Yijue as his brand.
Overseas markets are good to Liu, with orders from Italy, Japan and France booming for clothing priced from nearly 5,000 yuan to over 10,000 yuan.
The Yijue factory has four machines and only 10-plus workers and Liu says he prefers to keep it at this scale for now.
"The machines need further improvement to enhance their efficiency, and upgrading is possible," he says, adding that only when the machines can meet his criteria would production capacity expansion be considered.
Liu's daughter, majoring in foreign trade, has graduated from university and is working for a foreign trading company's China branch. He hopes she may inherit his business one day.
The businessman says that annual sales of Yijue over the last three years is "millions" of yuan, but declines to reveal the profit margin.
"We are doing a niche market, the margin should not be low, we are selling our technology and design," he stresses.
During the nearly three-hour interview in the teahouse, Liu continues telling his story and has not sipped the tea. "I am not a common person," he says yet again. His wife, who sits beside him with a gentle smile, has had no tea either.
