As a company manager, Huang Xiang gets to wear jeans to work every day while she promotes her casual dress style to more Chinese youth.
Huang is vice-general manager of Jasonwood, a Chinese jeans and casual wear brand based in eastern China's Zhejiang province.
She believes that the dress norms in China are going to be less formal in the future and that her casual wear business will then take off.
The company is flourishing in the niche market for making jeans for fashion-conscious young people, mainly in China's second- and third-tier cities.
Its annual sales are expected to grow by 30 percent this year, compared to last year, because of newly opened outlets, Huang said.
"Although we just set up our outlets in Beijing and are still planning to open outlets in Shanghai in November, our primary focus will still be second- and third-tier cities," she said, adding that China's first-tier cities only account for 4 percent of the country's population.
The jeans and casual wear market in China's less developed cities used to be cluttered with homegrown, lower-price brands.
When Jasonwood started its business in 2000, the store decided to peg its price against that of US-based Levi Strauss & Co.
"A pair of Jasonwood jeans cost 50 percent less than a similar pair of Levi's pants when we first started. But since our brand now receives more recognition in China, a pair today costs only 30 percent less than a pair of Levi's," Huang said.
A pair of Jasonwood jeans costs around 300 to 400 yuan ($43.94 to 58.58), a luxury for many people in less developed regions where the average monthly income is about 2,000 yuan.
Still, Huang discovered that more Chinese people have developed a much sharper eye for fashion trends in recent years.
"Two years ago, fashion in China was almost two seasons behind that in Europe and the United States. But starting from this fall/winter season, I found that we are no longer lagging behind," Huang said.
Even the people in second- and third-tier cities are becoming more fashion-minded than before, and they are learning about the latest styles through a growing number of fashion magazines available outside big cities, she said.
Therefore, Jasonwood will have to become increasingly consumer-savvy, she said.
Huang put together a team of young Chinese designers to adapt some of the newest Western fashion concepts to suit local sizes and tastes.
"We will spend a few months to redesign a pair of jeans that will go really well with the Chinese body type," she said.
During the past summer season, Jasonwood introduced a line of colored jeans, thinking that bright colors would help keep people upbeat during the economic recession. The store linked the colors to the horoscope.
"We wanted to tell our customer that if you choose the right color for your pants, you will be the first to come out of recession," Huang said.
China's fashion industry is eager to move from a mass manufacturer of clothing to the creator of more distinctive brands, she said.
Economical, but also trendy street fashion brands such as C&A, H&M, Mango and Uniqlo, are sweeping across some of China's biggest cities.
"For the moment, we are not in direct competition with them, since these companies have not yet shown up in China's second- and third-tier cities. They all have a wide range of products, but they do not have a strong specialty in jeans," Huang said.
"Domestic casual wear producers have invested more in research and development on jeans, and some of the world's big jeans makers such as Levi's are lowering product prices to attract Chinese buyers from less developed regions," Huang said.
