Forget Cartier: Made-in-China luxury captivates Chinese consumers

Mint

6 days ago

China's Laopu, which specializes in gold jewelry, sees a gap in the European-led luxury market.
Well-off Chinese used to chase Western luxury bags and jewelry as symbols of status. Now, in a challenge to the likes of Cartier and Yves Saint Laurent, they are turning to homegrown brands.
Little-known in the West, names such as Laopu, Mao Geping and Songmont are winning over Chinese customers with a pitch that combines locally inspired designs and cultural pride.
Beijing auditor Zhou Linanfang, 35, noticed long lines outside a store selling Laopu gold jewelry from her hospital room last year when she was about to give birth. Her social-media feeds added to the buzz around the brand.
Zhou, like many in her generation, considered gold jewelry unfashionable but changed her mind after seeing the filigree flower rings, gourd-shaped pendants and phoenix hairpieces in Laopu designs. Soon after the arrival of her baby boy, her husband lined up at a Laopu store in Beijing for an hour to buy her a butterfly-shaped pendant for $1,600.
'It's just stylish," Zhou said. 'Now that we have luxury gold pieces, as someone who loves fashion, how could I not get one?"
Also taking notice are Western luxury-brand CEOs such as Johann Rupert, chairman of Cartier parent Richemont. He was asked in May whether Laopu was a threat.
The brand is 'tied to nationalism and tied to patriotism, and they have a lot of wins in their favor," Rupert said. However, he added, 'Cartier is universal."
For Hermès, the resale value of its bags remains an advantage over Chinese rivals.
Sales of luxury products in mainland China, mostly Western brands, fell around 20% last year to less than $50 billion, according to consultants at Bain. They said China accounted for about one in eight dollars spent on luxury globally. For the year ended March 2025, Richemont's sales in China fell 23%.
Laopu listed its shares in Hong Kong last year and its stock surged, giving the company a market capitalization of more than $15 billion. By contrast, shares of Gucci owner Kering have declined more than 20% compared with a year earlier as the China growth hopes that formerly drove luxury shares have faded.
In June, NBA player Victor Wembanyama was seen wearing Laopu's signature gourd-shaped pendant at a sports-card show in New York after visiting China.
Zhou said she liked the idea of buying gold jewelry because it might retain its value better in an era of growing economic uncertainty. She said she no longer bought a luxury handbag or jewelry every six months like she used to. 'I might lose my job tomorrow, so I definitely need to cut back," she said.
Laopu's chairman, Xu Gaoming, told shareholders in April that the company has carved out a niche with little direct competition. Chinese gold jewelry makers aim for the mass market, while European fine jewelers don't specialize in gold.
Laopu's black-and-white stores offer a minimalist ambience, while pampering customers as they wait with Evian water and Godiva chocolate.
A Laopu store in Beijing.
As those perks suggest, European brands still have a cachet that is hard to match. People in the luxury business said the Chinese brands might even serve as a feeder to get younger consumers interested in luxury.
Vanessa Piao, a luxury-bag reseller in China, said more buyers are treating their purchases as an investment, and they often prefer prestigious names such as Hermès, Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
'They are happy to pay $20,000 for a Birkin 25 because they can resell it in a few years without losing much," Piao said, referring to the Hermès bag. 'They won't pay that money for a luxury bag or any fashion item from a domestic brand, no matter how exquisite and rare it is, because that, to some, is the equivalent of throwing $20,000 down the drain."
Sophia Zhang, 32, was a loyal customer of Lancôme and Estée Lauder until she became a fan of Mao Geping, the namesake brand of a Chinese makeup artist. Its cream and foundation typically cost half or less the price of the international brands. A 100-gram jar of its signature moisturizer costs $139, compared with $280 for a smaller jar of a top-of-the-line Lancôme moisturizer.
'In the past I figured I'd splurge on skin care, believing those big names were the best, and I'd dismiss local products just because they were cheaper," said Zhang, who, like Zhou, said she still buys some European brands. Now that she has found a less-expensive alternative that suits her, she said, 'it'll be tough to go back."
Backstage at a Mao Geping show during Beijing Fashion Week.
China is also developing some accessible luxury brands priced comparably to Coach and Michael Kors. One is Songmont, known for its simple and modern designs in products such as a $529 shoulder bag.
Twelve-year-old Songmont was co-founded by Fu Song and Wang Jie, designers who graduated from China's top art schools. Some of their first products, with Chinese brocade linings depicting auspicious Chinese motifs like dragons, phoenixes and butterflies, were fashioned by Fu's grandmother and other craftspeople in western Shanxi province.
Like many other niche brands around the world, Songmont emphasizes sustainability and its sourcing of threads and oils for its leather bags from Germany and Italy. Its stores incorporate pine trees and rocks, and it brought on tennis star Li Na to promote the brand to channel a bold vibe.
The next question is whether the Chinese brands can go global. Shein and Temu have succeeded in e-commerce with rock-bottom prices on mostly Chinese-made goods, and some Americans have taken to Labubu, the viral troll-like toy from China's Pop Mart.
Laopu, the jewelry retailer, opened its first overseas store in Singapore in June and will venture to Japan next, but a person close to the company questioned whether Western consumers were ready to embrace marketing based on traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics.
Bain consultant Claudia D'Arpizio said Labubu's success suggested Gen-Z consumers were open to buying Chinese. However, she said, 'for more of the core high-end luxury customers in the U.S. and in Europe, made-in-Europe is still very important."
Write to Shen Lu at [e-mail]