ISSUE 27 : WHY IS "MADE IN CHINA" STILL ASSUMED TO BE INFERIOR?
+ AAPI Heritage Month edit
Firstly, if you’re in NYC, I’m hosting a closet sale today - stop by and say hi!
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Now digging into that headline —
Over the past couple months, we’ve seen viral videos across social media discussing the manufacturing origins of luxury handbags. There’s been a lot of confusion around claims that some very expensive products are being produced in factories in China, which has upset many consumers who seem to have imagined all luxury products are entirely hand-sewn somewhere in France or Italy. But that image is mostly a myth. Supply chains and manufacturing are much more complicated, as recently recounted by
and initially investigated by in Deluxe (2007).
To me, the most interesting, and frustrating, aspect of this entire debacle has been witnessing hundreds of consumers’ reactions that persistently diminish Asian craftsmanship with the assumption that products “Made in China” are inevitably of inferior quality. Why is a handbag produced in Italy still perceived as more aspirational than one created in China — or Vietnam, or Malaysia, or India? In reality, there are many cases in which the specialized skills and advanced machinery required to create many of these products only exists in Asia. The narrative that a label that reading “Made in Italy” or France is equivalent to high quality and deserves a luxury price point, while a product labeled as “Made in China” or India is inferior and should be priced cheaply, is deeply racist and problematic.
There are some luxury brands that have pushed back against this narrative (though few and far between). Back when I wrote my dissertation on cultural appropriation (2015), I was intrigued by Dries Van Noten’s approach to the issue of creating products abroad. It starkly contrasted with other designers, like Lagerfeld and Galliano, who often ‘took inspiration from’ [or, more accurately, appropriated] Asian aesthetics while simultaneously belittling the cultures and people. Comparatively, Van Noten was quite vocal throughout his career about his commitment to production in India. Since the 1980s, he worked with two Kolkata-based family businesses to produce the embroidery for his collections. In an interview, he explains that he began manufacturing in India because he felt “‘Made in India’ was a mark of prestige, synonymous with handmade” and he maintained conviction in that belief despite the fact that “to the industry, it meant ‘cheap.’”1
Unlike many other designers I researched, Van Noten didn’t attempt to disguise his production methods, and instead labeled all merchandise to clearly denote its provenance. He even made the effort to showcase the handicraft work of these artisans with close-up images in his lookbooks, and detailed descriptions of the specific dying, weaving, printing, and embellishment techniques that were used in the production processes. In his career retrospective museum exhibition, he dedicated an entire room to a video installation about these artisans. I remember being awed while viewing the exhibit, seeing the brown hands and faces of craftspeople highlighted with respect and dignity (Dior would never; and do you think all the workers at the Chanel factories are white?).
It’s been ten years since I wrote that dissertation, and it’s disappointing to see (via the recent Tiktok discourse) that general consumer sentiment around “Made in China” continues to cling to biased narratives of inherently inferior quality.
At the same time, it’s incredible to see contemporary BIPOC-owned brands, like Kartik Research working to reframe what it means to produce luxury goods in the Global South. This AAPI month, you can support Asian creators by shopping the edit here.
This information comes from an essay by Susannah Frankel (p. 13-35) in the Dries Van Noten book by Pamela Golbin published in 2014.