A $22,000 bag and a $7,500 watch: Can China's home-grown luxury take off?

Beyond mass market products by Shein, BYD and Pop Mart, having a successful luxury brand could mark China's cultural ascent.

- Lim Min Zhang

At a high-end mall in Beijing's Wangfujing shopping street, where more than 30 shops sell luxury products from watches to jewellery on the first floor, only one has Chinese roots.

Qeelin is a fine jewellery brand co-founded in 2004 by Hong Kong designer Dennis Chan and owned by French luxury conglomerate Kering, whose best-selling line features the Chinese gourd, a symbol of health and prosperity.

But on Chinese streets, fashionistas are more likely to sport earrings from Van Cleef & Arpels or Bulgari, than one from Qeelin.

Their handbags are more likely to be from Hermes or Louis Vuitton than from Shanghai Tang, which has changed hands several times since its founding in 1994 by a Hong Kong businessman.

Despite the recent hype over Laopu Gold, which opened its first overseas store in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands in July, China remains under-represented at the top end of the consumer market.

In recent years, China has produced globally recognisable companies and winning products in industries from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence, but the luxury market appears harder to crack.

Decades of being the world's factory has turned China into a champion in making value-for-money goods of decent quality at reasonable prices. Witness fashion retailers like Shein and numerous smartphone makers.

Even as a growing preference for domestic luxury brands emerges among Chinese consumers—driven by rising cultural confidence and nationalism—their home-grown options remain limited. What would it take for China to produce a luxury brand to call its own?

LAOPU'S RISE China's love affair with luxury remains strong, even if its shine has faded somewhat amid the country's recent economic slowdown and a continued political austerity drive.