Thailand struts onto runway of world
By Nick Cumming-Bruce International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005
BANGKOK A troop of Thai models will be parading down a catwalk in central Bangkok next week, foot soldiers in a major effort by Thailand's government and garment industry to carve out a niche in the fiercely competitive fashion industry.
In a region already replete with fashion events - in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney - Bangkok is staging its first Fashion Week starting next Wednesday and hopes to overtake the lot.
"We are looking ahead to see Thailand as the leader of the fashion industry in the region in three to five years," said Somchai Songwatana, chief executive of At Bangkok, whose Fly Now garment brand has already won plaudits in London this year and who is helping to organize the event.
The fashion week is only one of a slew of projects under the label "Bangkok Fashion City," in which the government agreed to invest 1.8 billion baht, or more than $43 million, over 18 months. The project has involved a series of fashion shows in Bangkok in 2004 and includes a "road show" taking Thai garments and jewelry around Asian and European capitals before winding up in the United States in mid-2006.
The Fashion City project aims to establish Thai designers in the world of international fashion and provide a platform to develop Thailand's garment industry in the high-value-added end of the business.
Bangkok Fashion Week will showcase the work of 30 top Thai garment designers to an audience that organizers hope will include leading designers like Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld, along with industry buyers from around the world and the fashion press.
The week's success will be measured not so much in product sales as in the attention it generates in the international fashion world, said Ponlawat Sookcharus, chairman of AV Projects, which is staging the event and is planning another Fashion Week in March.
Thailand for too long has been known mainly for silk and street stalls brimming with cheap imitation designer goods, said Tinakorn Asvarak of Kudo, one of AV Projects' partners in organizing the Fashion Week.
"We have something unique," he said, "and it should be recognized."
These ambitions to upgrade the Thai fashion industry are close to the heart of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire businessman-turned-politician, who has made "hub" and "value added" some of the buzzwords of an administration seeking to propel Thailand into the ranks of the developed world.
He contends that Thailand can leverage its geographic location at the crossroads of West and East Asia to become a regional and intercontinental hub for trade and tourism - as well as fashion.
And since Thailand, with 60 million people, lacks sufficiently cheap and abundant labor to compete with China, or the high-technology skills to compete with more industrialized economies like South Korea and Taiwan, Thaksin seeks to maximize the value of what his country can deliver in areas like lifestyle, ranging from food and handicrafts to boutique hotels and health spas.
But making Bangkok Fashion City a reality is not proving easy. Government ministers grumble that projects are running far behind schedule. Designers say government bureaucrats and the fashion industry have trouble talking the same language and the venture needs better leadership.
Fabio Marangoni, president of Italy's 70-year-old Istituto Marangoni fashion school, pointed out other challenges. Thailand has high-quality textiles and fabrics but its fashion industry "lacks a distinctive style," he said on a visit to Bangkok last year.
Still, Bangkok's designers see the coming week as a big step toward putting that strategy into motion for the garment industry, still the biggest manufacturing employer in Thailand, with more than 800,000 workers.
Success in promoting Thai fashion, said Somchai, the chief executive of At Bangkok, can provide the engine that helps Thailand's garment industry shift from making garments for big brands and foreign retail chains to manufacturing original Thai designs.
Tienchai Mahasiri, the president of the Thai Garment Manufacturers Association, said, "That will be a new era for Thailand."
A year or more ago, this would have appeared an impossible dream to many Thai garment manufacturers, who had been bracing for the end in December 2004 of the Multifibre Arrangement, the World Trade Organization agreement that had regulated the international garment and textile trade, and for the onslaught of Chinese competition that they expected to follow it.
"We were thinking a good number of factories would go out of business," Tienchai said.
Instead, to the relief and surprise of the Thai industry, it is expanding. By the end of last year, China had agreed to reimpose limits on its exports to the United States, the biggest market for Thai garment producers, and to the European Union.
"A lot of customers have come back to Thailand because they just can't get the service they need from China," said Felix Kastner, managing director of Come Prime Fashion Garments near Bangkok. "The more complicated and lower-quantity orders moved in our direction."
Some Thai companies have closed in the past year, notably those selling mainly to the domestic market, but most of the garment producers are producing at their capacity limit, Kastner said.
Indeed, bigger companies are doubling and tripling in size and the industry as a whole needs to find another 60,000 workers, said Tienchai, the president of the manufacturers' association. So acute is the labor shortage, he added, that companies are being forced to relocate from around Bangkok to Thailand's poor northeastern provinces, closer to the main source of labor.
This upturn has bought Thailand's garment industry time, but it needs to position itself for the more fierce competition it can expect in the years ahead, according to those in the industry. "We shouldn't try to compete with China and Vietnam," Tienchai said. "Their wages are less than half ours. We have to move on to something different."
Thai producers are preparing for an exhibition in New York in September and exploring ways to enhance their appeal by delivering product not just to big cities but also to the smaller towns of the American Midwest, for example.
Although short on international experience, Thai designers say they are ready to take on fashion markets abroad. At Fashion Weeks overseas, "people are always amazed at the quality of the craftsmanship and the creativity of our designs," said Bhanu Inkawat, creative director of Greyhound, a leading Thai brand.
The organizers also see this first Bangkok Fashion Week as an opportunity to galvanize Thai designers and manufacturers and teach them something of the demands of the international market.
Alongside the main event exhibiting Thailand's big fashion names, the organizers have planned a series of shows for young designers from some of the country's 29 fashion schools and seminars by international experts in the business. These events, however, are only part of a list of 11 projects intended to give the industry momentum.
They include setting up a new fashion school with support from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, opening a fashion library to keep abreast of international trends and providing local designers with a database.
"The purpose is to plant seeds for the future," Tienchai said. "We are building people, the facilities and the atmosphere for Thailand to become a fashion hub."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/10/business/thai.php
By Nick Cumming-Bruce International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005
BANGKOK A troop of Thai models will be parading down a catwalk in central Bangkok next week, foot soldiers in a major effort by Thailand's government and garment industry to carve out a niche in the fiercely competitive fashion industry.
In a region already replete with fashion events - in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney - Bangkok is staging its first Fashion Week starting next Wednesday and hopes to overtake the lot.
"We are looking ahead to see Thailand as the leader of the fashion industry in the region in three to five years," said Somchai Songwatana, chief executive of At Bangkok, whose Fly Now garment brand has already won plaudits in London this year and who is helping to organize the event.
The fashion week is only one of a slew of projects under the label "Bangkok Fashion City," in which the government agreed to invest 1.8 billion baht, or more than $43 million, over 18 months. The project has involved a series of fashion shows in Bangkok in 2004 and includes a "road show" taking Thai garments and jewelry around Asian and European capitals before winding up in the United States in mid-2006.
The Fashion City project aims to establish Thai designers in the world of international fashion and provide a platform to develop Thailand's garment industry in the high-value-added end of the business.
Bangkok Fashion Week will showcase the work of 30 top Thai garment designers to an audience that organizers hope will include leading designers like Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld, along with industry buyers from around the world and the fashion press.
The week's success will be measured not so much in product sales as in the attention it generates in the international fashion world, said Ponlawat Sookcharus, chairman of AV Projects, which is staging the event and is planning another Fashion Week in March.
Thailand for too long has been known mainly for silk and street stalls brimming with cheap imitation designer goods, said Tinakorn Asvarak of Kudo, one of AV Projects' partners in organizing the Fashion Week.
"We have something unique," he said, "and it should be recognized."
These ambitions to upgrade the Thai fashion industry are close to the heart of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire businessman-turned-politician, who has made "hub" and "value added" some of the buzzwords of an administration seeking to propel Thailand into the ranks of the developed world.
He contends that Thailand can leverage its geographic location at the crossroads of West and East Asia to become a regional and intercontinental hub for trade and tourism - as well as fashion.
And since Thailand, with 60 million people, lacks sufficiently cheap and abundant labor to compete with China, or the high-technology skills to compete with more industrialized economies like South Korea and Taiwan, Thaksin seeks to maximize the value of what his country can deliver in areas like lifestyle, ranging from food and handicrafts to boutique hotels and health spas.
But making Bangkok Fashion City a reality is not proving easy. Government ministers grumble that projects are running far behind schedule. Designers say government bureaucrats and the fashion industry have trouble talking the same language and the venture needs better leadership.
Fabio Marangoni, president of Italy's 70-year-old Istituto Marangoni fashion school, pointed out other challenges. Thailand has high-quality textiles and fabrics but its fashion industry "lacks a distinctive style," he said on a visit to Bangkok last year.
Still, Bangkok's designers see the coming week as a big step toward putting that strategy into motion for the garment industry, still the biggest manufacturing employer in Thailand, with more than 800,000 workers.
Success in promoting Thai fashion, said Somchai, the chief executive of At Bangkok, can provide the engine that helps Thailand's garment industry shift from making garments for big brands and foreign retail chains to manufacturing original Thai designs.
Tienchai Mahasiri, the president of the Thai Garment Manufacturers Association, said, "That will be a new era for Thailand."
A year or more ago, this would have appeared an impossible dream to many Thai garment manufacturers, who had been bracing for the end in December 2004 of the Multifibre Arrangement, the World Trade Organization agreement that had regulated the international garment and textile trade, and for the onslaught of Chinese competition that they expected to follow it.
"We were thinking a good number of factories would go out of business," Tienchai said.
Instead, to the relief and surprise of the Thai industry, it is expanding. By the end of last year, China had agreed to reimpose limits on its exports to the United States, the biggest market for Thai garment producers, and to the European Union.
"A lot of customers have come back to Thailand because they just can't get the service they need from China," said Felix Kastner, managing director of Come Prime Fashion Garments near Bangkok. "The more complicated and lower-quantity orders moved in our direction."
Some Thai companies have closed in the past year, notably those selling mainly to the domestic market, but most of the garment producers are producing at their capacity limit, Kastner said.
Indeed, bigger companies are doubling and tripling in size and the industry as a whole needs to find another 60,000 workers, said Tienchai, the president of the manufacturers' association. So acute is the labor shortage, he added, that companies are being forced to relocate from around Bangkok to Thailand's poor northeastern provinces, closer to the main source of labor.
This upturn has bought Thailand's garment industry time, but it needs to position itself for the more fierce competition it can expect in the years ahead, according to those in the industry. "We shouldn't try to compete with China and Vietnam," Tienchai said. "Their wages are less than half ours. We have to move on to something different."
Thai producers are preparing for an exhibition in New York in September and exploring ways to enhance their appeal by delivering product not just to big cities but also to the smaller towns of the American Midwest, for example.
Although short on international experience, Thai designers say they are ready to take on fashion markets abroad. At Fashion Weeks overseas, "people are always amazed at the quality of the craftsmanship and the creativity of our designs," said Bhanu Inkawat, creative director of Greyhound, a leading Thai brand.
The organizers also see this first Bangkok Fashion Week as an opportunity to galvanize Thai designers and manufacturers and teach them something of the demands of the international market.
Alongside the main event exhibiting Thailand's big fashion names, the organizers have planned a series of shows for young designers from some of the country's 29 fashion schools and seminars by international experts in the business. These events, however, are only part of a list of 11 projects intended to give the industry momentum.
They include setting up a new fashion school with support from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, opening a fashion library to keep abreast of international trends and providing local designers with a database.
"The purpose is to plant seeds for the future," Tienchai said. "We are building people, the facilities and the atmosphere for Thailand to become a fashion hub."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/10/business/thai.php
