Lesson 24

;               3. Hong Devoted to Fashion Career

        Fashion designer Hong Xia is a woman. with a mission in life:she hopes to turn Guangzhou into a fashion centre rivalling Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York and Hong Kong.
        Hong, now a designer at Guangzhou University, staged a solo fashion show in 1986, held fashion lectures and night-schools and published articles on fashion. She then went on to teach at Guangzhou University in 1988 and is now writing a book describing the Guangzhou fashion world.

      Her career in fashion started when she was enrolled in the Central Academy of Arts and Designs in Beijing in 1981. Before that, she had been a mechanical worker for eight years after graduating from middle school in 1973 in Guangzhou.
      "Fashion design had just started its rise in popularity at the time I was studying in Beijing," she said. "It was fascinating because it was new."
      She was attracted to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone two years later when she graduated and went to an area where large-scale construction was underway and the pace of everyday life was quickening.

        One year later, after gaining experience in all aspects of clothes eduction, she received her first designing assignment: for a batch of summer clothes.
      "I don't know how to describe my feelings for my first independent designs," she said. "t1 lot of questions came to mind which I never thought of at school: What should I design? What materials should I use? What colours should I choose? What styles will be popular? All this forced me to begin a market survey."
       It came as a bit of a surprise when she saw her summer fashions welumed by customers. For the first time, she blended the needs of the narket with her own designs.

      In Shenzhen, Hong benefited from watching Hong Kong TV and reading the latest fashion magazines from all over the world to keep pace uith international trends. Her big chance came when she joined the nahonal "Adult Spring-Autumn Fashion Designs Competition" sponsored by China Fashions Magazine and Central Television in 1985.
      Hong was one of the five major winners thanks to her unconventional women's fashion designs.

      But the private fashion market in Guangzhou is to date only a duplication and sales centre of new overseas fashions, according to Hong Xia. "It is active in buying and selling the latest styles form Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan but weak in designing its own styles, ?she said.
      The potential for the sale of fashion goods throughout China has stimulated the development of the city's fashion market. Hundreds of stores selling world-brand clothes have sprung up.

      Customers to these stores, she said, are mainly people from art circles,management personnel and young women working in hotels and offices. Prices range from 100 to 4, 000 yuan. People involved in the fashion business in Shanghai, Beijing, Dalian and Qingdao are also frequent customers.
    "Although at present you seldom see styles designed by the city, s own designers, Guangzhou is gradually becoming a Hong Kong-style fashion market with Ihe appearance of these fashion stores," she said.
       An obvious disadvantage for Guangzhou to develop into a fashion centre is the lack of its own fashion designers, and people in the city do not have the dress sense to appreciate fashion designs.

      Realizing this, Hong decided to teach.
      "I thought I should do my best to let more people know something about fashion designing by holding fashion shows, lectures and nightschools," Hong said.
     "That was a turning point in my career," she said. "It paved my way towards success."
       Hong Xia now has 25 students in her class in Guangzhou University for a two-year course. She teaches them not only the fashion theories but tells them about her own experiences as a designer and as a privare businessperson.
     Hong has already seen the achievements of her teaching. In a national Youth Fashion Designs Competition nine of her students were chosen as excellent winners and one of her students received the first award.

      As a fashion designer and a business woman,'Hong Xia has sold her works to fashion businesses in the United States, Japan, Australia and Hong Kon

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