December 30, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Zhou Ying
With the lunar year winding to a close, the market is seeing its first gold and silver products themed for the coming Year of the Dragon.
Jewelries and coins with dragon themes have made early appearances at gold stores, attracting many customers. With the gold price rising, many are forecasting a rush on gold and silver jewlery across the country.
Luck of the dragon
The dragon, as a mythical creature, symbolizes power and might and was represented by the emperor in feudal times. The dragon is believed to exercise a potent and auspicious influence, especially over water and rainfall.
Dragons come in many forms. The typical yellow or gold dragon is traditionally associated with the emperor.
It is often described as having the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the eyes of a hare, the ears of a bull, the neck of a snake, the belly of a frog, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle and the paws of a tiger. While most dragons lack wings, they can still fly.
Depictions of dragons are accompanied by clouds, even if only in stylized form. In many Chinese dialects, the words for clouds and fortune are homonyms – a reminder that the beasts of the heavens are also bringers of good fortune.
The number of claws is important to notice. A five-clawed dragon could only be used by the emperor. Imperial nobles and high-ranking officials could use the image of a four-clawed dragon. The three-clawed beast was available only to deserving members of the public.
In feudal times, the use of a five-clawed dragon by anyone other than the emperor was a capital offense that carried the penalty of death to the offender’s entire clan.
To mark this year of the dragon, the world’s mints have devoted the past six months to ensuring a vast flow of Water Dragons from their presses. In addition to coins, the Philippine Postal Corporation recently released two dragon-themed commemorative stamps.
“There is always a big demand for our New Year’s stamps, because the designs change according to the year of the Chinese calendar. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon, so our designs are dragons,” said Philpost Philatelic Division chief Elenita San Diego.
Higher profile
Chinese media reported that many customers shopping at Caibai Jewelry in Beijing went specifically to buy the year’s new gold bars and coins.
A salesperson told a reporter from Economic Daily that the sales of New Year gold bars were brisk, and that the bars could both keep their value and demonstrate rich cultural content and superb craftsmanship.
There are gold bars with colorful patterns, which are more elegant and expensive. One gold bar for the Year of the Dragon that went on sale in November has been especially popular: thousands of bars were ordered more than a year in advance.
For 2012, the China Gold Coin Incorporation (CGCI) issued gold bars in five sizes: 1,000 grams, 500 grams, 200 grams, 100 grams and 50 grams, issued in 350, 1,000, 1,500, 16,000 and 24,600 pieces, respectively. The dragon series from CGCI has a purity of 99.99 percent and a total issuing weight of 3,980 kilograms.
The gold price for CGCI bars is expected to be 435 yuan per gram, the highest in its history.
Gold and silver bars by the China Dragon Postage Stamps, co-produced by the Service Center of the Palace Museum and China Gold Group, premiered at Gongmei on December 2.
The patterns are based on the rare five-cent postage stamp and made in the original colors of gold and silver.
The bars feature large and small dragons, as well as coiled dragons, and are on sale at branches and subsidiaries of the Bank of China, China Merchants Bank and Bank of Communications.
In addition to New Year’s gold bars, the precious metal memorial badges are also attracting great attention. The China Gold Coin Incorporation released a series of 31 “2012 Dragon Year Precious Metal Memorial Badges” in 22 sizes and shapes.
There are gold badges, silver badges, gold and silver mixed badges and platinum badges. Prices range from 400 to 400,000 yuan.
Investing in demand
The gold and silver bars have two functions: collection and investment, said Zhen Weigang, president of Guangdong Yuebao Gold Investment.
The appreciation potential for these costly commemoratives has been demonstrated in their issuing prices throughout the last decade.
“Ten years ago, the issuing price of the gold bars for Year of the Goat was 110 yuan per gram. This year, the Year of the Dragon bars are selling for 435 yuan per gram. What other products or industries have such a high growth rate?” he said.
But there are plenty of gold investment products on the market. Which is best for investment?
Money management experts suggest that purchases be made based on your own need. Wang Jian, vice president of Beijing Gongmei Group, said that when the only concern is investment, gold and silver bars make great first choices. The potential for silver investment is especially high.
However, gold being purchased for a gift should meet the needs of the recipient. The choice can be influenced by personal tastes, such as products with good craftsmanship or which have been created by an unusual process of pressing or casting.
Cost effectiveness should be an important factor. While gold and silver coins are undoubtedly good investments, a gold coin weighing 1/10 the of a troy ounce costs between 3,000 and 4,000 yuan. That can be quite expensive for the investor on a budget.
As for collection, Wang Jian suggests that prior consideration should be given to themes of historic events. Past commemoratives have included a panda coin, a coin marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and a coin marking the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution.
Works designed by celebrated artists and issued by an authoritative organization such as the China Gold Coin Incorporation are usually the best investments, as are those produced in limited runs. Rarity always commands a higher price.
For consumers choosing Chinese New Year products as gifts for family and friends, Li Hengdi, president of Golden Peak Group, suggests they should choose ones produced in a limited quantity by a well-known brand, and that are priced reasonably close to the market value of gold or silver.
By Zhou Ying
With the lunar year winding to a close, the market is seeing its first gold and silver products themed for the coming Year of the Dragon.
Jewelries and coins with dragon themes have made early appearances at gold stores, attracting many customers. With the gold price rising, many are forecasting a rush on gold and silver jewlery across the country.
Dragon-themed home accessaries for the Chinese New Year are available in Beijing's shops. CFP Photo
Luck of the dragon
The dragon, as a mythical creature, symbolizes power and might and was represented by the emperor in feudal times. The dragon is believed to exercise a potent and auspicious influence, especially over water and rainfall.
Dragons come in many forms. The typical yellow or gold dragon is traditionally associated with the emperor.
It is often described as having the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the eyes of a hare, the ears of a bull, the neck of a snake, the belly of a frog, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle and the paws of a tiger. While most dragons lack wings, they can still fly.
Depictions of dragons are accompanied by clouds, even if only in stylized form. In many Chinese dialects, the words for clouds and fortune are homonyms – a reminder that the beasts of the heavens are also bringers of good fortune.
The number of claws is important to notice. A five-clawed dragon could only be used by the emperor. Imperial nobles and high-ranking officials could use the image of a four-clawed dragon. The three-clawed beast was available only to deserving members of the public.
In feudal times, the use of a five-clawed dragon by anyone other than the emperor was a capital offense that carried the penalty of death to the offender’s entire clan.
To mark this year of the dragon, the world’s mints have devoted the past six months to ensuring a vast flow of Water Dragons from their presses. In addition to coins, the Philippine Postal Corporation recently released two dragon-themed commemorative stamps.
“There is always a big demand for our New Year’s stamps, because the designs change according to the year of the Chinese calendar. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon, so our designs are dragons,” said Philpost Philatelic Division chief Elenita San Diego.
December 23, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Zhou Ying
If any sport combines exercise and nature – and joy with physical exertion – it’s night biking. It doesn’t hurt that it makes for a great chance to enjoy a dinner with people who share your hobby.
No wonder the Fast Wheel Night Riding League has won more than 100 fans since its Sina Weibo group at q.weibo.com/332943 was founded in July.
Ready? Go!
Every Thursday at around 8 pm, the cyclists of Fast Wheel Night Riding League meet at Jianguomen Bridge to ride a 25-kilometer circuit. The ride normally takes 1.5 to 2 hours.
“Every week, I discuss the route with our team members in advance. We will make some adjustments according to the weather or traffic situation. But normally, we ride along Chang’an Avenue because it is beautiful at night,” said Yang Jinyuan, the league’s organizer and leader.
Yang organized the league in June 2010, and its membership has grown increasingly fast. “There are at most 20 cyclists when the weather is good. Even though it’s cold today, we still had six riders show up,” he said.
“I love sports, especially biking. I didn’t expect that there were enough people like me to establish a group. Riding at night is much different than riding in the day. In summer it can be comfortably cool and less crowded. Everything looks different, and you may see sights you would never see in daylight,” Yang said.
Zhang Yiqiu, a cyclist, said biking accounts for 60 percent of his daily activity. “The bike that I ride has no brakes, so riding it is an exciting experience. I love riding so much that on some days I sit on the saddle even if I’m not going out,” he said.
Chen Gan, another riding enthusiast, has been involved in bike sports for almost two years. He rides not only in Beijing, but also between cities. “I like riding because I love the freedom and nature,” he said.
“Apart from city riding, we also organize some longer rides that take up to 10 days. For me riding is a sport, and it can help me to improve my physical health and state of mind,” Chen said.
Beyond the sport
Yang said there are as many as three similar groups in Beijing. “Unlike the others, our night riding league doesn’t focus on the equipment. We are about having a good time with friends,” he said.
Yang sees night riding as more of a lifestyle than a sport.
“There is a spirit of teamwork in everything we do. We design the route together beforehand and help each other along the way. After the trip, we choose a restaurant where we can have a big meal and have a great time together,” he said.
The league is open to anyone who knows how to ride a bicycle.
“We welcome anyone who knows how to ride. For fresh riders, I suggest they ride a folding bike because it’s easy to carry and small enough to put in a car,” Yang said.
Zhang said night biking has dramatically changed his life. “I changed my clothing style and the way that I think about life. I also met more friends and feel happier,” he said. “Biking is a chance to overcome my limits. Part of the trip is about facing a challenge and overcoming fear.”
“Most of our group members work in marketing, PR or media. There are some artists as well, including one pop singer. We have a passion for life and we want to promote riding as a trend for the next generation,” Yang said.
Riding without borders
With nighttime temperatures dropping far below zero, Yang decided to stop organizing night rides.
“This may be the last city ride this year because it can be dangerous if you don’t have warm enough clothes,” he said.
The club will switch to other exercises, such as skiing and badminton. “We do not want to stop having fun, and we want to stay in shape for our big riding trip next year,” Yang said. The group is planning to ride around Taiwan next October.
He said the league will set a similar trip plan each year. “It is like theme tourism. We will rent bikes in Taiwan and find some sponsors for our trip. Maybe next year it will be Qinghai Lake or France,” he said.
Yang said the group will have some safety training sessions before heading for Taiwan. “We have to prepare well to ensure everyone’s safety,” he said.
Speaking from his own experience of long-distance riding, Yang said he would never forget his previous trip from Beijing to Tianjian by bike.
“It is 138 kilometers from Beijing to Tianjin, and it took us almost 9 hours. We had some problems on the way, but finally we overcame them. It was great being able to live life on the road,” he said.
“We have also as many as six female riders in our city night riding group, and they are really good. My only expectation for our league is to attract more people with common interests and to keep it going for as long as we can,” Yang said.
By Zhou Ying
If any sport combines exercise and nature – and joy with physical exertion – it’s night biking. It doesn’t hurt that it makes for a great chance to enjoy a dinner with people who share your hobby.
No wonder the Fast Wheel Night Riding League has won more than 100 fans since its Sina Weibo group at q.weibo.com/332943 was founded in July.
Photos by Zhou Ying
Ready? Go!
Every Thursday at around 8 pm, the cyclists of Fast Wheel Night Riding League meet at Jianguomen Bridge to ride a 25-kilometer circuit. The ride normally takes 1.5 to 2 hours.
“Every week, I discuss the route with our team members in advance. We will make some adjustments according to the weather or traffic situation. But normally, we ride along Chang’an Avenue because it is beautiful at night,” said Yang Jinyuan, the league’s organizer and leader.
Yang organized the league in June 2010, and its membership has grown increasingly fast. “There are at most 20 cyclists when the weather is good. Even though it’s cold today, we still had six riders show up,” he said.
“I love sports, especially biking. I didn’t expect that there were enough people like me to establish a group. Riding at night is much different than riding in the day. In summer it can be comfortably cool and less crowded. Everything looks different, and you may see sights you would never see in daylight,” Yang said.
Zhang Yiqiu, a cyclist, said biking accounts for 60 percent of his daily activity. “The bike that I ride has no brakes, so riding it is an exciting experience. I love riding so much that on some days I sit on the saddle even if I’m not going out,” he said.
Chen Gan, another riding enthusiast, has been involved in bike sports for almost two years. He rides not only in Beijing, but also between cities. “I like riding because I love the freedom and nature,” he said.
“Apart from city riding, we also organize some longer rides that take up to 10 days. For me riding is a sport, and it can help me to improve my physical health and state of mind,” Chen said.
December 16, 2011 Filed under Trend
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a new technology coming to mobile devices, especially smart phones, that may usher in a mobile payment revolution.
NFC works by using short-range wireless connections to provide intuitive, simple and secure communications between two electronic devices that are in close proximity.
It may soon be possible to pay a bus fare, buy a plane ticket or make an ATM withdrawal or credit card purchase simply by holding a mobile phone near a wireless terminal. Such NFC technology will be coming soon to Nokia phones and those running Google’s Android operating system within the next year.
According to the US-based market research firm iSuppli, the adoption of NFC-capable handsets rose 50 percent in 2011. With the support of Nokia and Google, global usage of NFC technology is expected to begin an explosive growth phase in 2012.
Leading smart phone brand Nokia said it will support NFC in all-new smart phone models introduced this year. Google said it will support NFC in its Android 2.3 handset software by the end of 2011.
To further increase the momentum, the three largest US mobile phone carriers – AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile – launched a joint venture called ISIS to develop a mobile payment system based on NFC.
The carriers said they are open to collaborating with any bank or credit card company that would like to use ISIS within the next 18 months in hopes of creating an NFC ecosystem in many regions of the US by 2013.
iSuppli said 2012 will be the make-or-break year for NFC. With all the ongoing and planned NFC trials in different regions of the world – as well as support for the technology by major stakeholders, including wireless operators, financial institutions and banks – iSuppli is hopeful that business models will be established that allow each of the nodes to see value in offering the service.
Beyond mobile payments in cell phones, NFC enables a range of other functions. NFC chips are compatible with contactless smart cards. Devices that are NFC enabled can be used to access secure facilities, such as office buildings and gated apartments.
While there are a limited number of NFC-capable devices on the market at this time, more are arriving every week.
1. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the latest Google Android phone shipping in the UK, and it will be available in the US later this month. The handset runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Samsung Galaxy S II Android 2.3 handset is an entry-level NFC smart phone currently available on the Chinese mainland.
2. The Google Nexus S, a full-featured smart phone running Android 2.3 and manufactured by Samsung, has NFC support built in. The device is now available at retail in the UK, US and more than 27 other countries.
3. The BlackBerry Bold 9930, and the Curve 9350 and 9370, are the first handsets from Research in Motion to include NFC and are now shipping to world markets.
4. The Nokia C7 smart phone contains NFC hardware and, via Symbian Belle, can now be used for NFC tag reading and writing. The C7 will be able to support secure NFC services such as mobile payments from the first half of 2012.
Nokia is also shipping three NFC phones – the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600. All three run Symbian Belle and will be able to support secure NFC services such as mobile payments from the first half of 2012.
5. The HTC Ruby, also known as the HTC Amaze 4G, is a high-end Android device and the first NFC phone from the Taiwanese manufacturer. It is only available from T-Mobile in the US, but may be available to more world markets in the fourth quarter of 2011.
6. A version of the HTC Incredible designed to run China UnionPay’s NFC payments via a micro SD-based NFC add-on is now available locally.
7. Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system will offer NFC in 2012. Microsoft plans to include mobile payment technology in its phone OS as part of an effort to narrow Google’s lead in handset software. The OS giant has also announced support for NFC in Windows 8.
8. ZTE, now the world’s fourth largest mobile phone maker, has announced it will include NFC functionality in its Android-based QSC6270 platform devices as well as a number of more entry-level phones from the second quarter of 2012.
(Agencies)
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a new technology coming to mobile devices, especially smart phones, that may usher in a mobile payment revolution.
NFC software will be preloaded on all future Nokia handsets, such as the high-end N9, that run on the Symbian or MeeGo operating systems.
NFC works by using short-range wireless connections to provide intuitive, simple and secure communications between two electronic devices that are in close proximity.
It may soon be possible to pay a bus fare, buy a plane ticket or make an ATM withdrawal or credit card purchase simply by holding a mobile phone near a wireless terminal. Such NFC technology will be coming soon to Nokia phones and those running Google’s Android operating system within the next year.
The HTC Ruby
According to the US-based market research firm iSuppli, the adoption of NFC-capable handsets rose 50 percent in 2011. With the support of Nokia and Google, global usage of NFC technology is expected to begin an explosive growth phase in 2012.
Leading smart phone brand Nokia said it will support NFC in all-new smart phone models introduced this year. Google said it will support NFC in its Android 2.3 handset software by the end of 2011.
To further increase the momentum, the three largest US mobile phone carriers – AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile – launched a joint venture called ISIS to develop a mobile payment system based on NFC.
The carriers said they are open to collaborating with any bank or credit card company that would like to use ISIS within the next 18 months in hopes of creating an NFC ecosystem in many regions of the US by 2013.
iSuppli said 2012 will be the make-or-break year for NFC. With all the ongoing and planned NFC trials in different regions of the world – as well as support for the technology by major stakeholders, including wireless operators, financial institutions and banks – iSuppli is hopeful that business models will be established that allow each of the nodes to see value in offering the service.
Beyond mobile payments in cell phones, NFC enables a range of other functions. NFC chips are compatible with contactless smart cards. Devices that are NFC enabled can be used to access secure facilities, such as office buildings and gated apartments.
While there are a limited number of NFC-capable devices on the market at this time, more are arriving every week.
December 9, 2011 Filed under Trend
Want to have a holly, jolly good time this holiday season? Anyone who isn’t a Scrooge or Grinch is likely getting invited to a dozen office parties, family gatherings and other merry celebrations.
So, how will people set theirs apart from the rest?
These quirky party ideas are sure to have everyone bringing their yuletide best to your door.
The ugly sweater party
If someone managed to go this long in life without acquiring some horrific Christmas sweater – the ones with the puff paint snowmen and the mistletoe-patterned mock turtlenecks – from great aunt Mildred, then they may have to run to the nearest market to purchase one for this party of holiday fashion faux pas.
Such sweaters usually cost less than 150 yuan, and the photos of the night will most definitely be priceless.
The Ugly Sweater Party tradition is popular among college students and never seems to get old. Anything from the early ’80s will probably work, as long as it’s hideous by today’s standards. Complete the look with acid or stone-washed jeans, white trainers and a terry headband or wristband.
Play cheesy Christmas music and make sure the eggnog is flowing
Marshmallow roast
Roasting marshmallows around a campfire or a crackling fireplace is a wonderful winter pastime. Just stock up on chocolate bars and graham crackers. Prepare some peppermint schnapps to wash them down. Spend the night getting roasted and toasted.
If people want to kick their mallow roast up a notch, get some chestnuts roasting on that open fire, too.
Nightmare before Christmas
Take inspiration from the movie and create a slightly creepy, slightly weird Christmas party theme. People can come dressed as any of the characters from the film, or in Gothic costume.
The invitations should have an insert with pictures and names of the characters for those who have never seen the film.
The outfits are pretty easy to replicate. Jack Skellington wears a suit and a little white and black makeup. Sally wears rags stitched together. Outfits require very little skill to look utterly creative. Buy an “axe through the head” hat from a party shop and paint your face green to become Behemoth.
Christmas through the decades
Every decade has introduced its own stylistic nuances into popular fashion, and each decade’s distinct flavor is familiar. Decade parties are always fun and gives people a huge range to work with when choosing costumes. Most people have a pair of bell bottoms lying around. It’s easy to turn a modern wardrobe into an ’80s outfit with some hairspray and blue eyeshadow.
Choose only a handful of decades – say ’20s, ’50s, ’70s and ’80s. This way, when people blur the lines of the ’60s and ’70s, at least everyone will know which decade they were going for – this helps put people in groups for games and raffles and competitions for Best Dressed from each decade.
Play music for each decade as the party progresses. For example, play ’20s jazz and big band as people are arriving, then ’50s rockabilly, ’60s rock and some ’70s funk and soul.
Cast-off gift exchange
Re-gifting – the act of handing off one of people’s previously received unwanted gifts to someone else – may be considered tacky in some circles. But not when everyone is doing it.
Have all your friends bring a Christmas cast-off – something like a leopard-print Snuggie, an automatic-twirling spaghetti fork or a hot-pink clip-on tie.
Make sure everyone’s gifts are wrapped and play a version of “White Elephant,” where people can pick from the pile or steal someone else’s new acquisition.
The cookie swap
Nothing says the holidays like binge-eating on homemade cookies in the shapes of Christmas trees and gingerbread men. To make sure people get a variety of sugary goodness this year, host a cookie swap where everyone brings a batch of a homemade specialty, from fudge brownies to cinnamon snicker doodles, to share.
For a fun twist, allow those friends who are baking beginners to bring store-bought cookies and have guests try to guess which ones are “legit.”
White Christmas
The classic “White Christmas” party theme is always in style.
People love the opportunity to wear a white suit jacket or dress, and it’s easy to look gorgeous in all white with a white tie, white feather boa and a touch of glitter.
A big plastic white Christmas tree makes a great Christmas centerpiece for home parties and can sit in the foyer or entrance at bigger events. If the tree is full enough, people don’t need to decorate it at all. If it looks sparse, stick with white or silver decorations. But remember, less is more.
When decorating the room, people can use plenty of glitter, tinsel and sequins to make the room shimmer and sparkle. Candles make gorgeous centerpieces.
(Agencies)
Want to have a holly, jolly good time this holiday season? Anyone who isn’t a Scrooge or Grinch is likely getting invited to a dozen office parties, family gatherings and other merry celebrations.
So, how will people set theirs apart from the rest?
These quirky party ideas are sure to have everyone bringing their yuletide best to your door.
The ugly sweater party
If someone managed to go this long in life without acquiring some horrific Christmas sweater – the ones with the puff paint snowmen and the mistletoe-patterned mock turtlenecks – from great aunt Mildred, then they may have to run to the nearest market to purchase one for this party of holiday fashion faux pas.
Such sweaters usually cost less than 150 yuan, and the photos of the night will most definitely be priceless.
The Ugly Sweater Party tradition is popular among college students and never seems to get old. Anything from the early ’80s will probably work, as long as it’s hideous by today’s standards. Complete the look with acid or stone-washed jeans, white trainers and a terry headband or wristband.
Play cheesy Christmas music and make sure the eggnog is flowing
November 25, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Luo Jie
Cao Yilun has a special birthday gift for her best friend: a homemade eraser sculpture.
She went to a stationery store, bought several small knives and a large eraser. At home, she drew a small picture of one of the characters from the movie Lilo and Stitch and began cutting.
“Eraser sculpture is much easier than wood sculpture because the material is so soft. It doesn’t require such skill,” Cao said.
The hobby is becoming popular among young Chinese who are looking for personalized gifts on a budget. One Douban group with 2,000 members allows sculptors to post pictures of their work and share tips.
Some are turning it into a business.
Xiong Ping recently opened Baby Erason, a small studio by Gulou East Avenue where he teaches weekend classes in eraser sculpting.
For his demonstration, Xiong made a Winnie the Pooh rubber stamp. “The pattern will be inverted on the stamp, so the first step is using carbon paper to reverse the image,” Xiong says.
Because of the soft nature of erasers, getting smooth lines is a challenge, Xiong says. But within 20 minutes he had fashioned a Winnie the Pooh stamp.
“The people who are interested in this skill tend to be very creative. I have many clients, and they want these kinds of stamps to use on their New Year’s cards or to give to their friends as special gifts,” Xiong says.
No matter whether the erasers come out beautiful, they are unique. Many use them as seals to put their own personalized stamps on cards, but jeans and t-shirts.
A Chongqing netizen “TTYR” is selling many of her creations online. Most of the custom stamps and sculptures cost less than 60 yuan, and she sends three to five orders abroad each day.
Most of her stamps are animal themed; the most popular are bunnies, dogs, kittens, lizards and spiders. Each stamp is handmade and tested before shipping.
Websites for eraser hobbyists
1. Xiangpi Stamps
This one-stop website provides newcomers with a free tutorial video and textbooks. It also catalogs reliable places to purchase knives and erasers. For more devoted fans, it holds monthly exhibitions and courses for those who are interested in woodblock printing.
Website: douban.com/group/xiangpi
2. Life of Eraser Stamps
This is an online retailer and wholesaler for block erasers, knives, stamp frames and pigments. People with experience can find some of the best imported color erasers, pigments and design patterns there.
Website: diyrubberstamp.taobao.com
3. Lanbing Eraser
Providing free digital textbooks and videos of A-to-Z courses about eraser sculpturing, this site suites beginners and these with a carving background.
Website: douban.com/people/3038984
(By Chu Meng)
Baby Erason, a small studio of eraser sculpting/Photos by Luo Jie
By Luo Jie
Cao Yilun has a special birthday gift for her best friend: a homemade eraser sculpture.
She went to a stationery store, bought several small knives and a large eraser. At home, she drew a small picture of one of the characters from the movie Lilo and Stitch and began cutting.
“Eraser sculpture is much easier than wood sculpture because the material is so soft. It doesn’t require such skill,” Cao said.
The hobby is becoming popular among young Chinese who are looking for personalized gifts on a budget. One Douban group with 2,000 members allows sculptors to post pictures of their work and share tips.
Some are turning it into a business.
Xiong Ping recently opened Baby Erason, a small studio by Gulou East Avenue where he teaches weekend classes in eraser sculpting.
For his demonstration, Xiong made a Winnie the Pooh rubber stamp. “The pattern will be inverted on the stamp, so the first step is using carbon paper to reverse the image,” Xiong says.
Because of the soft nature of erasers, getting smooth lines is a challenge, Xiong says. But within 20 minutes he had fashioned a Winnie the Pooh stamp.
November 18, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Chu Meng
The curious results of tilt-shift photography are turning the art into a sensation among photography fans on popular image sharing sites like Flickr.
The form uses selective focus lenses to bend light and turn reality into a pseudo-miniature model.
In China, the art has found many fans on domestic microblogs.
“I like it because I can reduce the world around me to a LEGO-like creation with the press of a shutter,” said Li Guoqing, a co-founder of Toy Photo Studio, one of China’s top tilt-shift photography fan groups.
His studio, founded in 2010, is one of the Top 10 photography microblogs. Its work has attracted hundreds of local photographers, both professionals and camera fans, to have a try at their own tilt-shift art.
Technically speaking, “tilt-shift” refers only to the type of selective focus lenses artists use to create miniature photographs, not to the photographs themselves. Such unorthodox lenses are able to tilt away from the image plane and shift parallel to the image plane, adjusting focus and creating distortion.
Li Guoqing and Shi Xiao, both 27, got the idea to start their miniature photography club while studying at China Communication University.
The two were collectors of limited edition figurines, especially those by Japanese artist Murakami Takashi and comic book author Yoshitomo Nara. They also liked figurines by American toy designer Kathie Olivas and animator Gary Baseman.
“Most of their works are limited editions for private collection. Some are even auctioned by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong,” Li said.
After graduating, they began traveling and had the idea to pose and photograph some of their figurines in natural locations.
They took pictures of the toys by coastal reefs, on the Great Wall and at the side of the road among bustling traffic.
One year later, while sharing their photos online, they stumbled across the tilt-shift photography of Vincent Laforet and Ben Thomas.
“Their toy-like dream-world effects on real urban scenes were overwhelming. It wasn’t just that it was amusing – when life-size subjects and city scenes are shrunk into miniature, there is a sharp effect,” Li said.
The two began experimenting with the photographic technique, using their toy collection as a source of models.
“Good miniature effects are achieved by shooting from a high angle. It creates the illusion of looking down at a model. A camera with a tilt-shift lens is essential,” he said.
Both Nikon and Canon offer lenses capable of taking tilt-shift photos. For shooters with lots of patience and a limited budget, the LensBaby series of creative lenses are capable of creating tilt-shift effects on a variety of SLR cameras.
For those not willing to commit to a dedicated tilt-shift lens, similar effects can be achieved with Adobe Photoshop and several Apple Apps for the iPad and iPhone. Qbro and TiltShift Generator, both available for free in the App Store, are among the most popular.
Tilt-shift photography results in toy-like effects that reduce real urban scenes and subject to miniature.
Li Guoqing (right), a co-founder of Toy Photo Studio
A typical tilt-shift len
By Chu Meng
The curious results of tilt-shift photography are turning the art into a sensation among photography fans on popular image sharing sites like Flickr.
The form uses selective focus lenses to bend light and turn reality into a pseudo-miniature model.
In China, the art has found many fans on domestic microblogs.
“I like it because I can reduce the world around me to a LEGO-like creation with the press of a shutter,” said Li Guoqing, a co-founder of Toy Photo Studio, one of China’s top tilt-shift photography fan groups.
His studio, founded in 2010, is one of the Top 10 photography microblogs. Its work has attracted hundreds of local photographers, both professionals and camera fans, to have a try at their own tilt-shift art.
Technically speaking, “tilt-shift” refers only to the type of selective focus lenses artists use to create miniature photographs, not to the photographs themselves. Such unorthodox lenses are able to tilt away from the image plane and shift parallel to the image plane, adjusting focus and creating distortion.
November 11, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Chu Meng
If there is one group in Beijing that has intimate contact with the city’s foreign residents, it has to be housekeepers.
“Ayi” get a rare glimpse into foreign families’ distinctive cultural backgrounds, and at the same time, they bring to foreign families an authentic understanding of local blue-collar life and culture.
But fierce competition has elevated some ayi with special skills and remarkable personalities into what their foreign employers term “super ayi.”
Rather than cleaning house and doing laundry, some of them act as personal assistants and even interview their perspective employers. Others have outstanding artistic tastes and earn more than even their employers.
Milla Kariina’s ayi – a fashion stylist
Milla Kariina is a Finnish photographer who has run a studio in Ju’er Hutong for five years. She is often invited by local fashion magazines to shoot cover models.
This June, a group of models, stylists and makeup artists came to her studio.
While everybody was preparing for another shoot, a middle-aged woman who worked quietly by the dressing room told one the models, “Your clothes don’t match.”
“She showed up in a fitted purple suit, black silk stockings and heels. Everybody thought she was my fashion assistant,” said the Finnish photographer. “Actually, she is my ayi, and has been cleaning my studio for the last three years.”
De Jin, the 48-year-old housekeeper, used to work at the No. 5 Beijing Spinning Mill. When she was laid off, she started working part-time as a cleaner for a fashion magazine. Since then, she came to fall in love with all kinds of beautiful clothes and accessories, and started to study color theory.
“In order to have free accesses to fashion information, I only work in fashion-related places,” she said.
“I always read the fashion magazines that are scattered around my working environment. In my spare time, I shop a lot – usually window shopping. It’s how I stay up to date with what’s popular,” she said.
She also learned to seek out fashion bloggers’ photos and review all the runway shows from Beijing International Fashion Week on the Internet. Recently, she has been addicted to online shopping.
Kariina said that although her ayi has some fame in the fashion scene, she still works as a diligent cleaner. “She always arrives an hour early and does her best to provide everyone here with a clean work environment. She is easygoing and talkative. She told me she hopes to work as an ayi until she is 60. After that, she wants to open a clothing store.”
Amelia’s ayi – an irreplaceable business assistant
British engineer Amelia Heaton Renshaw quit her job and opened Amelia’s Jams, a homemade jams and chutneys delivery service in Shanghai. She just moved to Beijing to enlarge her sales territory last month. Her ayi, surnamed Long, came with her.
“Long has worked for me for one and a half years. I rely on her 100 percent for her jam-making skills, her Chinese and her cooking,” Renshaw said.
At the beginning, Long could only work two hours each day in Renshaw’s house because she had so many other foreign employers. At that time, Renshaw had just begun selling her homemade jams in a local street market.
As the business grew, Renshaw found she needed a full-time assistant. Long accepted the new job because she loved cooking. Soon after, she began training Long to help making jam.
“She started out with washing and peeling. To my surprise, she learned it fast. Soon, she could stew the fruit jams and subtly control the volume of water, sugar and fire by herself,” Renshaw said. “I still remember the first jar of jam she made. It was blueberry, a little sour and puckery.”
Though Renshaw’s Chinese is poor, the two communicate easily through eye expressions and gestures. Today her jams are sold at many supermarkets in Shanghai and will be soon in Beijing.
She said Long has become an irreplaceable part of her business. “She has taught me a lot about Chinese seasonings and food materials. I added some of those seasonings to my jam ingredients to create many unique flavors that are exclusive to Amelia’s.”
In Beijing, Long is working as a trainer for the company.
Megumi Otsuki’s ayi –a professional Sichuan cook with assistant
Megumi Otsuki, from Japan, is an assistant professor in the Journalism and Communications School of Peking University. Finding professors with assistants is easy – finding an ayi with an assistant is not.
Such an uncommon thing happened with Otsuki’s ayi, the 44-year-old Tang Shumei from Guangdong Province. She said Tang has been working as an ayi for 10 years in Guangzhou and Beijing and has cooked for her family for two years now. Her Cantonese cuisine cooking skills have an outstanding reputation, and she is popular with many foreigners in Beijing.
“My husband and my two children can’t eat unless she cooks. Japanese food emphasizes fresh seafood materials and light seasoning, which is similar to Cantonese food. Tang cooks so well that we eat whatever she offers us for supper,” Otsuki said.
But soon, she discovered that Tang has her own assistant. Because she cooks for four to five families each day, Tang’s assistant arrives two hours early to handle the cleaning and laundry.
When Tang arrives, she checks on her assistant’s work, then handles the more demanding tasks like dusting artwork and ironing. Then she does the shopping and cooks in the kitchen.
“She also keeps reading professional Cantonese cookbooks. She even adjusted some of the Cantonese dishes according to Japanese cooking techniques,” Otsuki said.
By Chu Meng
If there is one group in Beijing that has intimate contact with the city’s foreign residents, it has to be housekeepers.
“Ayi” get a rare glimpse into foreign families’ distinctive cultural backgrounds, and at the same time, they bring to foreign families an authentic understanding of local blue-collar life and culture.
But fierce competition has elevated some ayi with special skills and remarkable personalities into what their foreign employers term “super ayi.”
Rather than cleaning house and doing laundry, some of them act as personal assistants and even interview their perspective employers. Others have outstanding artistic tastes and earn more than even their employers.
De Jin, a fashion expert, reads with her employer's son.
Milla Kariina’s ayi – a fashion stylist
Milla Kariina is a Finnish photographer who has run a studio in Ju’er Hutong for five years. She is often invited by local fashion magazines to shoot cover models.
This June, a group of models, stylists and makeup artists came to her studio.
While everybody was preparing for another shoot, a middle-aged woman who worked quietly by the dressing room told one the models, “Your clothes don’t match.”
“She showed up in a fitted purple suit, black silk stockings and heels. Everybody thought she was my fashion assistant,” said the Finnish photographer. “Actually, she is my ayi, and has been cleaning my studio for the last three years.”
De Jin, the 48-year-old housekeeper, used to work at the No. 5 Beijing Spinning Mill. When she was laid off, she started working part-time as a cleaner for a fashion magazine. Since then, she came to fall in love with all kinds of beautiful clothes and accessories, and started to study color theory.
“In order to have free accesses to fashion information, I only work in fashion-related places,” she said.
“I always read the fashion magazines that are scattered around my working environment. In my spare time, I shop a lot – usually window shopping. It’s how I stay up to date with what’s popular,” she said.
She also learned to seek out fashion bloggers’ photos and review all the runway shows from Beijing International Fashion Week on the Internet. Recently, she has been addicted to online shopping.
Kariina said that although her ayi has some fame in the fashion scene, she still works as a diligent cleaner. “She always arrives an hour early and does her best to provide everyone here with a clean work environment. She is easygoing and talkative. She told me she hopes to work as an ayi until she is 60. After that, she wants to open a clothing store.”
By Chu Meng
Fans of steampunk culture believe that imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited to what has been known, while imagination embraces potential.
Steampunk began as a sub-genre of science fiction and came to prominence during the late 1980s in Britain. It sets science fiction tales against a background of Victorian Era steam power.
Today, steampunk has grown into its own subculture with related literature, films, comics and animation. Most blend elements of science fiction and fantasy with anachronistic technologies seen through a Victorian perspective.
The 31-year-old independent toy designer Wang Xinlei is one of China’s few steampunk superstars.
His two-year-old 909 Toy Studio has been working hard to re-introduce China to the imaginative potential of early machinery through the new toy series “Eggcore Rabbit.”
Every Eggcore Rabbit is 10 centimeters tall. Unlike the traditional cute animals, it is half abstract, half war machine. The two halves of the rabbit generate an intense visual contrast.
“That’s the beauty of it. It is a contrasting and unconventional design,” Wang said. “The robot side consists of 150 parts collected from abandoned machinery. We try to make each figure as detailed as possible.”
Last week in T-space Yah Gallery in Beijing, 909 Toy Studio held its first “Heavy Party” exhibition of 50 works from the Eggcore series, 22 of which were designed by guest steampunk artists like Erick Scarecrow from the US and Michihiro Matsuoka from Japan. For many viewers, it was a first glimpse of the essence of steampunk.
Wang described himself as a bad child born with a gift for comic illustration. Inspired by the Transformers cartoon that aired during his elementary school years, he began creating his own steampunk figures.
“I usually got lost in my own world. What teachers said was nonsense to me,” he said.
With poor scores, Wang ended up attending a low-ranking middle school. The poor study environment gave him more time to focus on his designs. Two years before university, he began to work as a part-time graphic designer at an advertising company.
“I felt rich,” he said. “I usually gave some of my money back to my parents to support the family’s daily expenses.”
At university, he dreamed of emulating the success of famous drop-outs like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. He quit school after one and a half years as an animation student.
“What they taught from textbooks was boring and useless to me, and it wouldn’t help improve my life at all. Besides, I already had a part-time design job with a good salary,” he said.
Wang rejects society’s restrictions on work and aesthetic tastes. His most hated criticism has been people who declare his work is “not right” or “not beautiful” in a traditional sense.
In 2003, he left Beijing and moved to Shanghai to open his own graphic and comic design company.
“Beauty is something I identify on my own,” he said. In 2005, steampunk found renewed popularity in the US and Europe. The fantastic
machines, sophisticated structures and subtly connected parts provided him endless inspiration.
“Those designs were imaginative and limitless. I could create anything based upon one prototype,” he said.
In the same year, he and two other modelers started to create the first Eggcore Rabbit. The draft design began from paper sketches and later began being assembled from a variety of materials.
The first prototype was finally manufactured from a toy factory in Guangdong Province on September 9, 2009. It costs 909 yuan. The coincidence inspired Wang to name the new studio 909 Toy.
It was another two years before he found a way to reduce the material cost enough to put Eggcore Rabbit into mass production. Even a Hong Kong toy company said the figures were too complex to manufacture.
A factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, suggested using vinyl and wood for the rabbit’s side and black cast iron for the robot side.
The first products were released in June. “I can’t exactly remember how much energy and money we devoted to this toy. It is small even though 156 parts come together to shape its robot side,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine how complicated and delicate it is from first glance.”
As the sale date drew near, Wang invited 15 international steampunk artists like Erick Scarecrow from the US and Michihiro Matsuoka from Japan to redesign Eggcore Rabbit. He mailed out the black-and-white prototype as a reference.
“We were surprised to get back 22 works! The first, by Japanese designer Mickihiro Matsuoka, arrived within one month. But the one by Erick Scarecrow from the US has been the most popular.”
“When my assistant asked me to look at a new toy from a young Chinese steampunk toy studio, I had no idea Eggcore Rabbit would bring out my inner fanboy,” Matsuoka said. “It has crazy detail, but manages to retain a designer’s aesthetic.”
Wang sees himself only as the first among Chinese steampunk designers: not a pioneer. He said Chinese steampunk designers are far less experienced than international designers, but they do have access to better manufacturers.
“Many end consumers have yet to realize the value of designers’ toys, especially handmade ones, which cost 10 or 100 times more than common vendor products,” he said.
No wonder Wang’s Eggcore Rabbit series is indeed expensive, which are sold from 1,200 yuan to 2,680. The price of three special edition sets coming in next week will be more than 3,500 yuan, including a package box designed by the studio.
By Chu Meng
Fans of steampunk culture believe that imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited to what has been known, while imagination embraces potential.
Steampunk began as a sub-genre of science fiction and came to prominence during the late 1980s in Britain. It sets science fiction tales against a background of Victorian Era steam power.
Today, steampunk has grown into its own subculture with related literature, films, comics and animation. Most blend elements of science fiction and fantasy with anachronistic technologies seen through a Victorian perspective.
Wang Xinlei (right) and his toy studio/Photos provided by Wang Xinlei
The 31-year-old independent toy designer Wang Xinlei is one of China’s few steampunk superstars.
His two-year-old 909 Toy Studio has been working hard to re-introduce China to the imaginative potential of early machinery through the new toy series “Eggcore Rabbit.”
Every Eggcore Rabbit is 10 centimeters tall. Unlike the traditional cute animals, it is half abstract, half war machine. The two halves of the rabbit generate an intense visual contrast.
“That’s the beauty of it. It is a contrasting and unconventional design,” Wang said. “The robot side consists of 150 parts collected from abandoned machinery. We try to make each figure as detailed as possible.”
October 28, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Chu Meng
It is common for female models on the catwalk to be required to wear masculine womenswear. Occasionally, they are even called on to model men’s collections. Many designers and fashion extremists say women look sexier and more enticing playing an opposite role.
What happened in Milan and Paris this August, however, was a first, and now it’s spreading to Beijing.
Thin male models with blemish-free faces modeled women’s clothing. The appearance of overtly feminine male models caused a commotion in almost every fashion circle overnight. Many say their androgynous appearance is attractive to both sexes.
Andrej Pejic is 188 centimeters tall. He has cascading blond hair, dewy skin, moody gray-blue eyes, full lips and a thin frame that is free of hips or breasts. He appears in the latest fashion photos in Grazia Magazine, which previously covered the Paris International Fashion Week.
In the photos, themed “Marilyn Monroe,” his hair is curled and he wears red lipstick and drawn-on beauty marks. His poses half-naked.
What clothing he does wear is provocative womenswear, such as miniskirt and fishnet stockings.
“People can hardly tell he is a boy or a girl without reading the captions. However, he looks beautiful and emits an air of elegance,” said Hou Saifu, a fashion buyer.
With a pale and narrow face and gaunt frame, Pejic is a professional model. He strolls the catwalks with the confidence of experience and performs the abstract gestures and facial expressions needed to accentuate the designs.
“He is virtually indistinguishable from female supermodels who work the international fashion stage,” said Yang Guanhua, a Chinese fashion designer with experience at runways both foreign and domestic.
There are few male models specializing in modeling womenswear. But in an industry long-obsessed with gender ambiguity, their faces are in high demand.
Fashion’s taste in male models goes through cycles. More masculine models like David Gandy, Tyson Beckford and Paul Sculfor have been perennial favorites. But there is also increasing demand for androgynous models who can cultivate the curiosity of increasingly hard-to-satisfy fashion fans, wrote Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue.
Among them, Pejic is the leader.
He was born in 1991 in Bosnia and grew up in Australia as a political refugee with his mother. He was discovered by a modeling agent while working in a McDonald’s when he was 17, unsure whether or not the agent realized “she” was in fact a “he.” In interviews, he claims to have experimented with having a feminine look since the age of 14.
This year, he was hired by Jean Paul Gaultier for the 2011 spring and summer runways shows in January.
“Pejic captivated the audience during Jean Paul Gaultier’s Paris show, dazzling the runway by modeling a series of wedding dresses. I remember I was shocked to learn the bride wasn’t a woman at all. His effeminate look has been praised as brave and convincing by French fashion critics,” said Tong Ying, the Chinese creative director of local menswear brand E-World.
Inspired by Pejic, Tong hired two effeminate male models for his 2012 Spring and Summer womenswear show in Hangzhou this September.
“The appreciation of beauty should be based on gut instincts that occur for only a moment. Besides, males and females should be given equal rights to choose how they present themselves,” he said.
Since the Gaultier show, Pejic has appeared on a number of fashion magazines like Vogue and Grazia and on catwalks modeling for Chanel and Alexander McQueen, which offered him an incredible amount of money.
In May, he was the cover model for the New York-based Dossier Journal. Many readers mistook the image of him shirtless with his blond hair in curlers for a topless woman.
In September, he was ranked 18th on Models.com’s “Top 50 Male Models” and 98th in FHM’s “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2011.”
The past decade has seen clothing gravitating toward the extreme, with more being cut for the tall and curveless bodies that most women, even models, don’t have. It has left many women with an even more distorted concept of human beauty.
Pejic told Grazia in an interview that he has forced himself to live on the edge of starvation for most of his life to avoid developing a more masculine figure during puberty.
“Ironically, the clothes appear suitable for unusually lean men or even young boys. The androgynous male model might be a reflection of the times,” Tong said.
“It’s not limited to fashion circles. People are becoming more accepting of transgender personalities, gay marriages and gay adoption. So it’s natural for a transgender person appearing on a catwalk modeling womenswear.”
Yang Zijiang, a graduate from Havard Business School, said his success is not just due to his beauty. It may have much to do with marketing and changing concepts in the creative industry eager for someone with Pejic’s unusual look.
“When I went to the agency for the first time, I had no idea what modeling would be like. I assumed it would be better than a part-time job at McDonald’s,” Pejic said.
The new career has given him a chance to don the beautiful clothes he has loved since childhood. “And to be more philosophical about it, we are growing as a people and as races and as cultures, it’s OK to not care what your gender is as long as you look great in clothes and feel great about yourself,” he said.
By Chu Meng
It is common for female models on the catwalk to be required to wear masculine womenswear. Occasionally, they are even called on to model men’s collections. Many designers and fashion extremists say women look sexier and more enticing playing an opposite role.
What happened in Milan and Paris this August, however, was a first, and now it’s spreading to Beijing.
Thin male models with blemish-free faces modeled women’s clothing. The appearance of overtly feminine male models caused a commotion in almost every fashion circle overnight. Many say their androgynous appearance is attractive to both sexes.
Photo from Andrej Pejic's latest fashion shoot
Andrej Pejic is 188 centimeters tall. He has cascading blond hair, dewy skin, moody gray-blue eyes, full lips and a thin frame that is free of hips or breasts. He appears in the latest fashion photos in Grazia Magazine, which previously covered the Paris International Fashion Week.
In the photos, themed “Marilyn Monroe,” his hair is curled and he wears red lipstick and drawn-on beauty marks. His poses half-naked.
What clothing he does wear is provocative womenswear, such as miniskirt and fishnet stockings.
“People can hardly tell he is a boy or a girl without reading the captions. However, he looks beautiful and emits an air of elegance,” said Hou Saifu, a fashion buyer.
With a pale and narrow face and gaunt frame, Pejic is a professional model. He strolls the catwalks with the confidence of experience and performs the abstract gestures and facial expressions needed to accentuate the designs.
“He is virtually indistinguishable from female supermodels who work the international fashion stage,” said Yang Guanhua, a Chinese fashion designer with experience at runways both foreign and domestic.
October 21, 2011 Filed under Trend
By Chu Meng
Perfume designers are the super noses of the fashion world.
Like a composer carefully positioning notes on a page to create a symphony, perfume designers carefully arrange a bouquet of scents to inspire the imagination.
All are born with superhuman smell, able to sense even the slightest variation among the thousands of scents found in nature and memorize and use them like precision instruments. They create the commercial fragrances that set trends.
For many years, the bulk of all perfumes have come from Europe – especially France and Italy. But the booming luxury market has made it possible for a few Chinese fashion fans to turn their gifts of smell into a career.
In Europe, fragrance has long been used by all ranks of society as a symbol of passion and sensuality. However, in China, fragrance was only used by nobility and during religious services.
Many people point to Cleopatra of Egypt as the creator of modern perfume. The queen used alcohol to extract herbal essences for later blending. Her use of the aromatic water on her clothing and boats left a deep impression on Rome after her visits.
Even today, most perfumes are still created from raw essence blended with alcohol and distilled water. The variety comes from the blend.
“There are more than 3,000 essences collected from nature,” said Ricky Zhao, one of China’s first modern perfume designers.
Zhao is a trainer working for Hermés’ perfume division in Beijing. “In order to create new products, a perfume designer has to memorize every scent and know how to make them interact.”
Zhao said a perfume designer is an expert at creating perfume compositions. Becoming an expert means mastering olfactory art and understanding the abstract concepts and moods conveyed by each composition of scents.
The world today has about 100 perfume designers, only six of whom have exclusive contracts with brands such as Chanel, Dior, Guerlain and Hermes.
Born in a village in Jiangsu Province in 1979, Zhao spent his childhood moving from one place to another with his family because of poverty. His family settled on the outskirts of Shenzhen when he was 18, and he found a part-time job assisting a fragrance extraction institute.
He soon found that certain aromas could improve his mood, and he began studying the essences and how they affected human emotions.
In 2006, he landed the chance to study at the Institute of Superior International Perfume in Versailles in France from one year. That experience led to his current position at Hermes.
At the most introductory level, a perfume designer must have a keen knowledge of a large variety of fragrance ingredients and their smells, and be able to distinguish each when it is presented in combination with other fragrances.
At the medium level, experts must know how each ingredient reveals itself through time and body temperature., and how mixed ingredients can influence each other or be influenced by environmental changes.
“The job of a senior level perfume designer, a ‘super nose,’ is very similar to that of a composer,” he said. “The super nose mixes scents in imaginative ways for commercial production. It requires a sharp insight into current fashion trends.”
In order to collect inspiration, most perfume designers spend 300 days traveling the world to experience remote or exotic life. “Like a poet, you have nothing to write about if you only stay home,” he said.
In 2008, when Indian style was identified as the new trend by Hermes perfume division, Zhao was called on as the only Asian scent designer to create its “Indian Garden” perfume series.
He flew to India and spent two months traveling the country to listen to folk songs, study handicrafts and visit the aromatherapy masters at bazaars, workshops and temples.
“Each time I found an ideal essence, that was when the difficult part of my job came. I would have to purchase a large volume of the product, and try to learn which plants and herbs the essence was made from,” he said.
The job becomes even more complicated when the selected essence turns out to be a mixture of several raw materials. He then has to identify each element and the percentage that is present.
For this task, he works with chemical analysts to test different raw materials for their components and possible toxic effects on the human body. “If it turns out to be safe, we purchase either the essence products or herbs from India and bring them back to the Beijing lab for more serious work,” he said.
Back in the office, Zhao spends two months creating at least five fragrences with slight distinctions. A senior perfume evaluator selects the final samples according to their popularity and acceptability in target markets.
The final decision-maker is the division director. When a design is approved, the production crew begins work on the perfume’s color, its bottle and its packaging.
It is often said that olfactory memories formed duing childhood are among the strongest. Zhao grew up in a poor family, and the flowers, grass and trees of the surrounding fields substituted for toys. His sense of smell was always very accurate, and he had a gift for remembering scents.
And as a child, he often went to the market with his mother to shop for food.
“We didn’t have refrigeration, so my mom would ask me to taste sauces, flavors, salted vegetables, nuts and fruits to determine their freshness. If I made a face, she knew that the food would spoil within a day and she would pass it up,” he said.
When he began to work in the lab, he had no experience in perfume creation. “My impression was that you collected flowers and leaves, put them in alcohol and then you mixed them. I learned all the steps only while experimenting and studying,” he said.
Modern perfumes are increasingly complicated, and many designs overlap, he said. A successful and timeless perfume design should be comparatively simple.
By Chu Meng
Perfume designers are the super noses of the fashion world.
Like a composer carefully positioning notes on a page to create a symphony, perfume designers carefully arrange a bouquet of scents to inspire the imagination.
All are born with superhuman smell, able to sense even the slightest variation among the thousands of scents found in nature and memorize and use them like precision instruments. They create the commercial fragrances that set trends.
For many years, the bulk of all perfumes have come from Europe – especially France and Italy. But the booming luxury market has made it possible for a few Chinese fashion fans to turn their gifts of smell into a career.
A mockup of a perfume designer
In Europe, fragrance has long been used by all ranks of society as a symbol of passion and sensuality. However, in China, fragrance was only used by nobility and during religious services.
Many people point to Cleopatra of Egypt as the creator of modern perfume. The queen used alcohol to extract herbal essences for later blending. Her use of the aromatic water on her clothing and boats left a deep impression on Rome after her visits.
Even today, most perfumes are still created from raw essence blended with alcohol and distilled water. The variety comes from the blend.
“There are more than 3,000 essences collected from nature,” said Ricky Zhao, one of China’s first modern perfume designers.
Zhao is a trainer working for Hermés’ perfume division in Beijing. “In order to create new products, a perfume designer has to memorize every scent and know how to make them interact.”
