U.S. retailers tailor fashions to Asian tastes

Published: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 6:19 AM

SHANGHAI -- The jeans are stiletto-thin -- you won't find baggy pants on these racks -- and the customers squeezing into them are looking for denim that makes a bold statement.

"She looks like she has attitude," said Mike Dai, eyeing his girlfriend, Amy He, after she wiggled into a narrow pair of Levi's on a September afternoon in a high-end mall.

The brand is all-American but the San Francisco-based jeans-maker is offering up clothes that are all-Asian -- pants designed in Hong Kong with an edgy, worn-and-torn finish that can sell for as much as $149 a pair.

As the American market continues to sputter, and China's continues to boom, U.S. retailers are updating business plans to include the world's second-largest economy as well as the rest of growing Asia. Just as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Apple have erected temples of capitalism in cities like Shanghai and Beijing, Western apparel makers are infusing their clothing lines with Asian sensibilities in look, feel and size while embarking on aggressive store campaigns in this part of the world.

More: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/11/us_retailers_tailor_fashions_t.html

The US consumer is a thing of the past.

loved the fashion - even old gals like me were decked out in the coolest clothes and pink hair for the daring.

They wear socks with their high heals, but these socks are not just any socks, they rock.

I'm small, but my Latin bum would never fit into any Asian jeans.

The brand is all-American but the San Francisco-based jeans-maker is offering up clothes that are all-Asian -- pants designed in Hong Kong with an edgy, worn-and-torn finish that can sell for as much as $149 a pair.

"San Francisco-based" makes it sound as if Levi's actually manufactures its jeans in the US. That stopped about ten years ago. The jeans are made in China and Mexico now. The only reason they maintain an office in the US at all is because they get to pay no taxes that way.

They can get more pairs of jeans with stiletto-thin legs than they can with baggy legs.

The walking Tinker-Toy look is a major turn off with me. I like a shape and some padding on my women. You know, healthy looking, not starved.

As the consumer has less buying power the economy shrinks and unemployment grows. Either the wealth gets redistributed or insurrection will be the order of the day.