Success and the price of going for the CHINESE TOUCH

However, cultural renaissance comes at a price－or, to be more precise, rising prices. Not long ago, one of China's down jacket brands, Bosideng, was listed on Weibo's hot search, attracting comments such as "guochao is now way out of our league", one of its down jackets costing more than 10,000 yuan.

At the same time, the prices of domestic digital products have continued to shoot up. Between 2018 and 2019, the price of most domestic flagship mobile phones was about 3,000 yuan. However, starting in 2020 more than a few such phones cost 4,000 yuan, and those costing 7,000 yuan are now by no means rare.

Not all shoppers are perplexed by the rising prices. Li Na, 22, a graduate student in Beijing, expressed understanding and acceptance of the increasingly expensive domestic brands: "As long as the design, quality and functionality reach the standard of international brands, I don't get the fuss about these price rises. Just as many people buy luxury goods, you can't just focus on the cost. After all, they're flagship models."

The rise of China chic started with Li-Ning, a sports brand that became a hit at New York Fashion Week in early 2018 under the moniker "China Li-Ning& China". Less than a minute after the show started, one of the jackets in the show with the brand name written in Chinese characters on it was sold out online. More sports brands cottoned on to the idea, and the guochao concept took off.

However, not all the more expensive China chic is really "value for money". In Li's view, some brands simply set a high price by adding Chinese character logos to their clothes or other products, and people like Li find these pseudo China Chic items a degradation of Chinese culture.