Small Chinese brands gain big names overseas

3. Warrior sports shoes

The 89-year-old Shanghai shoe brand Warrior, also known as Huili in Chinese, became fashionable in Europe after Hollywood star Orlando Bloom wore a pair of sneakers on the set of a movie that looked exactly like the classic style of Warrior, the canvas shoes with rubber soles and toecaps that Chinese born from the 1960s to the 1980s were proud to own a pair of in their childhoods. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the shoes were among the top brands that tourists snapped up as souvenirs. Export sales more than doubled in two years from 4 million yuan ($608,000) in 2009.