Young metropolitans redefine "fashionable"

Results of a recent survey showed that Shanghai has overtaken Hong Kong in the ranking of fashionable cities. This has predictably caused a stir among the fashionable crowds in Hong Kong's hip neighborhoods where young professionals in finance and property gather in the evenings to talk shop over a drink or two.

Never mind who did the survey. It reportedly based the ranking, at least in part, on counting the number of times the words Gucci, Prada or other named brands were mentioned on the Internet.

Details of its methodology are of little interest. But the basis of the ranking has touched on a social trend that is shifting fast among the better-educated young professionals in Shanghai and some other major mainland cities.

The newly-won accolade that infers an obsession with luxury goods is not necessary something many young people in Shanghai would want to wear with pride. Indeed, an antipathy toward luxury brands has been brewing for sometime in the mainland's most cosmopolitan city.

There, luxury brands, mainly from Europe, are becoming increasingly associated with "tuhao" a derogatory term that applies to people with more money than manners and style. The term has gained popularity since Apple introduced a gold-tinted iPhone 5S to the mainland market last year. That particular device is commonly referred to as "tuhao gold".

To be sure, Gucci bags or Prada belts, the genuine articles, of course, are still coveted by many rich wives as well as office ladies. But there is a growing crowd of young women who prefer simple dresses they can buy on Taobao by the dozens at a fraction of the cost of a single brand-named handbag.

No, you won't see many of them in Xintiandi, or any other high-end entertainment district, where a lunch cost an average of about 200 yuan ($32.68). That amount, by the way, can buy you a pretty dress from any one of the vendors listed on Taobao with enough change to treat yourself to a cup of coffee at Starbucks.