Dutchman gets fur ahead of competition

Dutch designer Markus Boer tailors a fur coat. He and his wife started an upscale tailored brand in Beijing, specializing in menswear and furs for women.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Dutch designer Markus Boer, 30, had never worked with fur before he met his Chinese wife, Qiqi Tang.

The two first bumped into each other at a fashion party five years ago and soon fell in love. Boer's expertise as a trained menswear tailor, combined with Tang's business skills as a fashion merchandiser, has made Boer's one of the few upscale made-to-measure brands in Beijing. It specializes in menswear and furs for women.

Trained in Italian style menswear, Boer was a part-time tailor in the Netherlands while studying marketing in Hogeschool Utrecht, or the University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht.

He moved to Beijing six years ago and went into tailoring full-time, offering a made-to-measure service to the city's lawyers and corporate executives.

"I found it very odd then that there was nothing in the middle. It was either super low price with bad quality or high-end overpriced brands," says Boer.

At the same time, Tang, who liked fur, was finding it hard to find things that were both fashionable and affordable.