Word: xiamen
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...TENTS AT NEW YORK Fashion Week this month, many of the spring 2007 shows will include clothes destined to be manufactured in China. It's a safe bet, though, that only one of the clothing lines will have been entirely conceived and designed in the southern Chinese city of Xiamen. That distinction belongs to Ports 1961, a newcomer to the U.S. fashion scene, whose origins redefine words like globalization and Made in China...
...company called Ports International. The company had its heyday in the '70s and early '80s when its clothes were carried by stores like Bergdorf Goodman. But by 1989 the brand had lost some of its stature and was purchased by Alfred Chan, a Canadian entrepreneur who was born near Xiamen and raised in Hong Kong. Chan married Fiona and made the unlikely decision to move the company's operations to Xiamen and relaunch the brand to cater exclusively to the then tiny population of mainland Chinese women with the means to afford luxury clothing...
...find a design team willing to stick it out in a steamy, crowded Chinese city where the foreign population numbered in the dozens and not many locals spoke English. By 1994 he had worked with a few designers, and he persuaded his wife and her younger sister to give Xiamen a six-month try. "The deal," says Fiona, "was, if we didn't like it, we'd move home." Tia, who had been attending classes at Parsons School of Design in New York City, agreed to tag along. She left behind her friends and a boyfriend, "who said...
Stepping into their atelier at the Ports headquarters in Xiamen feels like transcontinental travel. Outside, hawkers are selling bowls of noodles in front of a ramshackle warren of storefronts. The air is sweltering, and amid a sea of Chinese faces, not a single foreigner appears. Inside, the sisters work with some 35 foreign designers, dressed as if ready for a night out in New York City. Fiona, in a blousy navy silk jacket and sky-high heels, balances an Hermès Birkin in the crook of her arm as she makes adjustments on samples of raincoats. Tia, in a silvery...
...Xiamen has rediscovered its cosmopolitan roots. The city has a tradition of international trade that dates back centuries. More recently, companies like Kodak and Dell have set up shop. Fiona can send her kids to an international school, and the sisters dine out at a French restaurant where the chef is Israeli...