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Tibetan fashion hits the Beijing runway
 by Staff Writers
 Beijing (AFP) March 30, 2017


Stylish dogs rule the catwalks of Shanghai's streets
Shanghai (AFP) March 30, 2017 - Poodles in pink dresses, Pekinese wearing blouses, a Pomeranian in sneakers and a raincoat -- Shanghai's sidewalks can sometimes seem like fashion catwalks gone to the dogs.

Chinese adore their pet canines, often dressing them up in eye-catching outfits, and nowhere are such furry fashionistas more conspicuous than in China's commercial hub.

"Pet owners like to dress up their pets, the way they would their own children," said a woman surnamed Huang as she walked her two fluffy brown poodles, one with a pink bowtie and the other wearing a blue one, through a central Shanghai neighbourhood.

Or rather they walked her -- riding in a baby stroller as Huang pushed.

It's big business too.

At least 40 percent of pet merchants in China sell pet clothing, according to Yourpet Market Research Institute, which studies the country's huge pet industry.

The industry overall generates sales of around $17 billion per year and is expected to grow by 20 percent annually, it said in a report last year.

"Millennials are becoming the main customers with their consumer power growing," it said.

Zhang Jiequn, a psychologist at Shanghai's Huada Institute of Applied Psychology, said that for many Chinese, pet ownership "is a kind of escape from interpersonal relationships."

"The pet becomes a projection of the opposite sex for some people who do not find a partner," she told AFP.

Dog ownership rates have grown along with China's fast-expanding middle class.

A 2015 survey cited by the state-run China Daily said there were at least 100 million registered pets in China, with dogs making up the vast majority, and that pet ownership was growing by 10 percent annually.

Shanghai -- which has 24 million people -- also has an estimated pet dog population of up to one million.

The high rate of dog ownership prompted the city in 2011 to impose a "one-dog policy" -- limiting owners to a single canine -- to curb noisy barking, waste on sidewalks and dog attacks.

Face painted yellow and white with long braids draping her shoulders, a model in voluminous grey robes walks down the runway -- an image of Tibetan grace in the heart of China's political power.

It was the first appearance of an ethnic Tibetan designer's creation at Beijing's twice yearly fashion week, now in its 20th year.

Aj-Namo, who hails from a predominantly Tibetan area in the southwestern province of Sichuan, first made her name as a singer, but has since branched out into clothing.

Today she is known for her eponymous AJ-NAMO brand and is based in Beijing.

At the show, not far from Beijing's vast Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square, the centre of the universe in Chinese politics, a stream of Tibetan and Han Chinese models paraded colourful outfits inspired by Tibetan attire but altered to suit contemporary tastes.

It was a moving moment for Aj-Namo, whose face trembled with emotion as she took her bow and audience members expressed their approval by jumping on the catwalk to wrap traditional Tibetan scarves around her neck.

"Tibetans have many talented designers, but there's no platform to promote them," Aj-Namo told AFP Thursday after her debut.

China has 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, but the vast majority of the country's more than 1.3 billion people are Han.

Tibetans number roughly 6.3 million, with most living in China's western half -- the autonomous region of Tibet, as well as the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Many ethnic minorities live in relatively poor areas, where limited education, language barriers and a heavily agricultural economy provide scant opportunities for young people to pursue a career on the national stage.

"I hope that thanks to this experience, more ethnic minorities, more Tibetans -- especially models -- will be inspired to put themselves out there," Aj-Namo said.

Expressions of Tibetan ethnic pride can be fraught in China. Beijing says its troops "peacefully liberated" the region in 1951, but many Tibetans accuse the central government of religious repression and eroding their culture.

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has been exiled in India since 1959, has accused the Chinese government of committing "cultural genocide" against the Tibetan people.

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