Nothing beats bargaining in a Beijing clothes market. As an American student, it’s a completely novel experience, a great way to practice your Chinese, and gives you the feeling of discovering the real Beijing. The atmosphere is so different from shopping experiences in the United States. It seems here that it must be authentic consumer culture in China to pick through fake Coach bags and imitation D&G zip-ups before wrangling with the shopkeeper over a few kuai.
　　At least that’s what I thought last summer, when I spent my vacation studying Chinese in Beijing. Every weekend, freed from the burden of daily character quizzes, my American classmates and I put our studies to good use at the Hongqiao and Silk markets. We bargained hard and we felt very local. A fake Gucci bag and a pair of peep-toe sandals that I got for 40 yuan signaled my successful mastery of the Chinese shopping culture. I wore them as badges of my Chinese-ness.
　　But part of me always felt a little uneasy, a little suspicious that there were better goods available, and perhaps a little worried that there weren’t. Was China’s only unique contribution to the global luxury market, and to high fashion in particular, really just a bunch of poor imitations? The exhibits at the Forbidden City and the National Museum boasted of a rich history of Chinese luxury―furs traded over the Silk Road, jade carved into inhumanly detailed pendants, and embroidered brocade behind thick panes of exhibition glass. I tried finding modern Chinese luxuries at the shopping center in the China World Trade Center once, but the products behind those panes of glass were all Western brands.
　　When I got back to school and found the faux leather of my peep-toes peeling apart, and the floral pattern on my fake Gucci bag wearing off, I finally decided that if I wanted to go back to China, I’d have to find out if there were any legitimate Chinese luxury goods. You can’t very well consider yourself an expat and acquire only products “Made in China,” and none “Designed in China.”
　　Like any good Yale student, I turned to Google. And I found my answer on the NE.TIGER website.
　　NE.TIGER is a fashion label founded and funded here in China, born on Chinese soil just like the Northeastern or Siberian Tiger after which it is named. And like the Siberian Tiger, it is fiercely beautiful. The website boasted photographs of luxurious silk gowns, shockingly colorful fur shrugs, jewelry, handbags and sparkly shoes. In short, the website boasted the promise that China did indeed have its very own high-fashion scene. I decided emphatically that NE.TIGER was the place to be for the freshest fashion in the Far East.
　　And thanks to the Bulldogs in Beijing internship program administered by Yale, which is just where I am, this summer I am lucky enough to be working at NE.TIGER’s Beijing and Shanghai branch offices. Sitting at my desk high in one of Oriental Plaza’s office towers, I’m finding it hard to believe that I could have missed out on so much last summer.
　　
　　Homegrown haute couture in China is turning out to be far from an industry of imitation. NE.TIGER uses traditional materials and techniques―fur, silk and embroidery―but employs their own, modernistic flair in each design. The company is best known for its fine mink pelts, tailored into unusual shrugs and sexy, off-the-shoulder shawls. NE.TIGER also designs eveningwear and wedding gowns, and every silk dress has hand detailing―be it beads or rhinestones or a ruffled flounce.
　　It’s strange now thinking back to how just a year ago I stuffed my suitcase full of fake labels, cheap trinkets of fashion gone awry. I think now instead I’ll save up for that NE.TIGER lamp black, open-backed floral dress worn with a pair of fur-embellished strappy sandals. Or maybe that slinky, multicolored silk dress secured in a gather at the front by a gemstone band and layered with a sheer animal print. Such colors and cuts are rare and exquisite; they are fit for my art history textbooks back at Yale.
　　Being included in NE.TIGER’s exclusive events is indeed a little like living in an art film or a cinematic music video. On June 12, the company took me backstage at the launch of the Asian Fashion Federation, and as I helped a model zip up her dress, the low synthesized notes of a sound and light show could be heard preparing the audience for NE.TIGER’s appearance. I realized then that what NE.TIGER offers is not just top Chinese fashion, but also an entire lifestyle―one of modernity, indulgence and dreamlike elegance.
　　Of course, it’s not exactly a lifestyle that all Beijingers can afford quite yet, but this is a city in transition and we may just be getting a preview of a new kind of Beijing life. Next time an American friend comes to visit and it falls to me to show her the “real Beijing,” I don’t think I’ll take her to Hongqiao.

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