- Serge Pierrard, one of the founders of Travel-Stone, a China-based travel agency specialised in travels in Asia.
- Jenny, Madeline and Emmanuelle run the Hong Kong French bookstore Parentheses.
- Elise de Saint Guilhem, luxury linen maker Rouge Baiser owner.
- Virginie Fournier, Shanghai Trio owner and main designer. Shanghai Trio is also one of Nicely Made in China’s new partners.
- Mr Kele Ma photographed in his museum in Tianjin, in front of chairs from Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
- Katrin Reinfurt, the fashion designer behind the brand MPMP wearing the magnetic landscape scarf made out of exclusive silk.
- Hélène Meunier, the creator of the Shanghai-based fashion brand Meuh!
- Zhao Lei’s simple design – cf. his coat hanger in the background – appeals to the Chinese public, particularly the young and urban generation.
- Christine Richard, Hong Kong-based founder of Nookha, the design bamboo furniture.
- Fashion designer Carrie Chan founder of RI.by.CARRIE, creates interesting legwear and hand printed tights « nicely made in China ».
- Shanghai-based Liza Serratore and Claire Russo, LuRu Home founders, have given Nankeen centre stage in their home decoration business.
- Tom Davies, the London-based bespoke eyewear designer produces his spectacles in Shenzhen.
- Italian designer and Sand’s founder Silvia Marlia designs furniture for children. She’s holding the pencil tray, one of her creations, that helps keep some order on your child’s desk.
- Guangzhou-based Boukje Koch, a Dutch designer in her 30′s, is at helm of the design group Ask4me.
- NLGX Design founders Ed Hung (L) and Michel Sutyadi (R) photographed in a NLGX store.
- Julian Wilson, Khunu owner and founder photographed wearing one of his products: a Slingby made of yak wool.
As December exits, we once again welcome January, full of new hopes and plans. It is time for Nicely Made in China to look back on the past year. 2012 has been a good year for Nicely Made in China (NMiC): the search for quality products has led 55,000 visitors to our website in 2012 (up from 51,000 in 2011) and on December 11th, NMiC received its 100,000th unique visitor.
This year our readers were treated to our wide range of stories on: furniture (flatpack, bamboo, specially designed for children as well as antique furniture in a museum – thanks to Juliette Salabert who runs the Alliance Française in Tianjin), fashion design (ranging from urban street-wear, retro-chic, technological, to designer legwear), interior decoration, high-end eyewear and product design. We also paid a second visit to The Chinese Timekeeper, the Hong Kong-based watchmaker, for an update on their activities.
The success of our partnership with Khunu, the yak-wool knitwear and sweater-maker, has enabled us to renew and extend our collaboration. We look forward to establishing similar arrangements with more partners in 2013.
2012 also saw us venture outside of the Beijing-Shanghai-Hong Kong triangle for stories on companies based in Hangzhou, Tianjin and Guangzhou, all making their first appearances in NMiC. In the press Nicely Made in China was mentioned in Die Welt, the main German daily newspaper.
Further good news is that NMiC now has a sister website: Nicely Made in Britain (NMiB). Britain has an immense amount to offer in terms of quality products and we invite you to visit NMiB. We have also set up a Facebook page for this new website.
This end-of-year message would not be complete without thanking our loyal sponsors who continue to support us year after year. Like us, they believe that quality products and services can indeed be found in China – and in growing quantity. So, we would like to thank very specially our favorite travel agent Travel Stone, the luxury bed linen maker Rouge-Baiser Elise , the Hong Kong French bookstore Parenthèses – and its brand new website – and we also would like to mention our two most recent partners who have come on board this year: Shanghai Trio which combines traditional know-how with a modern function, and the law firm Palazzari & Turries, based in Hong Kong, who specialise in joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions. A very sincere ‘thank you’ to all!
We wish you all a continued happy festive season, and a prosperous and healthy 2013.