BANGKOK (AFP) - The Thai capital, better known as a centre for fake designer gear in its busy street markets, is trying to become Asia's glamour fashion capital to cash in on the multi-billion dollar beauty industry.
From a bid to host the Miss Universe contest to developing world-class fashion houses, leaders are attempting to harness the business of beauty as a key foreign currency earner.
Haute couture, cosmetics and high-end jewellery have become big business in the kingdom, traditionally seen as a Mecca for cheap cloth, quaint handicrafts and unimpressive pirate copies.
The fashion industry, from leather to jewellery, earned Thailand about 390 billion baht (9.6 billion dollars) in exports last year with hopes of reaching 400 billion baht this year, a Thai government official told AFP.
Witoon Simachokadee, who heads the industry ministry's "Bangkok Fashion City" arm, said they hoped for annual 10 billion baht gains in the total from 2005.
The fashion city initiative, which aims to revamp Thailand's reputation as a haven for fake versions of Rolex, Gucci and Louis Vuitton designs, was launched in February with shopping centre extravaganzas and a fashion street parade big enough to shut down the city centre.
At the launch Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra pledged 1.8 billion baht to transform the city into Asia's catwalk. He later signed up advisers such as Giorgio Armani and backed dozens of fashion shows.
"Our target in the next three years is to become a tropical fashion zone and to become a major global fashion market in the next ten years," said Witoon.
The campaign taps into an already burgeoning style business. Sales of cosmetics and toiletries in Thailand grew 9.2 percent over 2003 to a total value of 57.4 billion baht, according to consumer product sales researcher Euromonitor International.
It said consumer spending, especially among women, had grown as the country continues to recover from the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98. If the current rate of growth continued, sales would reach more than 80 billion baht by the end of 2008, it said.
During Bangkok Fashion Week that closed Sunday, the editor of Elle magazine Thailand, Kullawit Laosuksri, told AFP the industry was trying to transform Thailand from a source of cheap products to a base for high-profile domestic brands.
"What we really need now is to move from manufacturing to branding our own designs and concepts," he said. "It's under way and it is already quite successful."
Kullawit cited a recent show in Milan by five leading Thai designers. "We want to be the fashion hub of Asia. At the moment Japan is the leader but I think we are now second," he said.
The Miss Universe competition, watched by an estimated television audience of 1.5 billion this year, has become the latest vehicle for the government's attempts to promote its glamour industry.
However, the Thai push for the 2005 contest has been in disarray with potential sponsors reluctant to invest because of delays by the government in making good on a 6.5 million dollar staging fee.
The government said regulations prevented it from putting up the money and it had handed the task to Showcase Thailand 2005, the firm which submitted the bid.
Showcase in turn told the Bangkok Post that with only one million baht in registered capital it could not fund the fee. Fashion experts said they were unconcerned if the bid failed.
"We don't really understand a lot of what the government is trying to do but what we do know is that any way you look at it the Thai fashion industry is booming," said Kullawit.
11/14/2004 - 18:34 GMT - AFP