Relatives and friends called her "little bag lady" when she was growing up in Hangzhou, a city famous for its waterways and lakes, in Zhejiang Province.

Little did they know Wu Haiyan, who once glued leaves and candy wrappers on her dresses just to look different, would become a well-known fashion designer in a country that wants to rekindle its trend-setting flare that had dazzled the world for centuries.

Not satisfied with being a "factory of the world," China is channelling its industrial might and climbing the value-added chain in the global marketplace. Some leading private and State-owned enterprises are beginning to focus their efforts on developing products of their own designs, and on developing brands for export to the United States, Europe and other major overseas markets.

Those forwards-looking entrepreneurs and talented designers are challenging the convention of China's massive manufacturing machinery. Wu has been doing so since her childhood.

When her mother would scold her for ruining her dresses, Wu would turn around and ask: "Don't you think they are beautiful?"

Now, in her 40s and married to a professor with Zhejiang University, Wu still takes pride in her childhood creations, which she gave, as a gift of inspiration, to her friend's young daughter.

"Perhaps one day, she, too, will grow up to be a fashion designer, with passion, like me," Wu says in an interview in her workshop in central Beijing.

She made a name for herself when she won China's first national art and fashion design competition in 1992. That title, eight years after she graduated from the China Academy of Fine Arts, known as Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts at that time, helped launch her career "in the glamour business."

The following year, she "dazzled" the audience and impressed the judges at the first China International Young Fashion Designers' Contest. Her designs were based loosely on ladies' fashions during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). That era was widely regarded as a golden period in China's history.

The judges awarded Wu the gold medal.

She was named one of China's 10 Best Fashion Designers in 1995 and again in 1997.

In 2001, the Fashion Association of China honored her with the "Golden Peak" award the nation's highest fashion-related accolade.

As she was collecting titles and awards at home, her works were paraded, regularly, on the catwalks at fashion shows in various overseas markets including Russia, Hungary, Germany, Japan.

Wu, elected to represent Chinese arts designers, displayed some of her creations during the Sino-French Culture Week, in 1999, and Sino-US Culture Week, in 2000.

Dressed in a casual sweater and pants, and wearing minimal make-up, the unpretentious Wu says she owes her success to the "spiritual" inspiration of Hangzhou. "I guess some of the magic of my home town, and the nearby West Lake, has rubbed off on me."

Thousands of poems and songs have been written in praise of West Lake, which is widely considered China's spiritual home of arts and literature. The lake's glittering expanse is ringed by flower groves and swaying willow trees. It's a perfect setting for a Chinese poet-at-heart, or, in Wu's case, a budding fashion designer.

Hangzhou is also the historic textile center. The city is renowned for its delicately woven and exquisitely dyed silk. Unsurprisingly, it is Wu's favorite material. She uses it widely in her clothing.

"Silk is the most difficult to handle in fashion design," Wu says. "If you can master the use of silk, you can manage well with any other clothing materials, cotton, wool or even fur."

Wu's first job after graduating from university was with Zhejiang Silk Import and Export Co Ltd. Her main responsibility was to introduce some unique Chinese designs to potential foreign buyers.

In 1995, after she had made a name for herself, Wu was hired by Hangzhou Kaidi Silk Co Ltd, China's largest silk material and clothing manufacturer at that time, as design director. At Hangzhou Kaidi, Wu was credited with the firm's sharp increase in sales of silk apparel, most of which were designed by her.

Wu's ability to cope with market competition was put to the test, again, as the chief designer at China Garment Group, China's largest garment manufacturing and trading company.

That was a high-profile job. It offered Wu great latitude in expressing her personal style in her clothing designs. "It was a dream job for any fashion designer," she says.

It was also a turning point in her life and career.

Designer to manager

One day, after she had been with the company for two years, her boss called Wu into the office and told her she was fired.

"He didn't explain why, and he refused to discuss compensation for my shares (in the company)," Wu says. Outraged, she decided to hit back. She started her own company to compete with China Garment Group.

She hired some designers away from China Garment Group and she established her own two-storey workshop China Beijing Wu Haiyan Textile and Fashion Co Ltd in an office building not far from her former employer.

Now, her firm is regarded as one of China's best clothing designers capable of competing in the global market. Wu would not say how profitable her business is.

"I have established a well-functioning business model," Wu says with pride.

The workshop has six studios one for researching fashion trends, services for the clothing enterprises, textile design, image design, pattern design and marketing campaigns.

Wu's office is on the second floor. It looks more like a manager's office in a typical Chinese factory than a fashion designer's studio.

On shelves are rows of documents, which outline the projects the workshop is currently working on or has been involved with. "I don't want to blow my own horn about my being a fashion designer," she says. "That's not my style, either in work or in life."

Her sales brochure, too, is a statement in subtlety. The first five pages outline the market research including a survey on customer's competitors and market trends that must be done after receiving a design project.

Take children's apparel for example: The workshop will classify children's apparel into different styles, based on market research and a study of parents tastes and their average income levels. Then, in accordance with different apparel styles, the workshop will match colors, raw materials and patterns before it begins designing products.

A typical project is completed within three months of her firm taking receipt of a client's order. "An individual designer won't be able to do much, so we must work as a team," Wu says.

After a project is completed, its related documents are arranged neatly on a shelf.

"I am managing my business just as strictly and efficiently as if I was teaching students," Wu says. "They are complimentary."

She has also taught at the academy since she graduated.

Wu is surprised people, with puzzled looks on their faces, keep asking her, "How do you manage to balance your job as a teacher and owner of a design workshop?"

"They are all about training designers," Wu explains. "I am helping them better compete and realize their own value in the market."

Now, commuting by plane between home and school in Hangzhou and the workshop in Beijing, Wu, even though she is often tired, is full of passion and energy. She always has a rosy outlook.

(China Daily March 17, 2005)