Luxury Watch: Armani Tweet Talks Fans

The Armani is looking to engage fans with a Twitter-based dialogue. Using the hashtag #ArmaniTweetTalks, "a series of open discussions taking place entirely on Twitter," the discussion launched June 1st with the topic: "China: The New Fashion Superpower," to coincide with the label's "One Night Only in Beijing" show.

Guests on the tweet team who mingled with the public included Angelica Cheung, editorial director of Vogue China, Susie Bubble of the Style Bubble blog, Federico Marchetti, founder and CEO of YOOX Group, Hung Huang, TV commentator and blogger, and fashion critic Godfrey Deeny.

Armani Tweet Talks add to The Armani Group's robust social media portfolio that already includes 68,000 Twitter followers, 3.1 million Facebook fans and 1064 Instagram followers in addition to its YouTube channel.

Members of the public are invited to submit their questions to http://www.armani.com/tweettalks and could follow the conversation on the site's "Tweetwall," driving engagement on their site by leveraging Twitter's hashtag functionality (something Facebook must wish it could do).

Comments included Hung Huang on the importance of being online: "66% of e-commerce is about fashion. Chinese fashion is going to be on the Internet, where younger people are the audience,” and, "Let’s forget about Chinese culture from a Western perspective – it’s not about those red doors and those dragons"

Godfrey Deeny on Chinese metrosexuals: "In the West women spend three times as much of their disposable income in fashion than men. In China they’re almost even"

Susie Bubble on emergent Chinese brands: "A lot of students matriculate at Central Saint Martins and Antwerp and then go back to China to set up their businesses. I feel the growing affluence in China, coupled with Chinese designers being educated abroad means it’s a work in progress."

The chat's conclusion: “The road to Chinese fashion independence from the West is long and hard one. The country's obstacles include manufacturing to scale (what do you do when you live in China, but don't need 1 million of something? Outsource to Italy, apparently); creating culturally significant designs that aren't Chinese copies of Western interpretation of Chinese fashion (aka meta-fashion); government run runways; and those pesky e-commerce sites.”