Outdoor garments, warm outlook

Major outdoor apparel brands are optimistic about the market in China. Gan Tian sizes them up.

In the glamorous fast-paced fashion industry, some fashion houses take about two weeks to turn a sketch in the designer's handbook into a jacket display in the store. But for a North Face jacket, the process takes at least 16 months. Perhaps that is why outdoor garments do not look "trendy", because they are often designed more than a year before they meet the buyers. But these "not-so-trendy" garments are now part of one of the fastest-growing apparel sectors in China.

Bruno Feltracco, the vice-president and managing director of Outdoor and Action Sports of apparel group VF Asia Pacific, says the outlook is positive.