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Chinese couturier Grace Chen, whose designs have been worn by a number of celebrities in the US, returned to China in 2009 where she established her own brand in Shanghai. Her designs have been popular with movie stars Liu Xiaoqing and Liu Tao, and Taiwanese celebrities including Lin Chi-ling and Annie Yi.

Chen told Shanghai's China Business News that there is potential in China's fashion industry but more needs to be done to make it stand out internationally. "I was lucky to be able to establish my own brand and studio in 2009," said Chen, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Chen worked as a fashion designer in New York and Los Angeles for six years after she graduated and returned to Shanghai in 2009. Since her return to China, Chen said, she has noticed an increase in the number of high-income consumers.

the designer said she learned during her time overseas that foreign luxury clothing brands did not pay much attention to the Chinese market and their designers did not take time to analyze its needs. "This is where I wanted to make a breakthrough," Chen said, explaining how sought to cater to body types common among Chinese women.

The couture industry is based on a made-to-measure approach, she said. For Grace Chen dresses, two measuring tools are used — the measuring tape and the eye of the designer, she said. Designers observe the way a client moves to produce clothes that fit them well, Chen said.

"Couture is not just about selling a product but about setting a standard," Chen said. But that is not an easy task, because most designers tend to focus heavily on their products and do not have much time for management, marketing or seeking government support, she added. This, she said, creates a bottleneck in the process of developing China's couturier industry.

Business operations and brand building are two other areas than can be improved, Chen said.

In developing the couture industry, it is not enough to just spend money on promotion, Chen said. The improvement of designers and growth in the number of customers are among the key factors that will make China more competitive in the fashion world, Chen said.