Burberry's Chinese-themed scarf mocked by netizens

The luxury brand Burberry's new Chinese-styled scarf [Photo/burberry.com]

The luxury brand Burberry's new Chinese-styled scarf targeting Chinese buyers is being criticized and mocked on the nation's social media, a fashion website reported on Friday.

The traditional luxury company just put a new scarf on the market. The scarf is embroidered with the Chinese character "fu" (福), which means "luck" and "good fortune." A photo of the scarf was posted by Internet user @Xiaolisuo on Sina Weibo, a major microblogging site in China.

The user also commented on its design, "I feel it looks just like some vendors' cheap wholesale goods worth only 35 yuan (US$5.62)." The user added, "If you put this thing on China's low-end wholesale market, I would think it was a knockoff."

The post has been retweeted nearly 15,000 times and received about 4,000 comments in the five days since it was posted, Nofashion.cn reported.

On Burberry's Chinese website, the "fu" scarf is listed in its "Scarves" section and is named "Lunar New Year Check Cashmere Scarf." The scarf comes in three colors and is priced as high as 5,750 yuan (US$923.39) each.

Besides @Xiaolisuo, other netizens also criticized the design. Some said even their moms hated it, and some said the luxury brand didn't really understand the Chinese symbol and the culture it represents, arguing that the "fu" character should be placed upside down, which has the more auspicious meaning that "Good fortune has arrived."

Foreign luxury brands have been trying to please Chinese customers by holding large events in China and selling Chinese-styled products. Hermès also caused controversy when it designed a luxury handbag based on China's national flag and presented it as a gift to Shanghai tycoon Zhou Zhengyi's wife, Mao Yuping, in 2012.

"This is very normal for luxury brands to do," luxury industry analyst Tang Xiaotang said. "Chinese people consume one third of the luxury goods in the whole world. In some categories, Chinese even consume half of the total. No wonder these luxury enterprises do such things. They are reasonable commercial activities."

However, high-end Chinese consumers tend not to love anything branded or styled "made in China," which they ironically think is cheap. "Though most products sold all over the world are manufactured in China now, Chinese customers much prefer Western fashion products," Tang explained.

Burberry's spokesman has not made any statement regarding the scarf yet despite the heated online discussion.