Watch out Gucci, Dior and Emilio Armani. Take note Paris, Milan and New York City. The Thais are getting serious about creating a niche for themselves in the fashion world you and your trend setting brethren have dominated for so long. Once noted for creating quality imitations and for churning out mass produced garments for Japanese, European and American labels, the Thais are bent upon doing things for themselves.

It's a bold course the fashion wannabes have charted, and the waters are filled with numerous obstacles. But they do have some things going for them.

"The world is fascinated with things from the Orient, and we represent the Orient," says Chanita Preechawitayakul, managing director and founder of Strong Waves, a Bangkok-based company whose Senada line is starting to make waves outside of Thailand. "Our traditional handicrafts and designs are interesting to the rest of the world, and Westerners appreciate the handwork that goes into their creation. If we can transform what is traditional to us into internationally acceptable styles, it will help make us successful."

Schle Wood, skipper of Pasaya, a leading textile-making company with a shop in Bangkok's trendy Gaysorn shopping centre, sees the fact Thailand is a fabric-producing country as an advantage for its garment industry and for his company in particular. "At Pasaya we make our textiles from the yarn to the finished fabric and consider each piece of fabric a work of art," he told us recently. "When we start designing our own line of clothing in a few months, we will control all aspects making a garment, ranging from creating the fabric to designing, making and assembling the final piece of clothing. This gives us strength and a competitive advantage others don't have."

The international respect Thailand's silk industry enjoys is another positive factor. It has done much to offset the negative image of Thailand's clothing industry caused by imitations and trademark violations. Instrumental in changing this image has been Her Majesty the Queen's unceasing efforts at pro-moting hand-woven Thai silk on her trips abroad. These efforts and the quality of Thai silk have encouraged several internationally recognized designers to use Thai silk in their collections.

In August of 2001, for example, Her Majesty presided over "East Meet West. Hanae Mori Haute Couture Au-tumn/Winter 2001/2002 Collection", a fashion show at the Oriental Hotel in which Madame Mori — one of the world's most respected designers — featured Thai silk in 10 of her 55 designs. At the time, according to Chris Reuben, The Oriental's Public Relations Manager, Madame Mori said, "Thai silk is such a superb fabric. I hope it will continue to be used all over the world."

Recently noted Australian designer Liz Davenport had a show at the Adelaide Town Hall using silk from the Royal Collection entitled "Simply Silktacular." Her beautiful designs featured mudmee fabrics, a silk-weaving technique that was in danger of being forgotten until Her Majesty's efforts re-established the art. In November 2003, Davenport displayed her designs using Royal mudmee silks at Her Majesty's Silk Festival at Bhupan Palace in the country's Northeast.

The international popularity and prestige of Jim Thompson hand-woven silk has also been instrumental in im-proving the standing of the Thai garment industry. Prior to 1998, the Jim Thompson Company had a fairly stodgy image, primarily selling bulk fabrics and things like tablecloths, placemats and other items for the home. In 1998, this all changed when the company forged a relationship with Nagara Sambanda-raksa, a Thai fashion designer inter-nationally acclaimed for his innovative and sometimes provocative designs. The relationship has been extremely suc-cessful, and his Nagara by Jim Thompson creations — along with his other designs — have established a Thai presence on haute couture runways in fashion capitals such as Paris, New York and Milan, as well as in closer-to-home venues such as Tokyo and Singapore.

Perhaps the strongest weapon in Thailand's arsenal is its spunk and willingness to take on any challenge. Several Thai companies have started making an impact internationally, including FlyNow, a company founded and directed by designer Somchai Songwatana. FlyNow recently opened a 200-square-metre store at Gaysorn, where the names of the exclusive shops read like a Whose Who of the fashion industry. A short time back, FlyNow opened a shop in the Superbrand Mall in Shanghai, and has also opened boutiques in London, Singapore and Malaysia. Another especially successful Thai enterprise on the international front has been Cha-Lom, a company manufacturing chil-dren's clothing. Established by designer Panudda Kamthornthip and her husband, Cha-Lom not only produces items for companies abroad, it also exports its own line of specially designed items to stores in 10 different countries, including chains of eight stores in Kuwait and 50 in Germany.

Clothing designers and manufac-turers aren't the only ones with visions of Thailand making it big time in the fashion world. The Thai government has allocated 1.82 billion baht ($44,500,000) to support a project dubbed "Bangkok Fashion City". The project is designed to make the nation's capital city an international hub for the garment, textile and fashion industry. The undertaking, which will also be supported with 488 million baht ($11,903,000) from the private sector, is clearly aimed at moving Thailand from the periphery to the centre of the world's garment and fashion industry.

The impetus for the Fashion City concept is largely one of survival. In 2002, the export of Thai garments and fabrics produced 300 billion baht ($7,320,000,000) in income, putting it just behind computer products and integrated circuits as a source of foreign exchange money for the country. There is a danger, however, that Thailand will lose much of this badly needed overseas generated revenue. In spite of the 1997 economic setback, the Kingdom's wages, working conditions and gross national product have been inexorably improving over the past 20 years and the country can no longer produce clothing as cheaply as sweathouses in places like Bangladesh and Indonesia. Simply put, other countries can now do the same thing that Thailand did a few years ago, but at a lower price.

Chavalit Nimla-or, President of the Thai Garment Manufacturers' As-sociation, in an oft-quoted statement, describes the situation rather bluntly: "Companies that try to compete on price alone will soon die." He believes the Thai garment industry will only survive by upgrading the quality of its product. ''Price can no longer be the strength it was for Thailand,'' he says. ''Our strength right now is product reliability.''

Thai designers — the people in-volved with high fashion, fashion shows and creating lines of clothing — believe more is needed than simply improving quality and reliability. According to Chanita of Senada, "People outside Thailand don't know about Thai designers and their clothing. We need to do a better job of presenting ourselves internationally if we want to increase the demand for what we produce." Schle Wood of Pasaya believes that quality and reliability are only the second step: "Eventually other countries will be able to match our quality and reliability and at lower prices. If our focus is only increasing the export of clothing made under other people's labels, we are going to lose out. To be competi-tive, we have to move to the last step, which is competing with innovation, design, service and an internationally recognized brand name."

Everyone seems to agree, however, that to move Thailand from its present position to one of international promi-nence is going to require the combined effort of government, designers and manufacturers of Thai labels, and the producers of mass-made garments for international companies. As Schle Wood says, "We appreciate what the government has done for the industry, but everyone has to work together." Nagara Samban-daraska believes the government needs to do even more: "If the government want to push fashion, it should be concerned about what the designers' views are, so people know what is unique about Thai fashion."

It is not only on runways overseas that Thai designs and products are beginning to win international recogni-tion. Fashion shows and fashion events are commonplace in Bangkok at places such as Gaysorn, Central Department Store Chidlom, the Emporium shopping centre and major hotels. The annual Elle Magazine Thailand fashion event, Elle Thailand Fashion Week, a four-day affair held in an enormous white tent on the parking lot of the Chidlom Central Department Store, is a major event that increasingly attracts buyers from abroad who are interested in buying Thai designed products, rather than simply placing orders based on their own designs and specifications. Last year it attracted leading Thai designers such as Mae Fah Luang, Tube for Central, Pasaya, Metta, B:D by Dapper, Senada, Greyhound, Kai by Chatri Thengha, Alisa, Theatre, and Nagara for Jim Thompson — plus a goodly number of foreign buyers. The show, which reduces expenses by having sponsors, also allowed three younger and less established designers — Kris Yen-sudjai, Araya Indra and Roj Singhakul — to show their work.

The biggest annual event in Thai-land promoting Thai garments, manu-facturers and designers is the Bangkok International Fashion Fair (BIFF), held each year at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre. Sponsored by the Department of Export Promotion and the Ministry of Commerce, and supported by 10 trade associations involved with the garment industry, the BIFF theme last year was "New Age Ethnic Fabric and Design". Attended by 5,000 visitors from all over the world, on-the-spot purchases totaled 53,360,200 baht (US$1.33 million), and purchase orders with delivery contracts within one year reached an extraordinary 1,358,993,000 baht (US$ 33.97 million).

In addition to all of this, the Thais themselves are becoming increasingly interested in fashion, and are showing a