China loves haute couture and this business is growing quickly.

(image courtesy of  chenta) – China’s millionaires’ club is expanding rapidly and many new members are women who don’t even blink when asked to pay a cool $10,000 for a cocktail dress from a top international designer.

Some 5,000 mainland Chinese had assets exceeding $30 million, accounting for a third of Asia-Pacific’s super-rich.

China’s ongoing transition to a more market-oriented economy after decades of strict communist rule is producing a constant stream of newly rich.

“It’s very different from the West, there are a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities and there are wealthy people emerging all the time,” said Cheung.

Luxury brands can easily sell their perfume and cosmetics in local department stores. But when it comes to ready-to-wear fashion, they are all competing for space and customers in a handful of luxury malls such as Plaza 66 in Shanghai and Lane Crawford in Beijing where rents are sky high.

Read the full article from ‘YAHOO! news’ China’s rich have insatiable appetite for haute couture