186 | theceomagazine.com
University of California-honed
English – “dog hands”, aka paw
prints. The Mr Bags x Tod’s
limited-edition Wave backpack,
which has twin luggage-tag “ears”
and an embellishment that looks like a
nose – a literal doggy bag – sold out in
minutes despite costing £1,250 ($US1,580).
Bag as pet. Peak cuteness. Accessories just
big enough to accommodate an iPhone Plus. Tao
gets what the luxury Chinese client base – one
extremely lucrative section of it, at least – wants.
“People from the west tend to design something
like a golden dragon, because they think it is very
Asian. But we are not looking for something that is
so traditional. That is not why we buy a Tod’s bag.”
When Tao was at school – a selective state
school that was one of the best in Beijing – his
financier parents were less than enthusiastic about
their only child’s interest in bag-related matters.
After school, he spent his spare time hanging out
at their local branch of the luxury Asian chain Lane
Crawford, ogling the sunglasses and “pouches”,
the acceptable face (just about) of arm candy for
men, and a word so often on Tao’s lips during
our meeting as to be verging on a mantra. (“I have
a lot of pouches. Pouches for men are so chic.”)
On a trip to Hong Kong the 17-year-old Tao
insisted his mother buy the freshly minted – and
now cult – Céline Luggage bag. “She regretted it,
because no-one knew about Céline. Then I flew
off to college, and suddenly that bag became so
popular. No matter where my mom goes, everyone
says, ‘How did you manage to get that bag?’
Suddenly my mom is thinking, ‘Maybe my kid really
does have this thing with bags.’”
His parents still believed “finance was the thing
that makes people successful”, he continues.
“They told me luxury was only about burning
money.” But by the time he started his studies in
Los Angeles – in finance, of course – they seem
to have considered it safe to facilitate the smaller
variety of luxury conflagration.
“I suddenly had no boundaries from my parents
and I went to Rodeo Drive five days a week to shop
and window-shop. That is one of the reasons
Mr Bags is really successful. Because I am myself
a shopaholic. But I was not super-rich at the
beginning. I could buy sunglasses, pouches. I
couldn’t go into the Chanel store and buy five bags
in a row. So I became really good at buying the
right bag. The classic that will never be discounted.
Or a different kind of bag that you might get 40 per
cent off in June. That was the start of Mr Bags.”
- Tao Liang and a
colleague at the
Longchamp by Shayne
Oliver Preview
- Mr Bags x
Wanbaolong Lianming
Capsule Series
- Mr Bags x
Longchamp celebration
of the Year of the Pig
4 and 5. Mr Bags x
TOD’S limited edition
micro Wave backpacks
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INDULGE | Fashion forward
