Yuli Taki wants her handbags to equal
international name brands.
On a spring evening in Taipei's Hyatt Hotel, a newly established company, Taiwan Ang (vermilion in Taiwanese), announced its intention to market luxury goods with unique aboriginal themes. Guests such as First Lady Wu Shu-chen applauded as models walked among them displaying handbags with an indigenous flavor. Yuli Taki was especially excited because the handbags with traditional Truku designs were her creations. She was taking one more step on the road to making the material legacy of her tribe known to the world.
"Taiwan's aboriginal culture is very rich, and only it can represent true Taiwanese identity," says Ligi Lee, a Taiwanese emigrant to Australia who founded Taiwan Ang. "Taiwan is capable of producing high-quality cultural goods. It should improve its image by creating and promoting its exquisite culture."
Taki hails from the Truku, an indigenous group in eastern Taiwan, which was formerly regarded as part of the bigger Atayal group. At 42, she was initially quite reluctant to learn about her roots but attributes her passion for aboriginal design to her grand mother's inspiration. "My grandmother told me that I wouldn't be able to marry if I couldn't weave," Taki says. According to Truku tradition, girls must be skilled weavers before they come of age, just as boys must learn to hunt. But Taki ignored the advice, despite her grandmother's continual nagging. "She had to entice me with snacks to watch her weave," Taki says.
Her grandmother was widely known for her excellent weaving skills in the tribe and liked to explain the symbolism of the patterns to Taki . "This is a mountain, this is the ocean, this is a road, and this is the eye of our ancestor," she would say. The rhombic eye of the ancestor, or dowriq utux in Truku language, appears in Taki's work repeatedly. "My ancestors are constantly watching and encouraging me to keep my soul pure and beautiful."
After making a living by hawking on the sidewalks of Taipei, Taki, then in her 20s, began to look at her roots seriously. She developed an interest in weaving and proved to be a quick learner. "Nobody really taught me. I learned just by watching. I asked weavers for their finished work and then unraveled them to see how they did it," she says. "I believe my grandmother is somehow guiding my career." Taki started to design clothes incorporating aboriginal motifs and in 1996 exhibited them for the first time at Taipei's Grand Hotel.
Her awakening to tribal traditions was mirrored in a renaissance of native culture across the island around the same time. Local governments suddenly looked to Taiwan's indigenous heritage and began holding arts and crafts fairs as a result. Taki then started to pass weaving skills down to the younger generations by teaching the skill in schools.
"I want my products to be more sophisticated. I don't want them to be displayed only at fairs selling aboriginal goods," she says. A big fan of Louis Vuitton (LV) leather goods, she has been buying a bag for herself on her birthday for many years. Her friends encouraged her to focus on building a brand for her own bags. "My friends told me I should stop buying LV bags and carry my own," she says. In 2003 Yuli Taki registered her eponymous brand and on New Year's Eve sealed all her LV bags in boxes. From that day on she has only used her own handbags.
Taki borrowed nearly NT$10 million (US$310,000) to finance her plan to create high-quality Taiwanese handbags. The loan was required so leather could be purchased in large quantities to reduce costs and there would be plenty of woven fabric ready for a product launch.
"I don't give discounts, not even to my friends and relatives," she says. While controlling prices and distribution are key to building the Yuli Taki brand, she says that her products are only about one-tenth the cost of most luxury goods. "Even though I'm under a lot of pressure, profit is not my only goal at this stage. I'm trying to promote aboriginal culture."
Yuli Taki products are unique because of their aboriginal flavor. The patterns are one-of-a-kind, although she finds there is similarity between Truku's and those of other aboriginal cultures around the world. The use of ramie, a material common to Atayal and Truku weavers, is also impressive. The thickness of ramie fiber ensures durability, although, when manual work is required at the final stage of manufacture, it is hard to bend the fabric into the desired shape.
Creativity is seen in Taki's style as well. She finds inspiration when she goes window-shopping and sees it as part of her job when deciding on product styles. "I make changes to the style of a product every 100 pieces or so," she says. To ensure her handbags' quality and marketability, Taki loans them to her friends to "test drive."
"Yuli Taki bags stand out in a crowd because of their strong ethnic flavor," Wang Hsiu-lien says. She gave up on her favorite brand after finding Yuli Taki early last year. "Compared with Chanel, hers are inexpensive but the quality is really good. Most importantly, I'd rather have a Taiwanese brand if I can."
The sales record, however, is less than encouraging, and today she is still in debt. If not for the money she makes from producing aboriginal clothes for groups and organizations, it would be impossible for her to keep her brand afloat.
"Taiwanese still think that foreign brands are better," she says. Japanese tourists, however, have shown great interest in her bags; they once sold out at Hualien airport.
Taki's situation is not unlike that faced by a lot of aboriginal artisans: weak name recognition, if any. The Council of Indigenous Peoples under the Executive Yuan held a competition last year to select 22 works, based on their creativity and marketability, from over 160 contestants. Last April the council provided booths to 15 of the chosen artisans at the four-day Taipei International Gift and Stationery Spring Show. "We didn't get many orders, but this event raised our visibility and boosted our confidence," Taki says.
Taiwan Ang expects to have a definite influence on Taki 's future. Lee says she is investing money to assist aboriginal artisans like Taki to upgrade their products and build name recognition. "There are many talented aboriginal people, but they have no financial support."
To enhance the value of Taki 's bags, Lee, herself a designer, has already added decorations made from precious materials such as jade, coral and agate to them. "I'm also planning to improve the quality by replacing the fabric lining with leather, just like world famous brands," she says. Meanwhile, she is looking for a local company to do marketing and distribution in Taiwan, while she and Taki take care of design and production. As for the international market, this spring Taiwan Ang ads have already appeared on buses in Paris. "My ultimate goal is to set up outlets in all major airports around the world," Lee says. No wonder Taki looks at her cooperation with Lee as a turning point in her career.