China's fashion industry has been going through a rather successful transition over the past decade, but many brands are still finding it difficult to make an impression on the world stage. 

At the International Garment and Textile Fair in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, some domestic brands have been sharing their experiences of gaining international recognition.

One wedding dress company called Yeesha now has more than 300 international distributors, 80 percent of which are in the United States. Their design combines bohemian style with Chinese details, like porcelain flowering. After almost five years of running a deficit, the wedding dress business is in profit this year.

"When we first started off, we participated in lots and lots of clothing fairs in countries like Italy, the UK, and America. It was hard, but gradually distributors like our designs, especially the Chinese elements. For example, we don’t lay flower patterns all over the dress, but instead, leave certain parts completely blank, and that's from traditional Chinese aesthetics.” said Liu Yingying, the sales director of the company.

Similarly, the suit-maker Dayang, also a local Dalian brand, has been eyeing on the high-end market in the West.

Headquartered in Dalian, the company has two subsidiaries in the US. It has come into the international spotlight when American billionaire Warren Buffet said he had discarded all his other suits in favor of this particular Chinese brand.

The CEO of the menswear company Hu Dongmei told CGTN that its advantages mostly lie in fast production and price, “We have 6,000 workers on the streamline, and thanks to an intelligence system that is capable of processing big data into building models, we are able to manufacture a suit within six days on the order being made. Almost 9 weeks quicker than our Western competitors.”

One foreign designer points out that western customers’ perceptions about Chinese brands are the main challenge. 

Hellen Van Rees, a Dutch fashion and textile designer, said, “It has a kind of negative image sometimes that it’s all mass produced and it’s a copy of what other brands are doing. That doesn’t sound very positive, although, at the same time you do have very good designers here so they should do their own things and bring their identity to Europe because then you can see what Chinese designers are doing, their original work, it’s authentic.”

With more and more domestic brands looking to go international, events like Dalian's Garment and Textile Fair give Chinese clothing makers a chance to showcase themselves, identify where they may have an edge, and combine this with Western demands.