Why Shanghai is perfect launch pad for creative women entrepreneurs

Women designers, architects, restaurateurs and other creatives are starting businesses in the Chinese metropolis and benefiting from its can-do attitude and lack of glass ceiling. We talk to some of these go-getters

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Social Supply’s Olivia Mok (left) and Camden Hauge (right). Photo: Samuel Croskery

Published: 8:00am, 12 Sep 2017Updated: 2:47pm, 13 Sep 2017

When it comes to leisure lifestyle and creative start-ups, Shanghai is undoubtedly China’s holy grail. The metropolis of 24 million people is a cultural melting pot that continues to grow, and a notable feature of the boom is the great number of women leading the way.

Linehouse’s interior design for WeWork, Huaihai Lu, Shanghai.

Linehouse, an architecture and interior design firm founded by Hongkonger Alex Mok and New Zealander Briar Hickling, has flourished in just 2½ years. In the West, it’s an industry notoriously dominated by men, but in Shanghai, the pair have found an easy sweet spot.

“The market is much less saturated in Shanghai, especially for female designers/architects and young creatives,” says Hickling.

“In general we feel that in China, people are indifferent to what sex we are,” says Mok.

Chinese fashion designer Masha Ma. Photo: AFP

Female entrepreneurs say they’ve found fewer traditional gender barriers in Shanghai – the glass ceiling, at least in leisure lifestyle and creative industries, seems to have been broken. It’s a sentiment echoed by one of China’s biggest fashion names, Shanghai-based Masha Ma, who’s also a regular on the London and Paris circuit.

“There are a lot of female designers at the helm of Chinese brands now,” says the Central Saint Martins graduate, who founded her label in 2008 and has noticed a boom in the number of female entrepreneurs in the country.