Gallery: An Intimate Look at the People and Places Behind 'Made in China' Labels
Anaïde Gregory Studio01wuxi2
Some of the industries featured are actually curious niche industries, rather than ones of massive output (like socks). This factory in Wuxi builds fake warcrafts, like this F-16, for advertising and for novelty uses like theme parks.
Anaïde Gregory Studio02Shunde
Fake Eames chairs get made in Shunde, where factory after factory spins out cheap knock off furniture.
Anaïde Gregory Studio03Foshan2
Two Swiss designers toured China for six months, and photographed the micro-industries there. This is part of their travelogue, "Made in China Diary."
Anaïde Gregory Studio04Jindezhen
Jingdezhen is called the porcelain capital of China. In Jingdezhen, ceramics workers use traditional techniques, and have been outpaced by more modern competitors in recent years—in 1995, almost all the factories went bankrupt.
05Foshan
In Foshan, one of the largest industrial cities in the Guangdong area, families and small groups often set up spontaneous handcrafting production facilities.
Anaïde Gregory Studio06shunde2 (1)2
The backside of a knock-off of a famous chair by Fabio Novembre. Manufacturers get their molds from one another, so as each "design" gets passed to another supplier, the shape morphs slightly.
Anaïde Gregory Studio07Zhuji
There's an entire mall devoted to freshwater pearl sales in Zhuji. An estimated 73 percent of the world's pearls come out of here.
08Datang2
Ten thousand factories made over one billion pairs of socks a year in Datang.
Anaïde Gregory Studio09Dantang
The designers, Gregory Brunisholz and Anaïde Davoudlarian, photographed everything from spools of thread to giant laundry rooms, and say everything in Datang revolves around socks.
10Donguan
At the Agie-Charmille factory in Guangdong workers manufacture machine tools, designed in Switzerland, for the neighboring mobile telephone manufacturers.
Anaïde Gregory Studio11Yiwu
Over 70,000 companies hawk their wares at the wholesale market in Yiwu. Flowers, fake flags, bouncy balls—all are for sale in Yiwu.
