Your clients are mainly from the US and Europe, why did you set up in Qingdao?
We chose Qingdao as the site for our factory because Qingdao is the largest production centre of the mediumand high-class costume jewelry in the world. It's an enormous geographical advantage to our production costs and human resources.

Also, Korean companies started bringing the jewelry industry into Qingdao in the early '90s, bringing Japanese and European design concepts into play with their own fashion sense. So, now, most of the top brands and leading fashion design products come out of Qingdao. Furthermore, Qingdao is a fashion city, and the local young people are fast becoming a strong demographic for these products. Qingdao is the production centre of high class costume jewelry. We have produced GUESS, CHICOS, PVC and many other top brands.

What advantages do jewelry companies in China have over those in other areas?
Korean companies have been involved in trading jewelry for many years, but the production is undertaken by Chinese factories, and most of theraw materials are from China, so we can run every aspect of the business at lower materials and labour costs. This is evident in the fact that more Chinese companies are dealing directly with Western buyers. Chinese factories' shortcomings are not really in production technique - they typically just lack design.

How do you make up for the lack of design experience?
Our designers are all Chinese university graduates. Many have worked in Korean, American or Hong Kong companies, and exposed to effective creative processes. But there's a huge engineering component as well - every kind of solid material can be used in costume jewelry, plastic, leather, glass or anything, but they cannot simply be put together, so our designers need to be familiar with the physical properties of a broad range of materials.

Do you see any trends emerging in 2009?
This year, the jewelry seems to be moving toward instilling a sense of peace, comfort, joviality. People are depressed about the economy and looming disasters, so flowers, stars, these kinds of elements can make people feel better. They are also selecting bright, warm colours.

Where can people buy your products?
We can design jewelry according to client specifications, but our minimum order quantity is 240 units. We are also going to set up our own brand in the future, which will allow us to sell our own goods through retail outlets.

There are hundreds of jewelry manufacturers in Qingdao - what sets your company apart from others?
Our product quality is very high, at a standard that few can claim. The big difference though is that our products are lead free and nickel free, and therefore don't carry the health risks that can be associated with these products. Ours won't irritate your skin.

We are very responsible to our clients and ultimately to their customers. We want to keep them looking and feeling great for a long time to come.

To get in touch with May-O, call 8787-6876. Other great fashion jewelry outlets include I-Go and Zhenghua Shopping Mall (both behind Mykal).