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The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said on Thursday it had found problems with 17 of the 40 foreign fashion brands sampled.

The offending goods included coats, jackets and pants made by well-known fashion houses such as Burberry, MaxMara, Zara and Dior.

Some brands, including Italy's Armani and Zegna, lanched product recalls this week, but said they had not yet received any refund requests on the alleged defective items.

Armani said yesterday refunds for one of its jackets, which was said to lack "fiber content," can be obtained at the store where it was bought.

Zegna said it would offer refunds, but has insisted on its own inspection of its Ermengildo Zegna and Zegnasport brands.

Some of the brand's jackets and pants allegedly had color and fiber content problems.

"We are still waiting for the result of our own inspection," said Maggie Xu, from Zegna's marketing department.

MaxMara said it had not sold any of the 8,310 yuan (US$1,039) woman's coats identified as having fiber and color defects.

Zara's Shanghai head office was not available for comment yesterday.

A shop assistant in a Zara store said yesterday the Spanish company had not changed its refund policy.

"The company has the rule that anyone can refund the clothes within a month after he or she buys them, as long as the products are not used or damaged," said the assistant in the store on Nanjing Road W. "But we haven't got any special refunding policy for the highlighted products from the company."

A Zara skirt costing 599 yuan was said to contain twice the legal levels of formaldehyde.