Analysis: The Chanel Code Of Ordos

Gile Dufour (Gilles Dufour) in Xidan, Beijing

"Now, I think of myself as a Chinese designer."

Du Fu says to "Global Entrepreneur".

For a year and a half since he worked in Ordos, Dufour has been graciously referred to as "Lao Du" by his collaborators and assistants.

He wore a string of wooden beads on his wrist, listening to Peking Opera, visiting Panjiayuan's second-hand market and the 798 Art District in Beijing after work, which is the most convenient way for him to touch the past and even contemporary Chinese art.

This scene is associated with Ordos.

For 30 years, Ordos has grown into the world's first cashmere manufacturer, but it always faces the problem of brand limitations: it produces 10 million cashmere products annually, occupying 40% of China's cashmere market, and exports account for 30% of the global market.

But such a huge export is mostly OEM and its profit is very low, and it is vulnerable to international trade friction and RMB appreciation.

In 2009, the global consumption environment was low, and the operating income of Erdos on cashmere products dropped by 34.21% compared with the same period last year, which was dragged down by overseas markets.

Erdos has decided to focus on expanding domestic sales since 2008.

In the domestic market, although cashmere products have a gross profit margin of nearly 50%, it is usually regarded as a dress for middle-aged people and is only suitable for autumn and winter wear.

In department stores, cashmere products will be put on a separate counter for single season sales. If you want to rely solely on this product to boost sales, you will grow feeble.

In view of the increasingly strong purchasing power of Chinese consumers and the increasing sensitivity to international fashion elements, Ordos decided to find a heavyweight fashion designer to develop new fashion series to enter the high-end fashion industry.

Up to now,

New fashion empire

Zhang Yiling, general manager of Erdos Clothing Co., Ltd. is now the head of the new fashion empire.

When asked what kind of style the future clothing series of Ordos should have, Zhang naturally said that it had to be "elegant and graceful like Chanel" (when it comes to elegance, most Chinese people would first think of the top French brand), and eventually extended to women's accessories, shoes and other fields, and at the same time could not deviate from the core product of cashmere, which was built in Erdos.

The reason is very simple: as the world's first cashmere manufacturer, the scale advantage is unrivaled, and cashmere products are of high price. Taking it as the core, it can relatively support the high-end image of a clothing series.

In fact, from this description, Zhang's space for his ideal designer coincides with that of Du Fu.

Since 1983, Du Fu has worked for Chanel (Chanel) for 15 years. It is the two figure behind the chief designer, Carle Lagerfeld (Karl.Lagerfeld). He has pioneered Chanel's knitted apparel, and is responsible for the design of high fashion, garment and accessories series.

After leaving Chanel, he also had long-term cooperation with GRIPOIX (a century old top jewellery custom brand) and Maximilian (the largest fur brand in the US).

"He even knows more about cashmere than we do."

Zhang Yiling said.

Before he came into contact with Ordos, he was the designer of the British brand PRINGLE (PRINGLE), a brand of high-end cashmere clothing in Scotland with nearly 200 years of history.

Although Ordos is invulnerable in the study of cashmere weaving and crafts, Du Fuer has more experience in fashion.

"Ordos group plans to invest 700 million yuan in this pformation."

Zhang Yiling said.

With this powerful backing, he finally decided to sign a long-term contract with Du Fu.

"This is the first world-class master to sign a full time contract with Chinese clothing companies."

Zhang Yiling said.

Before that, Chinese clothing companies were accustomed to collaborate with the famous designers or their studios around the world in the form of project.

"I need Du Fu to inject a bright and strong fashion style into Ordos during his term of office and confirm its position for us."

Zhang Yiling recalled that although the fashion sales channels in the shopping mall had just begun to build, but in the internal ordering meeting gathered by national marketing companies, these costumes aroused great enthusiasm for buyers, even the employees inside the company were rushing to buy.

People in the fashion world praised them for their "beauty, elegance, colourful, vibrant and dynamic", "fit to wear", "even the price is fair", just like its advertising model. Now, the face of Liu Wen, the fourteenth of the global supermodels, has the same personality, personality and affinity to people -- all of which outline the image of a new fashion empire which is totally different from the Ordos in the past.

"Ordos is not a luxury, but a popular high-end fashion brand."

"So I know very well that I am actually designing fashion for all the Chinese who are looking for elegance," said Du Fu.

"This is China I see."

At the beginning of the September 2008 meeting in the cafe next to Le Louvre Museum, Zhang Yiling saw not only an inspirational international fashion designer.

"Before that, I have seen many designers," Zhang said. "Many of them have a strong sense of artist self."

On the contrary, Du Fu is an artist with a well-trained professionalism. He is willing to understand the needs of a brand and serve it. - 15 years of living in harmony with Carle's lagrangfeld are very clear about the origin of these qualities.

At the same time, he corroborated Zhang Yiling's view of high fashion: the real international fashion design should be recognized not only by mainstream people, but also by strong practicability.

"It turns out that this is what I admire most in the design of Lao Du," Zhang said. "He can make the mainstream people accept the artistic elements of his design in the simplest way."

For example, Dufour used buttons made of traditional Chinese coloured flannelette found in Panjiayuan, which was stitched in accordance with the color distribution rules of rainbow, and designed the rainbow style button series of the highest order in 2009 autumn and winter in the classic round neck deep cashmere cardigan.

Dufu saw China in Zhang's body.

"My friends from all walks of life in Europe are very excited to learn that I have come to work for Chinese people."

"This is definitely a new adventure. Many Europeans think that China is the future," said Du Fu.

His good friend, French actress Catherine Deneuve (she is Mousika of Yves Saint Laurent Yves Saint Laurent) even chose a flower pattern that he thought suited to the Chinese people. Finally, Du Fu used this pattern in the Ordos flower series.

Du Fu's harvest in China is partly what he expected: when he was getting along with Lagerfeld, the magnesium lamp focused more on the soul of Chanel. - as early as eight and 90s of last century, fashion people's comments on Chanel show show his delicate situation: "under the Lagrangian's classic roll coat, it is a comfortable and cool sweater designed by Du Fu."

This made Du Fu, after leaving Chanel, has been trying to find a platform that can be free to try.

Finally, because of this choice, he also gained extra experience.

In the early years, Lagerfeld was famous for his delicate tension in his own team to manage checks and balances, and Du Fu and his Chinese team gradually established a more intimate and frank relationship.

"Compared with the European designer team, the efforts of Chinese designers are amazing."

Said Du Fu.

When he asked his assistants to help him find the patterns of the broken flowers, they found a dozen kinds of them at once.

This young team is very open, real and natural for all kinds of suggestions. "They are willing to support me and always try not to upset me."

One of the few frustrations of Du Fu's cooperation with Ordos stems from his dispute with Zhang Yiling.

Du Fu found Zhang Yiling in Xidan Zhongyou department store women's clothing counters failed to fully realize his idea of a concept store, which led to his artist's temper.

"This is in itself related to Erdos' construction speed and product design."

Zhang Yiling explained.

When Du Fu is still groping for Chinese consumers' preferences, there are inevitably some structural flaws in his clothing series, such as less trousers and jackets.

From the point of view of sales channels, Erdos needs to jump out of the traditional cashmere counter and find gold pavements in various department stores to open men's wear and women's wear counters.

As a result, Zhang is driving its 116 marketing companies to grow at a rate of 20% stores a year.

After gradually adjusting the design framework, he quickly fulfilled his commitment to open shop in Shanghai.

"Now, the running in period between us and Lao Du has passed."

Zhang said.

Most of the products in his fashion series are in line with Ordos's original idea of positioning itself.

In fact, Chinese consumers are surprised by the acceptance of western fashion elements as Chinese.

"Some clothes that I think are not very suitable for Chinese aesthetics are sold very well."

To some extent, this makes it unnecessary for Du Fu to say that he must be a "Chinese designer" as he said at the beginning, and too much emphasis on Chinese elements in his works.

But like all artists who are good at perceiving beauty, he is still excited about Chinese traditional paintings and embroidery patterns, and uses them in his own design.

He also has a sense of humor to paint Chinese faces in silk scarves and coats of silk designed for Ordos.

"There are Zhang (Yi Ling) in these faces, and my assistants," said Du Fu, "this is China I saw."

"Let the world factory serve Chinese brand"

The inspiration for Du Fu is from the huge cork wall of his office - he will trigger some information and materials on his mind to be fixed on pins with pins.

"I can never guess the logical relationship between these things and the final designed garments."

Zhang Yiling said half jokingly, "maybe this is the difference between an artist and an ordinary person."

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On this wall there are two black and white photographs of Brigitte Bardot (Brigitte Bardot, the French movie star, known as "sexy kitten") in 60s, some of which are tearing down from magazines, a portrait of a cat with only a woman's body and some flower patterns.

There was a time when Lao Du put a picture of a woman wearing a sexy fur coat on top of it. What Zhang Wanwan did not expect was that it eventually inspired the cashmere "structure" series that he launched in the autumn and winter of 2010 - the color stripes that were wanton and vertical on the dark background.

"This is an idea that I can use in the" save the earth "series.

Du Fu pointed to a picture on the wall and explained that he was collecting inspiration for the spring and summer series in 2011.

This picture is clearly taken in an open-air concert or public meeting in Europe: crowds gathered under a big tree -- if not explained, in others' eyes, it is just an insipid magazine insert.

"I don't know what the inspiration of the cat looks like on the wall," Zhang Yiling promised. "But it will definitely appear in some form in the design."

For a year and a half, Du Fu has brought his distinctive design style to the fashion series of Ordos.

Every month, he spent half of his time in the studio of the Ordos building with his team, and returned to Europe for inspiration in the other half.

This is a two-way communication process: every time he comes back to China, he takes out one or two boxes of creative patterns and samples collected from all over the country to promote Ordos to develop the fabric he wants. On the other hand, the original R & D center of Ordos will display every new product in the exhibition hall for him to choose.

"His vision and way of work have benefited the entire company and the team of designers he led in this process."

A Chinese assistant from Du Fu said.

Du Fu's pursuit of perfection and a sense of form are very sensitive to the artist's temperament.

"He asked for flowers and aromatherapy in his office."

The assistant recalled that when he first came, "Lao Du" personally urged other colleagues in the office to organize and clean their positions so as to make the whole environment more beautiful.

At the same time, Du Fu insisted on choosing a fitting model from the beginning to work with himself. This girl with a Chinese style sweet face has become his living model. He will put on every garment he designs and show it to the team members, and then we will discuss and modify it on this basis again and again.

"We finally realized that her own Eastern temperament was the key to remind him to design clothes for Chinese people."

In fact, Zhang Yiling got much more from Du Fu than he turned Ordos into an international creative factory.

Due to its special position in fashion industry and its origins with the major fashion brands, Ordos has obtained a pass to enter the supply chain of the high fashion industry.

In order to ensure the quality of products other than cashmere, such as shirts, Zhang Yiling tried to find the best OEM manufacturers in the world to produce their own OEM. A manufacturer of pure cotton shirts for more than 30 famous brands in the world (such as HUGO BOSS and NAUTICA) generally refused to accept the list of too small output, but Zhang Yiling finally broke the case with her personal brand and the prospect of the Ordos fashion series.

Nowadays, a very small number of evening gowns in the Ordos fashion series are processed in the factories that Chanel makes garments in France.

There are very few ornaments, such as necklace, from the manual workshop of Chanel (Chanel).

"We had a saying," let the world factory serve the Chinese brand. "

Zhang Yiling said.

This slogan is still a dream for him today, because the sales channels related to this fashion series have not yet been completed, and sales volume is not large enough to lead to scale effect. Ordos can not fully leverage all the manufacturers in the international supply chain.

"But" Lao Du "gives us the possibility.