Hong Huang: The Godmother Of Chinese Designers

Although the number of women in China's media circles is known as "China's Oprah", Hong Huang may be one of the most worthy.

Hong Huang, chief executive of the Chinese interactive media group, runs a fashion magazine, hosts a number of TV talk shows, plays a movie, and writes three books, her personal blog has about 112 million hits, and micro-blog has about 832 thousand fans.

Now, she wants to sell clothes again.

She believes that the growing wealth and upgrading of Chinese consumers will help foster their own Cartire (Cartier) or Louis Weedon (Louis Vuitton), so she will invest in her own pocket and use her celebrity influence to promote local brands.

In August 15th, Hong Huang displayed and sold the concept store "Brand New China" (BNC New), a Chinese designer's shop, in Beijing's fashionable shopping mall.

Its upstairs neighbors have Armani, Armani, and Versace (Versace).

The 540 square meter boutique will sell more than 100 Chinese designers, from costumes, accessories to furniture.

Many of her designers have introduced her magazine iLook world city.

For Hong Huang, when these designers are bigger and stronger someday, they may advertise in her magazine to make her company make money.

At present, the advertising revenue generated by local brands is less than 5% of iLook's total revenue.

The magazine has a circulation of fifty thousand copies, priced at 50 yuan (7.46 US dollars) per issue.

Simon Wang, a designer who once studied in the UK, said that other fashion magazines were just publications. They were the onlookers' posture. Hong Huang was different, and she was actively involved in it. Wang Qingfeng,

Simon Wang's women's wear series is available at BNC.

After failing to open shop in Shanghai, he has been looking for retail opportunities in China.

The investor of BNC is China interactive media group, Hong Huang and several of her friends, including Zhang Yonghe, director of the Department of architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Hong Huang's shop was designed by him, and his men's wear series made its debut on the BNC trial day.

The success of this business strategy is uncertain.

Hong Huang, who has a wide range of interests and interests, has been involved in many fields of business and media, and her projects have not been successful.

During the burst of the Internet bubble, she cut most of the employees of a Internet Co.

Because she did not make money, she had to suspend the Chinese youth version of Seventeen, the Chinese version of teenage fashion magazine, Seventeen.

However, for many Chinese people, Hong Huang's personal experience, family background and humorous style of writing are very attractive.

From her blog, readers can get a glimpse of the life of Chinese privileged people.

Hong Huang, 49, has been an avant-garde figure in China.

Her late mother was Mao Zedong's English plator and teacher, and her late stepfather was China's foreign minister in the 70s of last century.

During the cultural revolution, Hong Huang, 12, took part in a government project to train future diplomats. She was sent to Little Red School House school in New York to implement the progressive education law.

In 1984, she received a degree in political science from Vassar College, and then worked in Kamsky Associates (Inc.), an American consulting firm. Gan Weizhen,

In 1986, when she was 25 years old, she became the chief representative of Metallgesellschaft AG China, the German enterprise group. Her annual salary was $75 thousand, while most Chinese people were earning only a drop in the bucket.

Hong Huang, who claimed to like the T-shirt and the senior women's dress, had been married three times. The first husband was an American lawyer, the second was a Chinese director, and the third was a French diplomat.

She now lives in the suburbs of Beijing with her interior designer boyfriend and a foster daughter.

In 1996, Hong Huang joined an investment consulting firm in Beijing, the standard international Cci Capital Ltd, and is still a company partner.

The company is one of the backstage of China interactive media group.

China interactive media group is the issuer of iLook.

Hong Huang claims that the relationship between her company and Chinese designers is "weak and weak alliance".

Unlike the Chinese version of Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan, iLook does not have a long history of global authorized content or cooperation with luxury brands.

Similarly, designers are creative young people, but lack of capital and experience in building businesses and brands.

She said: they eat meat, and we drink soup.

But there may be plenty of meat in the soup.

A report by Bain Company, a consultancy, predicts that China's luxury market will grow by 15% in 2010, leading the global market.

Fashion brands such as Chanel (Chanel) began to use more Chinese models in fashion shows.

Chinese model Liu Wen became the first Asian face to endorse Estee Lauder (Estee Lauder) earlier this year.

Many people think that the time is ripe for China to have its own Lssey Miyake (Issey Miyake) and Wakubo Rei (Rei Kawakubo).

About five years ago, after seeing Wang Yiyang's fashion design, Hong Huang began to be fascinated by Chinese designers.

Wang Yiyang's fashion brand "tea jar" has adopted simple 70s elements, such as a white enamelled cylinder with blue thin edges, and a handbag with the words "Shanghai" or "Beijing".

Hong Huang recalled in the editor's note of the Chinese designer special issue of iLook in March this year, "I am so moved by the fact that designers can bring our clothes into the twenty-first Century when we were young."

She decided to turn iLook into a magazine focusing on Chinese design.

After feeling that magazines could not do much more than propaganda, she decided to set up shop to help designers sell their works.

Wang Yiyang, the designer of the "tea cup" series, will open a shop beside BNC, which will play his other brand name (ZucZug).

According to his business partners, this is encouraged and recommended by Hong Huang.

Several Chinese designers will also open shops in the same shopping center.

Unlike Oprah, Hong Huang said she didn't want to borrow a magazine or open a store to become a big businessman.

She said it was possible that the first round of investment was made by her, but the last person who picked the fruit was not her.

This is not impossible.

And if big companies with bigger capital find profitable models, they can easily follow suit.

In the future, even if these designers have more advertising budgets, they may choose to advertise in more famous Western magazines than iLook.

Hong Huang is not worried about this.

She does these things for money and for fun.

Just like the title of her book, this is just another stage of her "aimless and beautiful life".