Smalto Combines French Elegance With Chinese Demand.

On the afternoon of a weekend in March, in a cafe in Sanlitun, Beijing, Yi Guanchuchu, a tall, thin French man, spoke with great interest. He is Smalto Brand global Mr. CEOThierryLeGuenic. Smalto just now. Paris Fashion Week The brand exclusive show was held by the French High Fashion Association. Menswear advanced custom brand Attracted the attention of Chinese media.

The story was full of passion at the very beginning.

French brand stories always attract attention, and so do Smalto. Mr. FrancescoSmalto, the founder of the brand, was born in Italy. At the age of 11, he first designed clothes for a children's stage drama and began his miraculous design career. During his internship with Mr. Kennedy's private tailor Mr. Harris's studio, he was deeply attracted by the comfortable tailoring style of American suits. After the end of his internship, in 1962, a clothing brand that belonged to men was born.

At this point, Mr. Smalto has been familiar with the image of men's clothing. He must fit himself and decide to design exquisite clothes without any trivial details. To satisfy the new generation of men's need for maturity and comfort, he used a smooth shoulder design and thin fabric to design a more comfortable and Latin style menswear.

In 1993, after the 30th anniversary celebration of FrancescoSmalto, FrankBoclet was invited to join Smalto as the artistic director of the clothing department. In 2001, luxury group AllianceDesigners acquired Smalto, while Mr. FrancescoSmalto still supervised the Smalto custom line and Paris workshop in person. Smalto brand has been recognized as one of the best designer brands. Its high-end international clientele includes national leaders, famous statesmen and stars, such as the French national football team, a superstar, etc. it also provides costumes for many famous films.

Nowadays, Smalto is the first choice for the French to graduate and get married. Because of its development of teenage dresses, it is also a brand of "father and son wear together". Mr. ThierryLeGuenic recalls that the dress he wore on graduation was not a Smalto brand, but the dark blue beautiful cuff button was exactly the Smalto brand. Grace means "right dressing at the right time," he said. This is the purpose of Smalto brand.

One recognizes: This is top-level tailor-made.

What is the original taste of advanced customization? Mr. ThierryLeGuenic said that under the premise of technological innovation, Smalto retained the essence of traditional handmade customization. Each set of Smalto custom tailored clothing takes 70 hours and uses Smalto's patented technology. After measuring the size of the customer, the sample is first laid out on the canvas and then balanced with the needle.

The craft of Smalto is so exquisite that it can even accurately tailor clothes made by customers even if it needs to be measured only once. For customers who can not travel, Smalto will send a complete team to measure the customers in any corner of the world, and then bring the data back to Paris for sewing. In the workshop of Smalto Paris, there are 40 tailor assistants and technicians, each of whom has more than ten years of operation experience. From testing to fitting and modifying, a set of custom garments will take 2-3 months. {page_break}

In order to constantly improve the cutting process and find better cloth, Mr. FrancescoSmalto has never stopped searching for new techniques and new fabrics. Every season, Smalto will ask the best British cloth manufacturers in the world to make some new attempts. For example, blend the sable hair and silver fox hair, mix orchid or jasmine fiber in cashmere, or add silver bars, gold bars or diamond vermicelli. In the Smalto advanced custom workshop, there are 2000 exclusive fabrics for customers to choose from.

Mr. ThierryLeGuenic said that Smalto is famous for its manual sewing characteristics: "you can quickly distinguish Smalto's clothing, and recognize at first glance that this is top-level tailor-made. Even if you only see the back of it: tall and unique Smalto shoulder clipping; shallow and big armhole; third buttons are aligned with pocket welt; special dress trim; Milan style button holes. No matter from any distance and angle, there is no exception to Smalto's clothes. All the trimming steps follow the exact calculation, which is why Smalto's clothing looks elegant and smooth.

China: a promising place

When he arrived in China, Mr. ThierryLeGuenic visited many places in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing. Through this business visit, his impression of the Chinese market almost completely changed, and the direct response was to increase investment and speed up the development. Specific measures include: forming a special team in Paris before the end of March to support China's market demand. In September, it opened the first flagship store in Beijing Xinguang world, and opened second flagship stores in Shenzhen in October at the end of the "advanced customization Tour" in China, and opened 50 stores in the Chinese market in 3 to 5 years. China's strength as the world's second largest economy has made him deeply hope that Smalto can benefit from this.

Indeed, Smalto brands are united. Shanshan Group China has entered the Chinese market for 3 years, and the result is satisfactory. The Chinese market has accounted for 10% of its sales and has great potential. Mr. ThierryLeGuenic hoped that the two sides would make greater efforts to achieve a qualitative leap in China's market sales.

Smalto has multiple product lines: high customization line, high star group or very influential star group; high customization supplement line, aiming at strong economic strength, hoping to make outstanding or special customers; advanced clothing, tailored garments, for the pursuit of fashion and classic image, savoring unique and confident customers; classic urban leisure series positioning is unique fashion, elegant and casual, aimed at young and dynamic, social status is in the rising stage of business people.

At present, Smalto has more than 300 garment sales outlets around the world, including 4 direct outlets (2 in Paris, one in Geneva and one in the NYC), 7 in franchises (Moscow, Budapest, Macao, Morocco, etc.) and 40 department stores (13 in France, 20 in Asia, and 7 in the US).

The Smalto brand's China market strategy will be multiple product lines. Among them, the second line product SmaltoBy includes leisure and sports series, the target group is 30~40 year old young upstart.

In the eyes of Mr. ThierryLeGuenic, combining French elegance with China's needs, Smalto brand will have boundless prospects in China.