Italian Top-Level Customization To Explore China'S Route

This is a weekend evening. The luxury hotel in Sanlitun bar street in Beijing is shrouded in a sunset glow, and the plucent and wide green glass is outside.

Gu e NIC (dressed in dark blue)

ThierryLeGu e NIC (Thierry Genik) global CEO of the world's top custom menswear brand Smalto (SMART).

"Three in one"

After finishing the photo, Gu e NIC, the Frenchman came to the table and sat down. He asked the waiter for an American brand of iced cola and began to talk about the world's top brand Smalto, which originated in Italy.

FrancescoSmalto, the founder of the brand, was born in Italy, and was the first child stage drama at the age of 11.

In early years he studied tailoring in a public institution and later worked for his tailor's uncle.

Around 15 years old, FrancescoSmalto came to Paris to work for Christiani, and later worked with Camps, the chief designer of Paris.

Since then, FrancescoSmalto has been working in the studio of Harris, the private tailor of Kennedy, President of New York. During this period, he was deeply attracted by the comfortable tailoring style of American suits, and after the end of his internship, he began to create his own brand.

In 1956, French Prime Minister FrancoisMiterrand wore gray in FrancescoSmalto design.

The success of Smalto can be regarded as a highly internationalized "three in one" model. The design elements of Italy, France and the United States are the most popular luxury goods in the world. Italy's classic plates, exquisite tailoring and high-end fabrics, France's nobility, elegance and romance, the American upstart fashion, comfort and fashion creativity create a multi-dimensional high-end brand together.

This "three in one" design style has also been embodied in product structure in recent years.

Gu e NIC introduced, in order to expand the international market and brand influence, once focused on the Smalto brand of top tailored men's wear. Now there are three product lines, the first is the traditional high-end customization, the most powerful and influential star groups. They have strong economic strength, and want to make themselves outstanding, including those special customers. Second, the senior clothing, the product price and the service target are the fashionable white-collar and the upstart who are fashionable and classic, and the taste is unique and confident. Third is the classic urban casual wear, unique fashion, elegant and casual, and customers are positioned in the young, dynamic, self-confident and confident life, and the social status is on the rise stage.

Brand password

Advanced, top-level, extravagant...

Behind these dazzling adjectives, what is the successful password of the Smalto brand?

Gu e NIC told reporters: "you can quickly distinguish Smalto's clothing from other brands, even if you only see the back of it: tall, unique Smalto shoulder clipping; shallow and big armhole; third buttons are aligned with the pockets of the edges; special dress trim; Milan style button holes...

No matter from any distance or angle, Smalto's clothes will not be flawed.

All the trimming steps follow the exact calculation, which is why Smalto's clothing looks elegant and smooth.

Of course, beyond this visual perception, Smalto's core competitiveness is the kind of software and hardware that is hard to replicate. So far, Smalto is the only French menswear brand with the top 60 French tailors, and is committed to the complete advanced menswear product line.

Gu e NIC proudly said: "the real advanced tailor made men's wear is only Smalto's.

Smalto never uses adhesive linings, and only uses horsetail liners. The output of the latter is limited, so Smalto can be restored to its original form even if it is caught in the rain.

For those genuine handmade garments, customers should try them on for three times at a price of at least 60 thousand euros.

For customers who can't go to headquarters, 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.

It takes at least 70 hours to make such a Smalto garment, and 40 patents are needed to use Smalto's patented technology.

Each tailor has at least 10 years of experience. It takes 6 weeks for a suit to be customized and shipped.

In Smalto, since 1962, all the guest's plate and numbering data have been kept so far. The files are kept secret, and even the workers can't see the customers' names.

People who have been to Smalto studios will see that the labels on clothes are only short and not full. Customer names and identities are Smalto's "secrets that can not be said".

In addition, in order to continuously improve the cutting process and find better cloth, Smalto has never stopped looking for new techniques and new fabrics.

Every season, Smalto will ask the best British cloth manufacturers in the world to make some new attempts, such as blending the sable hair and silver fox hair, mixing orchid or jasmine fiber in cashmere, or adding silver bars, gold bars or diamond vermicelli.

In the Smalto advanced custom workshop, there are 2000 exclusive fabrics for customers to choose from.

China Road Map

Not long ago, global prestigious consulting management company McKinsey reported that luxury sales in China had reached US $12 billion in 2010, and sales of luxury goods in China will reach US $27 billion in 2015. China will surpass Japan to become the world's largest luxury market.

For the huge Chinese market, global luxury giants are planning to accelerate expansion.

In 2005, LouisVuitton set up stores in only 10 cities in China, but today it has opened 36 stores in 29 cities, and Gucci is faster. In early 2006, there were only 6 stores in China. Today, 39 stores have been established. In addition, Hermes has also increased from 5 stores in 2005 to 20 times today, an increase of 4 times.

Obviously, Smalto is not willing to miss the Chinese luxury market feast.

As Smalto's current global CEO, Gu e NIC came to Beijing in March, directly involved in the deployment of the Chinese market "roadmap".

According to Gu e NIC, 3 years ago, through cooperation with Shanshan Group, Smalto has 20 stores in China and plans to increase the number of stores to 50 in the next 3-5 years.

This year, we plan to open 4 flagship stores in four cities in the first tier, of which Beijing Xinguang world flagship store will open in September.

In the two or three tier city, Smalto will also set up a standard store.

Smalto's Chinese product positioning is three pronged approach.

Top top customization, advanced garments and fashion casual wear are respectively subdivided into Smalto, Smalto garments and Smaltoby.

Among them, the flagship stores in the first tier cities mainly sell advanced garments, and the standard stores in the two or three line cities mainly sell Smaltoby.

For the top tailor men's clothing, the Chinese market is still in the exploratory stage.

Because such top hand made products, the annual supply of Smalto is only 600 sets, and currently there are nearly 300 sales outlets around the world.

But Gu e NIC said that in October this year, China will launch a Smalto customized tour.

The tailor of the French head office came to China to tailor the clothes for the customers. Then he brought the size back to Paris and made the semi finished products. After 4 weeks, he returned to China to make customers try it on, modify it, and then go back to Paris for further processing, at least another 3 weeks.

Finally, Gu e NIC is also pleased to introduce that Smalto's sales in the global market increased by 20% last year, of which China's sales accounted for 10%, while this autumn and winter ordering volume was 3 times higher than that of last year, and that of advanced customization was 20% higher than that of last year.

In the future, Smalto will develop products that are more suitable for China. Because the Chinese market is too big and the sizes of customers in the north and South are different, the company is already considering how to solve this problem. This time, China has also focused on this issue.

Collar

Stick to natural fabrics to maintain comfort and flexibility.

Sew 21 stitches every 1 inches.

The light and removable collar is erect to make the collar perfect.

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N details of a Smalto shirt

Cuff

All cuffs are sewn by hand.

Armhole

The armhole is all hand sewn and pressed, making the wearer comfortable in daily operations.

Buttonhole

All buttonholes are hand sewn with two spare buttons.

Fixed button

In order to strengthen the combination of two pieces of fabric and play a role in beautification, Smalto specially designed the fixed button for hand sewing.