Where Is The Future Of Advanced Customization?

As for advanced customization, it is a debate about life and death. It is like an endless cycle, and has not been able to reach a conclusion for many years. Paris Advanced customization Clothing week It also goes on every year. In the face of media queries and limitations of the system, it is the courage to follow the old rules, the rules, or to create a surprise.

Advanced customization, literally, refers to clothing specially tailored for customers, usually high quality and expensive. Fabric It is famous for the perfect detail and the time and time. But today's advanced custom fashion week is more demanding. There are three rigid requirements to be attended to. First, it is necessary to provide customized designs for private customers and provide one or more fitting services. Second, it is necessary to set up a studio in Paris and employ at least 15 full-time employees; third, each season needs to show at least 35 sets of daily wear and evening design series to the Paris Media Exhibition. This is a revised version in 1992, and the initial requirement in 1945 was more severe. Up to now, only 23 designer brands have been able to meet the criteria, including 11 full members, 4 foreign members and 8 invited exhibitors.

Of these 23 designer brands, there are only two ways, or else they belong to the international brand. brand Maintain business with the income of other businesses; otherwise, remain mysterious and low-key, open for a small number of people, and do not expose too much. As long as the financial resource is allowed, the advanced customization will surely be longevity and sky, and never fall, because the advanced customization is the highest end of the brand extension, that is, the flagship product. As long as this piece is beautifully made, the brand image is naturally superior to others, and the selling of things is also full of confidence. And the best show of customization is not to sell these works of art nearly, but to enhance brand associations and brand image, and ultimately promote the sale of products at the bottom of the brand extension.

The latter is actually the main body of the whole advanced custom week. In addition to Chanel, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani and Valentino, these are hardly known low-key brands. For them, providing customers with the unique design and meticulous customization service is a key way to survive. Like Anne Valerie Hash and Stephane Rolland are native French, they finish their studies and engage in advanced customization, and have established a certain reputation in the industry. Designers who have their own doors will have good prospects as long as they satisfy their customers' fastidious demands. Azzedine Alaia, a Tunisian designer, returned to the show after eight years. Mr. Alaia started making public opinion in the weeks before she opened the show. She rejected the design invitation of Dior, and taunted Karl Lagerfeld, who is also well versed in the fashion circle rules, and Anna Wintour, editor in chief of the American version of Vogue. She vowed to create a great independent designer's image and break away from the commercialized operation mode. Sure enough, after the advent of advanced custom works, the voice of praise is piled on the monument built by Alaia. But if you look at it carefully, besides the last few signature knitted dresses are amazing, the front series of everyday clothes that are full of bright crocodile skin and Mongolia hair are very shameful. But on the whole, the return of Azzedine Alaia can also be seen as a rebound in the small business model.

The two advanced ways of life have their merits, and the most taboo is to swaying between the two modes. Christian Lacroix has been planted in such a large scale of operation and swing of brand positioning. Of course, besides commercial value, the most commendable value of advanced customization is its artistic value. Artists often criticize that fashion is not advanced art, because fashion has a lot of duplication and is hard to preserve. However, advanced customization is as close to advanced art as possible, such as controlling output at high price and ensuring its scarcity. Chanel's five art workshop is to make clothes as artwork, and it is beautiful and dazzling. {page_break}

　 Challenge to advanced customization campaign

The general clothing only plays the role of covering and distinguishing, all of which highlight personality and values. Advanced customization has brought the ability of human imagination and expression to the extreme. This season, Givenchy and Valentino have handled extremely complex processes with a very soft touch. We can see that there is a common feature of advanced customization, which is to pursue extreme alienation, so that you do not look like people. Iris Van Herpen, a female designer in Holland who was invited to participate in the advanced fashion week, went far. Her design was basically out of the category of clothes, more like a man-made device. The white skull show presented by Liu Wen not only displays superb creativity and technology, but also challenges the definition of advanced customization. Is it necessary to have an everlasting face for advanced customization? The popular AlexisMabille is the theme of the new series of animals: the ant's skirt is a black crepe skirt showing both sides of the thighs. The wolf's skirt is decorated with a row of Swarovski spines on both arms, while the skirt of the "horse" has a silk fringe on the side of the chest. These skirts have the French version of "Vogue" style sexy, the problem is most familiar. Another French Bouchra Jarrar has been a Nicolas Ghesquiere assistant for 10 years. She knows how to deal with men's fabric, and knows how to wrap a coat on her face. Is it important for her unusually simple work to be uniform or clothing?

If it is to be serious, many of the remaining 23 designers have lost the qualification to be called advanced customization. Givenchy began a few years ago, showing less than 35 pieces per season, compared with 10 look this year. In addition, the Dior season is also very controversial, because the whole series is done by Dior workshops, not by designers. The addition of Iris Van Herpen directly challenges people's cognition of advanced customization. The material used may not be cloth at all, and the production time is much shorter by means of industrialization. Customers who buy it for collection purposes may be far more likely to wear it.

So we have such a problem. Is it appropriate to use the rules of 20 years ago as the yardstick of today's rapidly developing fashion industry? Although the advanced custom fashion emphasizes the complex fashion technology and respect for the historical and cultural values, at the present time, allowing new materials, new technology and even new operation mode to enter the field of advanced customization will not only cause serious negative effects on the existing brands, but also promote the development of the advanced customization industry. As a high-end customization industry, the focus should be on whether it has far-reaching artistic value and realistic commercial value, not whether it violates rules or not. All things, if the past rules are dogmatic, self complacent and stagnant, will inevitably be eliminated by the times. Moreover, this fundamentally violates the spirit of fashion changing. And today's reality is the same. Absorbing more members, introducing competition mechanism, allowing diversity to exist together, benefiting not only consumers, but also the whole advanced customization industry itself.