Looking For Market Development -- Fashion Designer: Learning To Think Like CEO

One of Chen Peng's identity is the founder of NC Style, which makes her understand more closely.

But they are different. One of the biggest differences is that most overseas designers will be

As one of the curators of the first original designer's brand exhibition of CHIC-YOUNG BLOOD (CYB), Chen found that the development speed of China's fashion industry was shocking.

Compared to the previous year, changes can only be described as "heaven and earth".

"In fashion circles, people who are rich often do not design feelings. People with design feelings do not have money."

Chen Peng said that such a contradiction, coupled with the rapid development of the fashion industry, prompted designers to no longer be as "high" as they used to be. They must face the topic of "creative trading" which is not an easy topic. In the middle, how to build a brand, how to build a platform and form an "ecosystem" on the upstream and downstream is a big test.

Seeking market expansion

"Entity shop + shop", "studio + Design for big cards", "advanced customization + buyer Shop consignment" are the three ways that Chinese designers have explored and matured.

Born in Changting, Fujian, Shangguan Zhe, who graduated from Xiamen University in 2003, received a double degree in visual communication and advertising. In 2006, he founded SANKUANZ brand in 1984.

He is a practitioner of "entity shop + shop" mode.

In 2007, Shangguan zhe opened his own shop on Taobao. Men's wear and women's wear were updated once a month. Every time they had 20~30 new models, they basically synchronized with the international parity fashion brands.

Although it is a small shop, the service is very intimate. Every garment can be modified according to the requirements of the guests. It only needs to add 20% of the customization fee.

In addition, Shangguan zhe has his own stores in Beijing and Shanghai, and some clothes are sold to special buyer shops.

According to the analysis of the industry, online shops can bring about 70% profit for designers.

Shangguan Zhe is thinking that he can find cooperative partners and expand sales channels.

Gao Yang took the route of "studio + Design for big cards".

He used to be a star stylist, and later pformed into a studio. Customers came from friends. Eason Chan, Kevin Tsai, Li Bingbing, Fan Bingbing and other stars were his regular customers. The custom-made clothes could be picked up on 7~15 days.

By selling in a buyer's shop, he made 500 thousand in the first year.

His other source of profit is the design of big brands, jewelry, shoes and so on.

Gao Yang is very clear that next is to let the public wear their own design clothes, is the real goal.

But big market needs investment. He admits that many real estate developers and coal bosses have found themselves and hope to cooperate. Unfortunately, their pursuit of profit is too urgent. Gao Yang is still looking for it.

Compared with Gao Yang, Liu Lu's approach is more thorough. She adopts the way of "advanced customization + buyer's shop consignment" to complete the "creative paction".

Liu Lu went to Europe to study at the age of 16. In May 2006, she graduated from the world-famous Parsons School of Design (Parson School of design). Her seniors include world-renowned designers, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Jason Wu, Alexander Alexander and so on.

Liu Lu's graduation design works were selected as the best design award of the year. After graduation, Liu Lu helped GK Reid, a famous American stylist, collaborated with many Hollywood stars including Puff Diddy, Nelly Furtado, Rihanna and so on.

This gave her the experience of developing the mode of "advanced customization + buyer Shop consignment".

In 2007, when Liu Lu returned to China, he launched his own Lu Liu and Luvon by Lu Liu. She jumped to be the best designer in China.

In addition to selling to a buyer's shop, Liu Lu plans to pull his brand to a shopping mall next year. He is now negotiating with a VC company. If successful, he plans to open three outlets in Beijing and Shanghai.

A headache for her is that China does not make high-quality products, but can only go to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to find factories and pick up some people for processing.

However, Liu Lu is optimistic that with the increasing number of Chinese designer brands, the whole industry chain will become more mature and there will be a matching processing plant.

For designers unable to find the appropriate processing plants, Wang Jingchuan, an Exhibition Department of the China clothing association, analyzed that "foreign countries attach importance to handicraft industry, and so on, and there will be more domestic demand, so there will also be a processing factory specially designed for the original designer brand."

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Watch out for scale

"The more shops you open, the more money you make?" many designers are thinking about the expansion of the channel. But Wang Jingchuan warned that in China's retail business, it is necessary to change the view that more stores have been made before making money.

Wang Jingchuan analysis, "domestic shopping centres for brand buckles, high rent limits the development of designer brand, this mode is very deformed, shopping malls do not do a brand, just maximize the interests."

In contrast, shopping malls and individual stores in foreign countries are buyers. The main purpose is to design designers and brands.

This enables the two sides to achieve a win-win situation.

For example, in Japan, the buyer shop has been developing for more than 20 years, and there are already thousands of buyer shops.

These stores are for the masses, buying and selling them every season, and buying stores in China have only begun to attract attention in the past 2 years. There are no more than 10 brands of buyers such as SEVENDAYS, Lian koff and I.T stores.

Can designers rely on the existing buyers' stores? Chen says that domestic buyers are basically thankless. They are opening their shops with their ideals. The main goal is not to earn money.

Many investors set up shop in order to give designers a pitional space. Precisely because of this positioning, the development of the buyer's shop has entered a more embarrassing situation - only the path of personality development.

Domestic designers are also increasingly having their own market space. The most important thing is that they are more and more recognized in the market.

For example, Chen Peng observed that after 20 years of development of China's clothing industry, it suddenly began to realize that brand image is very important. Therefore, Chinese clothing brands have invited foreign designers, but such people do not understand the domestic market, and the domestic enterprises that have run into difficulties have begun to look for Chinese designers, especially those who understand China and understand foreign markets.

"This phenomenon is the last 2 years, and in the early years, there is no one who can use it."

Chen Peng said.

"To encourage venture capital to enter this market and help these" micro enterprises "develop, we should also pay attention to the fact that investors generally value material investments. In fact, human resources are the first resource and the most need for investment.

Du Yuzhou, President of the China Textile Industry Association, said, "buyers are better than bankers. They see and invest in this market."

Chen said that the most important thing for domestic designers is to make achievements in a relatively short time and stabilize brand value. What's more important is to establish a professional team.

Make a brand like a real CEO.

DRILL, founder of the Yellow River, founded the brand since Hongkong returned to Shanghai.

The Yellow River believes that the menswear brands in the mainland are either expensive or cheap, the market is not fragmented, and there is a lack of an intermediate layer to separate the bosses and employees from the brand class. This is exactly what he wants to do now.

The Yellow River said that the Japanese clothing market has been very mature, most of the world's clothing brands are found in Japan, and clothing from 10 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan can be found.

By comparison, domestic choice seems to be the same.

When the market needs to be fragmented, the emergence of designer brand can satisfy diversified needs.

Because of this analysis, he started the Japanese designer team last year.

This is just one of the ways to make a brand.

The other is control over pricing power.

Zhang Di, the chief representative of Asia's Self Esteem Clothing and chief executive officer of the production and import and export department, later established her own fashion and cashmere brand NON.SEASON, and considered that a very important problem in the clothing industry is to learn to look at the cost and make pricing.

For example, one phenomenon is that domestic consumers want a year-round discount, because the price of the entire clothing market is too high, and the brand discount will even be as high as one to eighty percent off.

In foreign countries, there are only two fixed discount seasons, and the price is not so "empty". In Japan, the highest discount is five to twenty percent off.

Zhang Di pointed out that the price of clothing from production to wholesale to retail and advertising has doubled 4 times, and some domestic brands have even doubled one hundred times.

"Bubble is too big, sooner or later will fall."

According to Zhang Di's comparative analysis, the long standing brands in the world are steadfast and do little tricks. "These are designer brands that need attention and learning."

He also pointed out that many designers are more like artists. They do not know how to calculate the cost of the whole design and production process of clothing, but they do not know how to calculate the cost. "Europe has spent 50 years doing homework. China has only completed it in 5 years, skipping a lot of normal development links. The foundation is hard to play and lacks stability."

Zhang Di concluded.