The Rise Of "Chinese Power" In The Fashion Industry Requires Both Art And Market

For a long time, Chinese celebrities have appeared in public, often with Clothes & Accessories Be proud. Recently, Peng Liyuan wore Chinese clothes designer Of clothing The images appearing in various public occasions have attracted great acclaim from all walks of life, and Chinese designer brands have also attracted unprecedented attention. After the "exception" became popular, the high-level customization led by Marco, the designer behind the scenes, became more and more popular. The strong rise of Chinese local brands also made the world see the power of Chinese designers.

"We will, as always, be committed to the support and promotion of domestic original brands and local designers, and provide more support for the development of China's own brands with practical actions." Xi Shiping, Secretary General of the Shanghai Fashion Week Organizing Committee, revealed the determination of local brands.

From April 10 to 16, 2013 Shanghai Fashion Week will show 800 shows in Taiping Lake Park of Shanghai Xintiandi and Shanghai Jing'an, bringing 35 colorful latest autumn and winter fashion trends.

At that time, Guo Pei, a designer who was once famous in China's clothing industry, accidentally made a customized one for actor Bao Rong clothes , opened her dream of "high definition". Sixteen years ago, she founded Beijing Rose Square Fashion Co., Ltd., and since then, she has devoted herself to high-end customization and designed dresses for many stars and various parties. Therefore, she is known as "the first person in China to customize evening dresses". Later, a number of well-known designers and their original brands appeared in China, such as Xie Feng's Jifen, Wang Yutao's BeautyBerry, Liu Wei's Rose Daiwei

　　 "The reason why they are relatively ahead is that they have entered the industry in their early years, have long adhered to their enthusiasm for fashion design, have many years of experience in garment design and production, and are in line with international fashion design trends and release times. They understand that fashion design needs to have retail commercial value and complete and correct brand positioning. Last but not least, designers have their own loyal customer base, This is their courage and significance to continue. " Talking about the past and present life of Chinese local design brands, Nicole Zhang (Zhang Xu), a well-known emerging designer in China, told the reporter of the Daily Economic News.

"Ten minutes on stage, ten years off stage" is suitable for the current fashion industry. These excellent local designers have long been eager to try, and what they are waiting for may be the "popular" opportunity like Marco, who has sharpened his sword for ten years.

　　 Self style is king

Zhang Xu, who graduated from the Fashion Department of Shanghai Donghua LaSalle International Design Institute (now Raffles Design Institute), followed a completely different design path from other students in the Fashion Design Department: after the graduation show, he was employed by LVMH Luxury Group as the visual director of Dior Perfume Department in China. In 2004, Zhang Xu, who decided to leave Dior to set up his own design studio, was invited back by Dior's senior customization executives to serve as their vision director in China. Until the beginning of 2011, she finally left the position of visual manager in Prada/MiuMiu for more than two years, and really said goodbye to the luxury visual art industry that accompanied her for ten years of youth and ups and downs, and finally established Nicole Zhang Fashion Design Studio named after her English name.

Zhang Xu has a group of like-minded supporters in the circle. "Some of them are my friends, some are my predecessors, and some are my customers." Just last year at Shanghai Fashion Week, Zhang Xu held her first ready to wear conference.

"Now many guests and friends will make an appointment to come to the studio to see me first. They are friends and colleagues in the luxury industry before, and also include some independent urban women friends with great taste and personality. For example, they are engaged in design art and related industries, so they know what they want and what is suitable." Speaking of the characteristics of local brand customer groups, Zhang Xu told the Daily Economic News that "basically, customers and I are talking about how to wear the clothes I design out of their style, or make some minor adjustments in the details of the pattern".

Zhang Xu believes that personalization is the biggest feature that distinguishes local designer brands from other fashion brands. So, at NICOLEZHANG's ready to wear conference in spring and summer of 2013, we found that she abandoned those "dressing classics" that are afraid of making mistakes: meticulous perfection from beginning to end will lose interest and boldness. For example, a bright red windbreaker does not need to be supplemented by impeccable makeup, hairstyle and pointed thin heels. On the contrary, bright red lips, lazy hair and flat bottoms shoes It can also let people taste the elegance and sexiness of women.

This "self" is also vividly displayed in the works of Lavie Jicheng, one of the most famous independent designer brands in China.

He studied in Italy's MARROGONNI Fashion Design School, and successively worked in BasicKrizia, MissoniSport, and the Italian women's wear brand "D'A". In 2002, he founded the brand Lavie Jicheng, seeking to integrate Chinese elements with Western tailoring and the rare oriental humor style. It is totally different from some foreign designs that combine Chinese elements. The Chinese elements in Ji Cheng's works are innate. Ji Chengshan is good at interpreting China in destructive ways, such as using lines and piping to create patterns; Cut the whole phoenix pattern and put it together in every corner of the clothes; Use tassels to symbolize the mustache in Beijing Opera, or use plain satin to make detailed military coats

Up to now, Ji Cheng has launched her new season works in London Fashion Week for three consecutive seasons, and 26 sets of "Fish Talk" series costumes on the release show are displayed in Showroom of London Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week at the same time. At last year's Shanghai Fashion Week, Lavieby JiCheng's Spring/Summer 2013 high-end ready to wear "Tea Classic" series of clothes, as the final show, were also presented at Xintiandi Show.

Looking at Ji Cheng's works, or inspired by the 1970s, using the five pointed stars, small red flowers, bows, bright red and green, peonies in full bloom and other elements left in memory to create a unique sexy, or drawing on the primitive colors and weaving elements of Chinese tea culture, No wonder she said: "Costumes are works of art that can be collected. Made in China is definitely not CHEAP."

When asked why they cooperate with more and more commercial brands, The designer who has gained a good reputation in the circle showed her free and easy master Fan Er: "I feel good. I will have my own choice. In cooperation with commercial brands, I myself appear as' I ', rather than' acting 'as a person, or' acting 'as a designer. When doing design, I have to admit my own style."

　　{page_break}

　　 Want art and market

"I always think that the development of the brand should be stable first, and then open multi brand stores after forming a certain concept in people's minds." Speaking of the development of the brand, Ji Cheng said that LaVie currently has three stores in Shanghai, namely Taikang Road, Changle Road and Xintiandi. Beijing and Hangzhou are the form of designer multi brand stores. With the gradual stability of the brand, the next thing you must consider is to start expanding little by little. However, even for the designer brands that have become little famous in China, Ji Cheng also admitted that from the establishment of the brand to the present, the consumer group is still relatively more occupied by foreigners.

Since it is always easy for Chinese independent designers to treat design as art, how to open the market is a problem that many local brands will and must solve.

Li Hongyan, who often talks about customers, may bring many inspirations. She and Zhang Xutong are "undergraduates" who graduated from the LaSalle School of International Design, Donghua University, and have won several international and domestic awards. In 2003, Li Hongyan founded the brand "InSH" (InShanghai), which uses modern techniques to express the busy and noisy metropolis, creating a brand new impression of Shanghai and surpassing people's old school perception of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 2007, a client of Li Hongyan told her: "It's really impossible for us to wear Insh jeans and T-shirts when we attend events, dinners or the company's shareholders' meetings." So she founded the high-end brand LiHongYan, which can be both customized and sold ready to wear clothes. In 2009, LiHongYan changed its name to "Helenlee". "It is difficult for foreign guests to call my Chinese name, so they decided to change it for the long-term consideration of the brand," she said.

Li Hongyan has a high reputation in Shanghai. "Helenlee" on Fumin Road often has tourists with "guide" to follow the plan. These years, she was in Shanghai

The guest of Zhuang Zhoutie said, "Over the years, I have gradually accumulated customers, including foreign buyers. I will

Invite buyers to attend the launch of Fashion Week. Since 2010, this interaction has been particularly benign. Sometimes they order thousands of ready to wear clothes at a time. " Li Hongyan revealed.

Like many local designers in Shanghai, Li Hongyan's guests were mostly foreigners. "At the beginning, I couldn't win over local mass consumers," she said bluntly. "At the same price, domestic consumers prefer to buy foreign luxury brands."

For a long time, price has been the key to the market opening of local designer brands. Because the scale is too small to mass produce, the price of designer brands has remained high.

"In fact, we have always been trying to control costs. A winter coat only sells for 2000~3000 yuan, but I know some people are willing to spend 2000 yuan to buy a counterfeit luxury goods, because they can't understand what we are doing." Li Hongyan said the embarrassing situation of local clothing design brands in the commercial market.

However, UmaWang, founded by Wang Jue, seems to have opened a new path.

In 2005, Wang Jui registered the brand in London, but it didn't achieve much at the beginning. "Maybe it's because our products are too single and only make knitwear. At that time, our products were sold in 11 stores, and I could receive about 700 orders. At first, I thought my performance was good. But later, I found that these 700 orders were the beginning of the crisis. Because in this process, you need to constantly adjust, and later you don't like your clothes " Recalling the start-up process, Wang Jue said frankly that an excellent clothing brand does not only need creativity, "We also signed a contract with Showroom 7 in New York. About two seasons of clothing were made, and they constantly adjusted their positioning for our foreign market. Although there were still problems, we gradually positioned ourselves. Until now, we can sell in 13 stores, such as DaadDantone in Milan, Vertice in London, APiediNudiNelParco in Florence, and Litz in Moscow ... We never thought we could enter these stores, because usually they look for big brands, and we are small brands. "

It may be that Wang Jui and her UmaWang have already got a good market in foreign countries. Only two years ago, Wang Jui and her UmaWang have become "very popular". The fashion industry often talks about this unknown "turtle", and relishes her mature series and exquisite fabrics.

In this regard, UmaWang said frankly, "I have followed a path that many Chinese designers have not followed. I have not received much sponsorship to directly show off in France, nor have I directly opened stores in China without paying attention to the foreign market".

In Wang Jue's opinion, the reason why she pays so much attention to the foreign market and tries so hard to promote her brand abroad is that she can learn a lot in this process

For the development of local clothing brands, Wang Jue's opinion is that clothing is a small medium, which can integrate many resources, including market, media, etc. The key is that your team should adapt to the development of clothing system and maintain an independent brand style.

This happened to confirm the popularity of Marco and his exceptions.

"The international background is very important because it provides a broad design stage for local designers and an equal cultural and design resource background with western designers." Zhang Xu also agrees with Wang Jue's view.