Tasha: How To Promote Chinese Local Design Overseas

Recently, with 8 independent Chinese designer brands to Losangeles, the United States has joined hands with H.Lorenzo, an American buyer's shop, to create a 3 week "PORT" Losangeles nomadic store. It also integrated Farfetch with the fashion buyer shop to launch the H.Lorenzo x DongLiang exclusive page on its website.

Dong Liang, founded in November 2009, has made different attempts to promote Chinese design: for example, the joint Chinese designer brand SARAYUN, the French children's shoes design brand Monkies Shoes and so on, to create an independent charity Label "3 People", and Chinese designer Zhang Da's "no edge Boundless" created by the song of champagne.

Buyer's demand for products comes from the demands and tastes of shopkeepers. As a buyer's shop, there is no difference in the fundamental meaning. The biggest difference lies in products. Foreign buyers shop starts very early, and the availability of resources and the relationship with brands are also in the early stage. So you can see that many recent brands, such as Dior, Celine, Prada and so on, are very normal in buyers' shops, but most brands in China are monopolized by their own stores or are monopolized by some Hong Kong buyer shops. The development of domestic fashion has made the concept of "buyer shop" widely disseminating in recent years, and even the carrier of pmission is not some foreign brands, but the works of domestic designers.

Different contents lead to different directions and ways of promotion.

We walk through many European and American buyer shops, and many shops run for thirty or forty years at a time. The competition of store resources for brands is actually more intense than we think. Most buyers are very concerned about the scarcity of their brands in the same area. Many independent buyer shops have been buying for decades, most of them are shopkeepers themselves, and the customers are getting older.

However, as a whole, buyer shops are much more mature overseas than in China. Through the accumulation and screening of customers over the years, shops have a very clear positioning and brand image.

The biggest challenge is the concept and expectation.

At the beginning, when we took 11 designers to London to go to the show, to enter showroom, or even to bring London Eye to do the promotion, and this time in LA sales, it was to make Chinese designers make a collective voice in a completely unfamiliar market. However, just like the establishment of brand and resources from the beginning of the Chinese market in the Chinese market, we are "ignorant and fearless". We do not know who is speaking in this market, nor do we know some habits and rules that have already been formed.

But for us, as we all talk about brands, we all have the pillars of our own values. So even all the behaviors and standards embodied in foreign countries are consistent with those in China. We are also pleased to win the respect in overseas markets with such a "consistency".

The acquaintance with Mr. Lorenzo Hadar is the recommendation of Uma Wang, our co operative designer.

In October last year, at the invitation of Dong Liang, Mr. Lorenzo came to Shanghai fashion week to see the 7 show of "one day of the pillars" on the same day, and on the second day he placed the order for the first series of Angel Chen.

Mr. Lorenzo began to focus on China a long time ago. Besides Uma, he also worked with Sankuanz, KKtP, Ziggy Chen and other brands. His confidence and love for Chinese designers is the most important reason for our cooperation.

We knew Farfetch a long time ago, and as Farfetch's first closely cooperative H.Lorenzo in North America, we have mentioned to us many times the benefits of Farfetch in their online business, because this is an electronic business platform that best understands offline entities, rather than a traditional online sales mode.

So when we know they enter China, we very much hope to cooperate with Farfetch to help us better convey our brand image on Internet sales.

And we also believe that the cooperation between Farfetch and Dong Liang will enable more people to see the decision of China's e-commerce platform to support China's design.

Reporter: can you disclose more details of this activity and feedback from sales data, platforms and customers? What's the significance of these feedback?

At the site of the "H.Lorenzo" PORT "Losangeles nomadic store", there are eight independent designer brands in China: Boundless (no edge), Angel Chen, Xiao Li, Museum of Friendship, deepmoss, Friendship, Boundless, and PORT.

The pillar is the first Chinese shop that Farfetch chose to cooperate, and it is also the beginning of its attempt to help Chinese design forces.

This online store at Farfetch helps us attract many new potential customers, and their online push lets customers know and understand H.Lorenzo and even visit our store's official website and physical space.

At the same time, our store products are synchronized with Farfetch. Farfetch provides very professional and systematic online sales and operation support for all the shelves.

Before May 8th, pop-up store had sold glasses, bags and dresses online and offline, ranging from $300 to $1900, and several items sold out of launch.

The sales figures we get in a week are sold for every brand. Angel Chen and Museum of Friendship create a record of nearly 10 sales a day. I think this phenomenon just reflects that in the western market, the fresh and creative young design is more easily accepted. This is also the reason why we choose the emerging market of Losangeles's culture and art.

We are still tracking the specific sales figures.

Reporter: it is not the first time that Dong Liang has promoted the design of China to overseas. In this cooperation with the past pillars and overseas, China

The last overseas promotion project for designers took place in September 2013.

As the only Chinese designer collection shop, Dong Liang participated in the overseas promotion project of Design By Shanghai in London Fashion week. Five Chinese designers who worked together conducted a series of activities such as show show and showroom during the London Fashion week.

The pillars will bring these designers who want to build their brands into the west, give these young or developing brands more confidence, and at the same time, there will be many direct sales feedback in the mature market that has been running for decades.

In addition, the market's brand awareness (brand recognition) and market exposure can increase their influence in foreign and domestic markets, but more importantly, their works will be seen by more people.

Reporter: Farfetch, a global fashion buyer, has always attached importance to O2O. As an e-commerce provider, it has committed itself to providing publicity and guidance for offline entities. It has just acquired the Browns, a luxury luxury chain store in Britain, aiming to open up online and offline channels.

We have not yet set up our own network channels, and there are many domestic channels to put forward cooperation requirements. But we focus on offline store operation. We hope that in network sales, we can continue our insistence on details.

The electronic business platform is an excellent sales platform, and it is also a major trend of many sales now. We do not rule out the possibility of selling online platform with excellent sales experience in the future.

And this cooperation with Farfetch is also our warm-up and learning for online sales.

Now more and more Chinese designers go abroad to study and accept the influence of Western Aesthetics and culture.

This is actually a good thing for China's fashion industry.

The return of their studies has injected a new blood into the Chinese fashion industry, and let the Chinese consumer market see the fashion expression style besides the traditional oriental design.

This is also a driving force for China's fashion industry.

Reporter: many independent Chinese designer brands are starting to go overseas. How should they handle the rhythm and relationship between Chinese market and overseas market?

60% of them released their own works or accepted orders during exhibitions in Paris during the fashion week in Paris, which is much more than that of many designers who have just delayed the half season. Because we need to follow this rhythm, we need to follow this rhythm, so that we all catch up with international schedule, although some chasing is also very hard. (for example, women's clothing, usually Paris fashion week in early September and domestic fashion week in a month), but it is helpful to the internal operation of designer's brand, which means that they have more time to digest the feedback from various markets, and fine-tuning the series from the overseas mature market's opinions. We go to Paris every year during the international fashion week, and the design of our cooperation.

Reporter: what other interesting designs have been tried recently in China?

This year, between 5 and June, Airbnb, the world's homestay reservation platform, was co operating with Dong Liang. Under the theme of "family name", 7 Chinese independent designers were invited to travel to 7 other cities and experience 7 Airbnb homes with a "Super 8 millimeter film camera (Super8)" and a notebook.

On the return journey, the 7 designers "bring the world home". They will use the inspiration they collected in the 7 Airbnb homes they live in, and jointly design and create "Designers Home Project" / "designer home project" in three shops in Dong Liang Shanghai.

This is a communication between designers' values and the world. It is also a airbnb and a pillar. The two "love" between the brands that are "very small and beautiful" are highly appreciated, and it is like a common exploration of two colleagues.