Chinese Craftsman: Li Wenshuang, A Fashion Designer Obsessive In Quality

When Li Wenshuang was young, he mixed up in old state-owned enterprises.

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With her obsession and solid professional foundation, she created the first truly advanced clothing and customization studio in China with her own name, and successfully introduced the concept of "advanced customization" into China.

Since then, people have only called her "Wen Shuang" more.

On the basis of the studio, Wen Shuang also created the personal brand "law".

Over the past 20 years, Wen Shuang has accumulated a lot and has thought a lot.

Seeing the declining trend of the traditional clothing industry under the impact of the new situation, she made plans to jointly run a "Chinese young designer entrepreneurship competition" within and outside the industry in order to nurture the industry she loved.

She said that she was iron heart to make costume design, and the hand must be elaborate.

Initial heart: "I am iron heart to do dress design".

The main characteristic of Wen Shuang is "perseverance".

In the 80s of last century, she graduated from the central craft Academy of Fine Arts, now the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, is China's first fashion design graduate.

Therefore, Wen Shuang's body always carries the mark of "high school student" in the design field, and always feels that he should be the forefront in the field of costume design.

"I was a school in the half of my life has been envisaged, and later experience as long as it does not meet my direction, I will exclude."

Wen Shuang told reporters directly.

At that time, we still followed the policy of "package allocation" for graduates in the planned economy era. Wen Shuang was assigned to Liaoning Institute of education after graduation.

However, Wen Shuang's heart is one hundred unwilling.

On the day of the report, she refused the job and was re assigned to a large state-owned enterprise.

In this state-owned enterprise, the leaders distribute the text to make the flower pattern design for the clothes, that is, to draw patterns.

"It doesn't matter to dress design. I'm not doing this."

Wen Shuang once again refused, so he was placed in a small factory which had little practical work to do.

Here, she has a great psychological gap. "When I first went home, I cried."

In order to get there as soon as possible, she can only find a part-time job in a garment making enterprise.

At that time, she worked in the factory during the day, and went to work part-time in the evening. She had to do eight or nine in the evening, sometimes even on the night shift.

Tired but happy, she was able to really get into fashion design.

Later, a friend introduced, Wen Shuang for this small factory to undertake a processing project, and finally can quickly "make clothes".

With old teachers, they spread cloth, paint and print.

Wen Shuang worked hard and did not care about overtime, because this is what she really wants to do.

The director saw that the persistent college student was so practical and capable that he gave all the processing tasks of the small factory to her.

Wen Shuang learned how to arrange production, walk the production process, assign tasks to workers, and so on. "These days in small factories are the foundation of my business," Wen Shuang said.

Three years later, a chance chance was finally pferred to the design department.

Ben thought that he could actually make costume design, but it didn't last long. The design department was faced with a disqualification.

After many twists and turns, she quit job and left the state-owned enterprise and began to work.

However, she was deeply affected by the formal process of big state-owned enterprises, and she was not accustomed to the unprofessional of private enterprises.

So she changed to several companies one after another, some even stayed for only two weeks.

"At that time, a lot of clothing companies were very busy. Everyone often had dinner together until the early hours of the morning, but they were busy doing nothing."

She sprouted the idea of starting her own business.

Ingenuity: "only fine products"

At the beginning of 90s, Wen Shuang finally found his own ownership -- making advanced customization, that is, making clothes belonging to customers according to their needs.

This requires a high degree of creativity for designers, and requires creativity and ability to combine their creativity with customer needs.

Wen Shuang did it. She became the first "crab eating" person in China.

At first, Wen Shuang only hung a white jacket he had designed and made to a friend in a small shop opened in Beijing West, priced at 168 yuan, and marked the word "design customized" on his clothes.

At that time, the monthly income of more than 200 yuan was also a high price.

But unexpectedly, the clothes were sold out soon.

Then, she received some orders from foreign companies.

become pregnant

On the basis of it, Wen Shuang set up a "Wen Shuang studio" named after his own name, and wrote a brief introduction to his studio, sending out friends and relatives to announce his own business.

A friend brought the singer Sun Hao, and Wen Shuang had his first official client.

From then on, the fashion of Wen Shuang's clothing design goes further and further.

Since 1999, her designs have been accompanied by Song Zuying on the world's major stage. China's first lady Peng Liyuan has been appearing in her designs for many times. For many years, on the stage of Spring Festival Gala, the Chinese costumes of Zhou Tao and other hosts are also from her handwriting. Many of the director Meng Jinghui's works also have the support of her design.

Wen Shuang is really breaking through popularity and reputation.

If you want to design clothes, you must tell her clearly what kind of theatre you use, what kind of theater you want to play, how high the stage, what kind of lights and what kind of audience you want.

After talking about this, Wen Shuang sketches the impression in his mind, pondering over details repeatedly, including what materials to use, how to embody and so on.

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In 1999, Song Zuying went abroad for the first time to perform in Sydney Opera House.

"This is her first performance abroad. There is a strong sense of tension, needless to say.

Moreover, the habit of overseas audiences is that they will not interrupt actors during the beginning and performance of the performance. Only after the performance is over will there be applause, unlike domestic actors who will be applauded when they come to the stage. This difference will also aggravate her sense of tension.

So the clothes I designed must be able to give her the hot field and help her to let go.

Therefore, Wen Shuang specially decorated the metal tubes with different lengths on the skirts. Each metal tube had an iron bead, and the skirt was moved, and the metal pipe would collide with a crisp and pleasant sound.

Dressed in this dress, Ding Ding bell rang, Song Zuying stepped onto the stage and applauded enthusiastically, and the atmosphere suddenly became active.

She is very strict with her own design. "I always struggle to dress, and I always feel that I have to do my best to make clothes.

If it doesn't seem to meet my standards, it will have to be done again. "

Because of this, Wen Shuang's works will appear frequently in China and even the highest standard stage in the world.

"The designer's standard determines what grade his things are. I am just a boutique. I value my value with fine products.

It's like singing, singing someone else's song or singing a song of their own? I choose the latter.

Wen Shuang said.

After making more and more celebrities, other artists in the circle found her, trying to imitate exactly the same clothes.

In her mind, innovation is the meaning of designer's existence.

After full market research and early promotion, in 2004, Wen Shuang's personal brand "law and law" was founded, and soon realized profits.

For brands, the obsession is that customer satisfaction is not enough, and customers around them are satisfied.

"Someone must see this dress and ask you where the clothes come from.

Maybe this person is not too outgoing, but the clothes that we wear will be praised, which is the role of designers.

Public heart: "what I love is the technology of traditional clothing industry".

The financial crisis in 2008 brought great impact to China's garment industry, and exports dropped sharply.

In China, on the one hand, the aging of the population has reduced the number of young people in the clothing industry, and reduced the new force in the industry.

At the same time, the traditional customer base of garment industry is also aging, reducing the market share of the industry.

On the other hand, the rapid development of the electricity supplier has changed people's living habits. Many people no longer want to buy clothes in large shopping malls. This has also brought great pressure to the traditional clothing industry.

Some high-end brands in traditional clothing industry pay particular attention to quality, which is different from the fast standards advocated by electric providers.

When many traditional brands fail or suffer from asthma, the traditional clothing industry is faced with a problem of inheritance.

"Many owners are between 40 and 60 years old. They can cut off the brand's technology department, only sell their stock, do not make new models, or simply turn off clothing stores and retire smartly.

But in this way, their original quality technology has been lost, and those experienced professionals have no steady whereabouts, so it is hard to find them again.

If you want to rebuild these, it will take at least twenty or thirty years, and some of them may never come back. "

Speaking of this, Wen Shuang also recalled many years of past events.

She met an old tailor who started her Apprenticeship at the age of seven, and this master made her understand the exquisite and ingenious Chinese traditional craft.

At that time, she designed a silkworm silk satin shirt with a single arc shape on her front. The mechanic did several times and failed to achieve the desired effect.

The fabric is stretched out in the process of catching thread. It is difficult to spread like a lotus leaf.

When the teacher looked at it, he scraped 1 centimeters of paste on the seam with disposable chopsticks.

When the paste dried up, he scraped it again with his fingernails. Then he pulled a thread out of his mouth, pressed it on the sewing seam, walked around it, folded it with an iron, then walked around again, and broke a side.

"Western-style tailoring focuses on analysis and reorganization, focusing on structure; while Chinese style tailoring uses fabric to human relations as much as possible, with less structure, but it can be used to follow suit and move.

I hope these precious technologies will not be lost because of the decline of traditional clothing industry. "

Wen Shuang said.

After that, she decided to return to the industry and organize the "Chinese young designers entrepreneurship contest".

Through this competition, Wen Shuang wants to find a way for young designers, encourage them to stay in the clothing industry, and on the other hand, young designers can be able to connect with the technicians in the traditional clothing industry.

Wen Shuang and her partners have done a lot of painstaking efforts in the design of the competition system. The core is to push the players onto the market so that they can truly experience the entrepreneurial process and help them establish a clear market concept instead of simply making a dress or drawing a design blueprint.

On the part of the competition, she proposed that we should take full advantage of the characteristics of "fans economy" to help designers quickly build personal fans market and prepare for future personal brand launch.

At the same time, this is also a good opportunity for designers to "self manage".

Wen Shuang hopes to take this opportunity to enable a group of young designers to really stay in the fashion industry and persist in inheriting the exquisite skills that she may love to lose.

At this time, she was obsessive about it.