How Much Will The Market Of "Useless" Do Resonate With It?

In the end of October, a special event was held in Beijing.

During the activities, many people on the scene were choking, and others were agitated.

The exhibition is called "ask for clothes, ask for the best story hand to wear clothes".

Marco, founder of "useless" brand.

The exhibition shows dozens of handmade clothes dug out from the bottom of the box. Each of them has a story behind it: 70 Houhai returned to its native place with the little red shirt made by her mother when she was young. After 80 years, the girl took the wedding dress from her family for the first time, and the 90 year old man remembers the disintegration of the war years with tears in her eyes.

Perhaps it is these feelings that make many people recall their old parents and their hometown.

It may also be another atmosphere created by the scene, which is constantly tearful: the end of the activity, the lights go out, the whole scene is silent.

The sound of the machine circulate for 3 minutes, and then a faint light shines down on the stage. On the big screen, there is a fingered flower fingered hand, with a maxim written below.

"Useless" sounds like the Taoist core idea of "Inaction" showing the meaning of letting nature take its course. When it comes to useless creation, its founder, Marco, said he did not think much of it, nor did he deliberately pursue business strategy.

It doesn't sound like what a business operator said, but it's very familiar with it.

Useless was born in 2006, when Marco was already the famous fashion in the industry.

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20 years ago, mark and Mao Jihong founded the fashion brand exception in Guangzhou, and then left.

Her brightest title may be "China's first lady's exclusive fashion designer."

Marco's fashion work "land" a few years ago has been well received in the Paris fashion week. She is also an artist, and is best at highlighting China's national character in design, all of which are her aura.

But in April 2006, she went to Zhuhai to create "useless studio", which was located in the former residence of Tang Shaoyi, the Prime Minister of the Republic of China.

It is called "useless" because Marco spent a lot of time in China's villages in the past 10 years.

She has gone to remote areas of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Qinghai and other western regions for many times, collecting old materials and investigating lost folk customs.

At the same time, many people questioned Marco's "doing nothing" because the tradition of rural and minority areas she tried to rescue seemed to have been abandoned by the times.

But Marco thought that these are the real precious things.

She brought back the skillful hands of the Miao women and wooden machines in the mountains to Zhuhai, making them the producers of the useless studios, weaving and embroidering them, and dyeing them with natural plants.

The objects from the useless workshops were all made by hand, and gradually formed useless aesthetics, which was a workshop of rural life.

This brand philosophy is also visible everywhere in the exhibition space which is useless in Beijing. The walls, traditional looms and scattered cotton are displayed on art and have a sense of ritual.

Marco

Today we often see similar values in brands that emphasize calm and restraint.

It is very similar to the "Kinfolk", which is called "family", which is called "family". It is very similar to the life magazine, which is very cold, but emphasizes community relations very much. They all advocate a return to nature and a natural outlook on life in modern life.

It is precisely because this brand spirit is anti modern and anti urbanization. Its development and prosperity can not be achieved by instilling modern business logic into people, but by establishing emotional ties.

Such brands often need a spiritual leader.

Marco has no doubt that she has the courage to give up the story of fame and fortune, which makes the useless brand objective credible.

"Useless is doing pformation work, reinventing traditional handicraft with the creativity and design of modern consciousness.

Useless products can be worn and used by modern people.

Marco said, "to inspire people's hearts, let everyone live their inner needs, useless advocacy is such an attitude of life."

Some people think that useless may be just a niche brand, although Marco thinks her values are special.

But in fact, it does not relieve all life puzzles.

For those who are struggling to escape from the countryside and come to big cities in China's cities, it is more material to move them than to return to the origin of rural life.

How much will the market resonate with everything that is useless?

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The brand driven by ideas often faces some practical problems. They are neither too bold nor too conservative in business.

Marco admits: "useless is a very contradictory brand, no brand can integrate into so many things like it."

This contradiction comes first from the principle of common commercial location, which is not applicable here.

Useless is a luxury.

The most expensive product line is Mark's old line of fashion, which is sold by hand and sold at a price of 10000 yuan, which is not acceptable to ordinary people.

But in October 2016, a cheap product line, agricultural products, was introduced.

Beside the useless living space, the new open and useless organic flavor vegetarian restaurant is about to open. It supplies all kinds of rice, salt, vinegar, and vinegar tea from various farms. People can also eat all the natural fruits and vegetables in the restaurant, but the dishes are not fixed every day, depending on what kinds of food they have on that day. These products range from 20 yuan to several hundred yuan.

Although the true taste hall meets the useless standards in terms of health and ecological values, it also leads to polarization of the consumption group of the useless brand.

On the other hand is the ordinary people who buy radish and cabbage. After the vegetarian restaurant is opened, uncle and aunt and construction workers living in the streets around the Hutong will also come to buy daily necessities such as tea seed powder, rice and so on.

On the other hand, the rich who buy high - size clothing seems to be hard to get through, which is not the same as the logic of LouisVuitton's mobile shell.

The two of the contradictions comes from the risk that the brand image has in the public perception.

Marco said she wanted to make a useless social enterprise rather than a commercial brand.

Useless has written down its ambition on the official website: "useless as a bridge to help people in poor areas and well-developed affluent areas to enhance understanding and achieve close interaction.

To drive more people from seeking simple material life to spiritual wealth, at the same time, it also advocates people to stay away from material desires, return to innocence, promote harmonious coexistence of human beings and natural ecology, and develop healthfully and sustainably.

But do people buy it?

In Britain and America, the definition of "social enterprise" is very clear. It is neither a purely profit seeking enterprise nor a non-profit organization.

Although their emphasis on social value is higher than profit, they must be operated through commercial means, so that profits can be used for social investment.

But this makes it difficult for the public to understand.

Like public welfare, there is a crisis of trust in all commercial behaviors that emphasize giving back to society.

In fact, there is such a user questioned: "advocating against consumption, and come out to open the door to do business, is it too contradictory? Is such a business model profitable?"

This question is not without reason.

In the present, it is useless to conform to the standard of lifestyle brand, and it provides everything for clothing, food and shelter.

In addition to the clothing and agricultural products mentioned above, there is a very important part: utensils.

In the useless living space of Beijing, there is a small wooden door with a red door god sticker. Through it, you can see a tranquil and elegant home.

Among them, earthenware cups, tables, chairs, beds, wardrobes and pajamas are all there. Although they deliberately make old ones, they perfectly turn the ideal rural life into reality.

However, it is necessary to make an appointment online before entering the home.

After giving name, contact and occupation, useless will send a confirmed visit time to the mailbox of the subscriber.

An audience at the exhibition said frankly that the appointment system seemed to be serving a small number of people. "The home will be led by staff," she said. "You can see it in your home, including space design."

She will also introduce technology, scarcity, uniqueness and customization, and finally introduce soap and tea seed powder, so that I do not feel like buying something like... "

Perhaps the purpose of appointment is to ensure experience, or is it useless commercial hesitates.

Marco once said, "there are not many styles of useless clothes. From my major, I can design many, many clothes, and my inspiration has never dried up.

But I do not advocate buying too many people and buying them crazily, so they only accumulate too much stuff in their hands.

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However, this kind of protest against material culture is likely to hurt earnings. The useless solution is "we do not admire a person to buy many useless products, but from a commercial point of view, brand needs support. Then how do I do it? I hope more people will buy it. Useless is a shared brand."

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It is not unsuccessful to commercialize "restraint" on the market. The most typical example is Japan's MUJI.

More than 30 years ago, MUJI, a small business, tried to bring out good products without brands, and realized the life of Oriental philosophy with restraint and aloof aesthetic attitude.

The artistic director of MUJI, former research director, said that many people have different reasons for MUJI's good feelings and good feelings. Some people think that it is compatible with ecology. Some people like to practice their city style, some people love their price, and others prefer simple design.

No matter which one, it is actually not the core of MUJI's rise, because they just conform to the icing on the cake of the times.

MUJI founded in 1980s, the world's energy crisis is breaking out, and Japan has seen an economic recession.

Consumers' purchasing power is not enough, but they also yearn for good quality and proper price. MUJI comes up with the "Muji" sign and calls for reducing unnecessary packaging and advocating enough.

In comparing this with MUJI, Mark said that the management of MUJI was indeed the same as a horse lantern. First, the marketing director in Beijing, now the chairman of the whole group.

But Marco feels that although the two brands do have some similarities in their appearance and attitude towards waste, their fundamental differences are quite different.

MUJI has now realized the scale of mass production, but useless is still a small production manual enterprise, which makes them very different in reducing waste.

Marco said that the "customizing" strategy of useless use is different from that of people's stereotypes. It is not intended to flaunt customization, and then to sell it in an extremely expensive way, focusing on what needs to be done.

"Our clothes are made in their own size and will not be tailored to the guests who have made the order.

We hope that the production of useless objects is someone needs it, we know why it is done, it is alive, and will accompany people to finish their life. What we see is a solemn thing.

Fashion is such a thing, irresponsible production and discarding, the popularity of the past, the next season will not be, and manual, every piece of hard won. "

Marco said.

Tatazumai series of MUJI

But what's interesting is that MUJI, who made money, is doing handicraft in the past two years.

First in 2015 in Paris, and then in June this year, in the flagship store of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, MUJI opened an exhibition called Tatazumai, which invited 6 exhibitors from ceramics, carpentry, glass, textile and other fields. They will launch more than 100 handmade daily necessities.

Very clever, these designers also went to the scene to tell their stories.

Tatazumai means "atmosphere". In the statement, MUJI says it represents an organic health attribute, and those products can also be used in everyday life.

From a profit perspective, this series is likely to become the most useless competitor. Although there are differences in the culture of life between China and Japan, MUJI's established brand reputation and mature business system may make people more willing to open their wallets.

And this will make the road that is entirely manual and useless longer.

The cost of traditional handmade products is high, the production cycle is long and the risk of failure is high.

When asked about this question, Marco used a more artistic answer: "it is mind, heart and belief."

In the future, she does not rule out the possibility of offering cheaper clothing and household products to meet the mid market.

It is reported that in 2013, the useless studio was officially registered as Zhuhai useless cultural creation Co., Ltd.