Maison Margiela Founder's Death, Who Is The Designer's Brand Neglected Key Role.

One thing people always overlook is that very few.

Creative designers and business leaders often have a key business partner behind the successful designer brand.

The successful designer brand must be the balance and balance between business and creativity, without exception.

Maison Martin Margiela co-founder and designer business partner Jenny Meirens died on the 1 th of this month.

Former director of brand communications, who worked with Meirens for many years, also confirmed that Meirens, 73, died in the residence of Puglia District in Italy.

Martin Margiela's Instagram account has released a photo of Jenny Meirens and Martin Margiela embracing to mourn.

Like Martin Margiela, Meirens rarely appeared in public, but she was hailed as the "business brain" behind the Maison Martin Margiela of fashion house, which played an important role in the fashion house founded in 80s.

Memorial photos released by Maison Margiela Instagram account

This news has not caused too much ripple in the mass media. On the contrary, the fashion industry's response is very strong.

Raf Simons, creative director of Calvin Klein, expressed his thoughts about Meirens in an interview. He thought that Meirens had shaped and changed the way people feel about fashion. At first, she passed her shop in Belgium through Belgium shop, and later through Maison Maison Martin Margiela's global influence.

Kaat Debo, MoMu's chief curator and director of the Antwerp Fashion Museum, said that everyone knows that Meirens is the co founder of Maison Martin Margiela, but people always forget that starting cooperation with an unknown young designer is not a simple decision.

"The fashion industry needs women like her more than ever before to dare to invest in young people and dare to trust their potential."

Geert Bruloot of Antwerp boutique Coccodrillo, one of Belgium's fashion pioneers in 80s, said, "we must not underestimate the role of Meirens in the late stage of Belgian fashion."

So what kind of person is Jenny Meirens? What role does she play behind this fashion house?

Before Margiela was founded, Jenny Meirens was a Brussels entrepreneur. She opened many buyer shops such as Crea, Andrevie, Montana and Yohji Yamamoto.

In 1984, she opened the first Comme des Gar ons store in Brussels.

She is also considered to be one of the sponsors of the Golden Spindle Award, founded in 1982, which helped young designers in the country to play an important role in the international arena.

In 80s, it was Wakubo Rei, Yamamoto Teruji and other Japanese designers in Europe.

A group of students from Royal College of Art in Antwerp, Belgium, began to be influenced by Japanese design concepts and formed a new force.

This includes the Martin Margiela, known for its deconstruction, and the "Six Gentlemen of Antwerp" who graduated a year later than him. They are Walter van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries van Noten, Dirk Dirk, Ann and H.

Martin Margiela is often mistaken for one of the Six Gentlemen in Antwerp.

In addition to Walter van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester and Dries van Noten among Six Gentlemen in Antwerp, other designers have been less active in recent years.

Martin Margiela's personal brand has become the most successful and enduring brand among the seven brands.

Although its pricing is comparable to that of luxury brands, the brand has so many clusters that it maintains an avant-garde and special sense of rarity.

Maison Margiela store in Paris

The success of the brand is related to the design idea of Martin Margiela to subvert the fashion system, but it is even more attributed to the excavation of Belgian entrepreneur Jenny Meirens.

When Martin Margiela was unknown, Meirens took a fancy to his talent.

In 1983, two people met at the golden spindle award by Meirens as the jury. Martin Margiela was the same player. Meirens had a dispute with other judges because of her preference for Margiela.

After the game, Meirens gave Martin Margiela a week to sell his works in her shop Crea.

Since then, Martin Margiela has officially entered the fashion industry, and began to serve as an assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier in 1984.

In 1988, he resigned and co founded the fashion house Maison Martin Margiela with Meirens in Paris.

The brand has gradually developed into the advanced customization and garment line, covering products from women's wear, men's wear, jewelry, footwear, perfume, household products, and so on.

Meirens takes care of everything except creativity, leaving room for creativity for Martin Margiela.

Martin Margiela has brought aesthetic ideas to the fashion industry to subvert traditional Chinese fashions, and used deconstruction techniques and new materials to design an avant-garde design that many people regarded as "eccentric", creating an image that runs counter to the traditional sexy female image.

In his fashion show, models often wear masks, facial features are blurred, so that the audience will focus on the clothes themselves.

In the physical shop, the uniform white uniform of the shop assistants, using digital representation of single product category, using white stitch on clothing as brand logo instead of brand label, has created Margiela unique expression system.

In addition to the subversive design concept, Martin Margiela has also unveiled the logo products such as toe shoes and bead masks, providing more support for the business success of the brand.

Maison Martin Margiela 1996 spring summer series

In 2002, Meirens thought that he had taken the brand to his due position and became weary of the fashion industry, so he decided to retire.

She sold shares to Italy listed group OTB, and Italy's famous fashion investor Renzo Rosso holds about 90% of the group's shares, which owns Diesel, Marni, Paula Cademartori, Viktor&Rolf, John Galliano and other brands.

After being sold to OTB, Maison Martin Margiela was renamed Maison Margiela.

Margiela also resigned as creative director in 2009.

After retiring, Meirens lived in the seaside villa in Puglia District of Italy, almost disappeared. Until recently, she took part in a documentary called "We Margiela". The documentary is scheduled to be released by the end of this year.

Meirens said in the documentary, "when you want to cater for others, you will have nowhere to go, nothing.

You have to distinguish yourself from others.

Over time, you will have the freedom to ignore the inherent system. "

After Martin Margiela left office, the brand design was completed by the team in many years. Until John Galliano 2014 joined the brand, she began to be the creative director.

After the attack of anti Jewish statements, John Galliano reopened in Maison Margiela.

Data show that before the John Galliano joined the brand, the brand's performance has started to climb, and it has been profitable in the tenth year after the acquisition, that is, its sales volume is about 113 million dollars in 2013.

The first shop in Hongkong, Martin Margiela.

After the founder's retreat, Maison Margiela still continued its creative and commercial success, which is not common in fashion.

The key to achieving this is that Meirens and Martin Margiela have laid down a clear set of creative tonality and business rules for brands.

In addition to the business rules set up by Meirens, Martin Margiela gives full play to the space of creativity. The combination of the two gives the brand the vitality of sustainable development.

When fashion lovers pay tribute to Maison Margiela, they often neglect the Meirens as co founders.

However, for designer brand, the role of professional manager in building brand business structure is very important.

First of all, the partnership between designers and business partners has become the basic structure of the brand, which is mature.

Also very common.

Since Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri took over Gucci for two years, the brand has achieved a qualitative leap, becoming one of the most popular luxury brands for millennial consumers and becoming the main driving force of the parent company's Open Cloud group's performance.

Marco Bizzarri said in an interview that the successful pformation of product design, packaging, store display or digital marketing is inseparable from the tacit cooperation of creative director Alessandro Michele promoted by him.

To better support Alessandro Michele, Marco Bizzarri said that the new headquarters of Gucci in Milan has been fully authorized to give free creation to Alessandro Michele, and is regarded as his personal exhibition hall.

It can be said that the turning of Gucci has benefited from the two aspects of Marco Bizzarri and Alessandro Michele, both in terms of business and creativity. It also depends on the respect and freedom of Marco Bizzarri for creative and design talents.

The growth of Chlo E in recent years has also been helped by the collaboration between Chlo CEO De La Bourdonnaye and Clare Waight-Keller, the former creative director of the brand.

Clare Waiht-Keller once said in a media interview, "I am honored to work with such a CEO who has given me enough support and daring to take risks."

Clare Waight-Keller and De La Bourdonnaye joined the brand almost at the same time.

"At the beginning of our work, we were very close.

We are all new in the first place and want to do something to push the brand to another level.

Prada group Miuccia Prada and husband Patrizio Bertelli also implement the partnership mode between designers and business partners.

Miuccia Prada is the youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, the founder of Prada brand. She worked with her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, as co chairman of Prada group, in charge of product development and market development.

Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole is also a golden combination for many years.

When Tom Ford was the creative director of Gucci, Domenico De Sole became chairman of Gucci group.

With the support of the latter, Tom Ford reinvigorate its brand and revolutionized Gucci's brand image by subversive sexy style.

The two left Gucci in 2004, co founded the Tom Ford brand of the same name, and Domenico De Sole served as the chairman of the brand.

Not long ago, Wakubo Rei and her husband Adrian Doffe were also working partners because Met Gala once again raised the heat. The latter played a similar role with Jenny Meirens, and currently served as Comme des Gar ons ons and Dover chairman.

Wakubo Rei has been focusing on creativity and understated for many years. Adrian Doffe is responsible for company operation and external publicity.

Although Wakubo Reiyoungwen is very good, Adrian Doffetong usually acts as Wakubo Rei's plator in the media interview, which is equivalent to the role of "spokesperson".

Another example is Calvin Klein and Barry K. Schwartz.

Barry K. Schwartz, an American businessman, used the $ten thousand borrowed in 1968 to cooperate with childhood friends and fashion designer Calvin Klein to set up Calvin Klein Inc., the chief executive officer of Barry K. Schwartz. Now it has grown into a clothing manufacturer with billions of dollars in business.

Other cases also include Matthew Williamson and Joseph Velosa, Giorgio Armani and Sergio Galeotti.

In addition, there are many cases of partner mismatch, for example, the Ralph Lauren CEO Stefan Larsson who has stepped down in advance and the Group founder Ralph Lauren, the former is only 02 months in a year.

Another reason for finding professional business partners or professional managers is that the process of brand operation is very complex, and creativity and business often can not be taken into account.

Whether experienced luxury brand creative director or newly emerging designer, even if the designer has excellent commercial talent at the same time, he can not balance the two in the busy fashion industry schedule.

The latest case is Burberry CEO Christopher and creative director Christopher Bailey. This week, he officially stepped down as a position of CEO, retaining the position of creative director, focusing on developing creativity.

In the past six months, Marco Gobbetti has been the interim executive director of Asia and has officially taken over CEO since July 5th.

According to Bloomberg report, Christopher Bailey has proposed to the board of directors for business assistance since 2015. "For me, the title of CEO is not a major decision."

Obviously, the CEO's hard balance between creativity and business is a drag on the efficiency and growth of the group. According to earnings data, Burberry profits have fallen for three consecutive years.

Demand for brands in key markets, such as Asia, especially in China and Hongkong, is falling.

Christopher Bailey, the brand creative director, did not pay as much CEO as he wanted to see in the tenure of office.

In the first quarter of this year, the strong growth of Gucci promoted the sales of parent company's Open Cloud group, an increase of 30%, while Burberry's sales grew by only 2%.

At present, Christopher Bailey has set up a new creative team to win the lead of Dior Sabrina, chief designer of Bonesi leather and Judy Collinson, sales director.

Creative director part-time brand management can be regarded as a powerful measure to control brand control, but also a resistance to further expansion of brand.

The two brand designer also includes Italy designer Neil Barrett, although the brand is the CEO of Carlo Barone Lumaga, a designer, but there are people familiar with the matter. Neil Barrett has been involved in the management of the company even after being creative, even including shop decoration.

Although the commercialization of the Italy brand has been very successful, the brand has not been able to expand widely in the world due to the concentration of power and limited energy.

For young designers, professional managers' resources support and professional guidance are particularly important.

Young designers often focus on creativity and control production processes.

It is their short board.

MS MIN, the most successful commercial designer among young designers in China, also benefits from Ian Hylton, a British husband and business partner of designer Liu Min.

Yan Yi An has worked as creative director of Baoji men's wear department and has rich experience in brand operation.

Under his promotion, MS MIN almost skipped the exploratory stage of the start-up brand, and entered the mature commercial operation directly.

However, at present, the professional managers in the fashion industry are still scarce resources in China. Therefore, the new platforms such as the Liang Liang buying shop and so on fill the gap and provide commercial guidance for a group of new designers such as Chen Anqi.

But overall, whether the brand has professional managers and the maturity of managers will determine whether Chinese designers can go further.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.