Will Alexander Mcqueen Become The Next GUCCI?

Alexander McQueen recently announced a more clear development plan.

According to the women's wear daily, the new flagship store of Alexander McQueen, a British designer brand under Kai Yun group, is officially opened in Bond Street, London. It covers an area of nearly 11 thousand square feet and is four times the original Alexander McQueen flagship store. The interior decoration is also characteristic, honey shaped stone shaped sculptures, tall ceilings, circular glass tubes connected to three levels of space, and a cotton based paper fabric specially developed for this space.

The sculpture in the shop comes from the creativity of the Chilean artist Marcela Correa, which is designed by the creative director of Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton, and Smiljan Radic, the architect, who collaborated with David Collins studio to refurbish the pre Alexander flagship store on Bond Street in 2013, and the men's clothing store in London's Mun (tailor Street).

According to Alexander McQueen CEO Emmanuel Gintzburger, the new store is very different from the previous Alexander McQueen shop. Its center still revolves around the purpose of Alexander McQueen, that is, using multiple mannequin models to guide customers to move around in the shop space and eliminate the distance between products and customers. The specific product placement is also carried out according to the story rather than the category, and will continue to change.

In addition, the new store also made full use of the top space. The space for most luxury brands to entertain VIP customers and VIP guests is spanformed into Alexander McQueen activity and communication space for students in the fashion industry.

Traditionally, luxury stores are very exclusive at the top. But here, we want it to be inclusive and break the rules of the past. We hope to create a design and fashion community here, so that more people can learn, discover and share here. Gintzburger explains.

Starting in January 2019, Alexander McQueen will continue to host interactive events such as lectures and exhibitions in this space, and introduce more brand related artists collectibles and the creative process behind them. "For us, especially for creative studios, this is feedback to students in Alexander McQueen learning. This is an unusual and authentic fashion shop. We hope people will participate in their own way." Gintzburger added.

For Alexander McQueen, this is a new start. The brand plan starts with this store and doubles the number of existing Alexander McQueen stores to 128.

Alexander McQueen was founded in 1992, and launched its first official series in 1996, pushing the ultra low back jeans to the forefront of the trend. In the following years, Alexander McQueen successively created landmark products such as skeleton T-shirt, donkey shoe and so on.

In December 2000, Alexander McQueen, which wanted to increase its brand creation space, sold the brand shares from the LVMH group to the PPR group of the pioneer group, and then extended its business to perfume, sunglasses, accessories and other categories.

Alexander McQueen has also made new progress in the store. It opened its first flagship flagship store in New York in 2002, and then brought the flagship store to London and Milan within a year. In addition, Hongkong I.T. Limited, Joyce Boutique and Lane Crawford and many other brand agents also introduced Alexander McQueen products.

The turning point came from the sudden death of Alexander McQueen in 2010. After Sarah Burton took over the post of Alexander McQueen brand creative director, she began to enhance the authenticity of the brand clothing with the original gorgeous shell of the brand.

At this time, another brand of Alexander McQueen's old family Kai Yun group began to shine again. After Alessandro Michele took over as the creative director of Gucci, the brand had a disruptive spanformation.

In the SOHO District of New York, we opened "Wooster bookstore"; in the cemetery, we held the early spring show in the spring of 2019; one of the symbols of the Greek story protagonists such as snakes, panthers, bees and so on, Alessandro Michele has added more cultural and philosophical values to Gucci through its own aesthetic system than the Gucci brand value.

Consumers are also buying this. According to the Gucci's third quarter earnings report released in 2018, the brand's sales in the three quarter increased by 49.4% to 1 billion 550 million euros. In addition, it also squeezed into the top three most popular resale brands released in 2018 by The RealReal, the second luxury luxury resale website in the US, and re led the craze for Logo products with the new Logo of "double G".

According to the Gucci data quoted by French magazine Zonebourse, in 2017, Gucci's revenue accounted for 57% of the revenue of the luxury sector of Kai Yun group and 73% of its revenue.

And when investors worry about whether the cloud is too risky for Gucci, Kai Yun group said it will focus on developing the group's brand Alexander McQueen next. Jean-Fran OIS Palus, the managing director of the company, said in a conference call after the first half of 2018 released by Kai Yun, "we are committed to developing Alexander McQueen. From the creative level, the brand has rich connotation and strong DNA. We are building the foundation for its growth, just like we did for Saint Laurent and Balenciaga in the past. "

Although Kai Yun did not disclose the performance of Alexander McQueen alone, RBC luxury analyst Rogerio Fujimori has pointed out in a research report that in the Chinese market, Alexander McQueen ranks third among the most popular niche brands of Chinese consumers under 34 years old, while over 25% of these consumers pay more attention to the individuality and uniqueness of goods in the purchase of luxury brands.

This also coincides with the development plan of Open Cloud in recent years.

Fran ois-Henri Pinault, CEO and chief executive of the group, has publicly expressed its importance to young consumers. "The younger generation is crucial to the growth of Kai Yun group's future business. In the 2016 fiscal year, they bought almost half of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent products. We are always studying their consumption habits and the decisive force affecting their purchase. He said in a press conference at the 2016 earnings report.

Compared with Gucci's disruptive and younger spanformation, Alexander McQueen wants to gently attract young people.

"The women and men created by Alexander McQueen are strong and fragile, romantic and rebellious. But the two shops we used to have in London did not tell the story adequately. A bold architectural environment has been designed on such a traditional but respected luxury street in Bond Street, which is crucial for Alexander McQueen. " This is Gintzburger's evaluation of Alexander McQueen New London store, and it is also a model of brand new retail mode that brand wants to build for itself.

In the next few months, Shanghai, Monaco, Hongkong, Tokyo, New York, Miami, Milan and Paris will gradually launch a series of new flagship stores. In order to get more sales opportunities, Alexander McQueen will also open up emerging markets such as Korea, Canada, Mexico, Qatar, Kuwait, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, India and Brazil.

"We are also going to raise the brand exposure through the tourism industry, which is the next focus, and the brand will open new stores in international airports such as Hongkong and London." Gintzburger added.

Up to now, there are 64 direct outlets in Alexander McQueen, but the increase in retail stores is only part of the ongoing brand spanformation. The other part is innovation from communication, commodity sales to supply chain.

"We are completing a more comprehensive brand integration based on the new creative vision. Before we invest further and expand the global market, we must greatly enhance the company's foundation." Gintzburger said.

Next, Alexander McQueen will continue to adjust its brand communication channels with the support of Kai Yun group, and reassess the sales of goods. It does not exclude that the production of some commodities should be stopped and the shops should be closed to open other stores in more strategic locations.

But as to whether Alexander McQueen will become the next Gucci, the two brands' brand tonality and development mode can only be said that Gucci's achievements may bring some experience to the development of Alexander McQueen, and this character's "bad boy" is afraid to go through the old road of Gucci again.