We All Think Lining'S Style Has Changed, But It Has Never Changed The Designer.

In February 2018, sports brand Lining suddenly red in the fashion week of New York. The 4 words of "China Lining" were repeatedly spread on social media such as micro-blog, WeChat and Instagram. For a while, the Chinese people's sense of national pride is on the rise.

For the Lining brand itself, the appearance of the fashion week in New York marked the formal spanformation of Lining's brand after 5 years' hard spanformation. Before, whether it changed logo or slogan, it did not convey and realize the result of this spanformation.

After the fashion week in New York, the business of Li Ning Co has obviously improved. In the mid-term earnings report of Li Ning Co as of June 30, 2018, Lining's income in the first half of 2018 reached 4 billion 713 million yuan, an increase of about 17.9% compared with the same period in 2017. For retail brands, close to 20% sales growth is a brilliant performance. It also represents a positive signal to the market.

Lining sells more than 1000 pairs of shoes on the same day in Tmall China day show. It sells on the line for a minute, and it is too fast to even replenish the goods. At the same time, Lining's Tmall flagship store ushered in a surge of passenger traffic. The sales of the show's money accounted for the top three of the sports industry after the show.

When consumers met the new look of "China Lining" from the fashion week in New York, Lining also ushered in a number of "explosions" in the course of its 29 years of development, namely, a Ace sports shoes, a hat with four characters printed with "China Lining", a hooded Tiger Crane and two rows, T-shirts printed with Lining's own photos, etc.

Many people may wonder if Lining has changed to a new designer. But in fact, there is no new designer. All the designers come from the original design team of more than 100 people in Li Ning Co, including Chen Lijie, chief designer Chen Lijie of New York fashion week, 18FW, who is also the main designer of street basketball series BADFIVE.

Since its formal accession in 2011, Chen Lijie has worked in Lining for 8 years. He didn't expect Lining to explode in New York fashion week, because Lining's brand awareness in New York's local market was almost zero, and the explosion from there was almost unthinkable.

After the fashion week in New York, many people would think that Lining has become a trend card now. Whether it's a design or a series of event releases, Lining is operating in a fashion brand. But Chen Lijie did not think so. He emphasized that Lining is still a sports brand. The deviation between the brand's positioning and consumer's cognition makes the whole thing interesting.

Yi=YiMagazine

C= Chen Lijie

Yi: Why did Lining suddenly decide to take part in New York fashion week? How long did the designer team prepare for this demand?

In February 7th, we officially got on the stage in C:2018, but we suddenly received the task at the end of December 2017. I was very impressed. I came back after that Christmas, and I knew we were going to New York fashion week as soon as we went to work. It was considered impossible at that time, because it was only a month or so that we could make a show of all products.

Let's first figure out which of the 100 designers are going to do this, and then think about what products to come out, and what products can represent the face of Lining brand. We began to make these clothes, and it took us 10 days to spanport all the participants to the Foshan development center, while creating and developing them, until we were able to confirm the style version.

Before, the whole process was to draw, try, sample clothes and make clothes. At that time, the development department colleagues made the first interpretation while looking for the fabric, while modifying it at the same time, then completed the re creation. All processes are completed within the same time frame.

At that time, each of us was completely insane. At that time, there was a colleague who was responsible for the whole fashion week's product operation. I quarreled with him every day, because both the design direction and the style of the sample presented a quarrel. Neither of us would give in, but we had to make a decision. In this way, we have been in such a state of anxiety for the past few days.

Yi: finally, did you win on behalf of the design team or did he win on behalf of the product team?

C: I won the design. (laughs)

Yi: when you first received this assignment, how did you understand Lining's participation in New York fashion week?

C: at that time, Alibaba and New York fashion week co operated "China Japan (ChinaDay)" activities to find a brand that could represent China in the sports brand, and Lining was the first choice. Since it is the theme of "China Japan", we must represent China from the perspective of sports, and bring Lining back to everyone's sight with a more fashionable image. Because we are the first time to go to New York to take the show, the mass consumer group in the United States can not be very impressed with Lining, and the brand recognition is almost zero. So at that time we wanted to show the classic image with Lining characteristics. It is just this opportunity that gives us the chance to recreate the most brilliant moment of China's Olympic Games, because that period was accompanied by Lining's brand. Whether faced with consumers or consumers who will expand in the future, we all want to bring back this kind of sports emotion.

Yi: the performance of New York fashion week made Lining suddenly explode. Did you anticipate the result?

C: I didn't expect that. At the beginning of the show in New York fashion week, we began to consider the problem of selling, because some of the products on the show were directly taken from the existing big goods, and the whole product from scratch was unrealistic at that time. There was also an exhibition of SHOWROOM at the time, but this kind of late feedback was totally unexpected. The final response was totally unexpected. Later, many people came to ask me where I could buy these products.

Yi: did you have a new understanding of Lining's brand after this incident?

C: I think Lining is more about choosing the right brand. A few years ago, Lining's brand attitude was more manifested in the direction of the very movement, and it also passed on some traditional sports design concepts. But in recent years, we hope to be with young people, together with the times, to make the whole product younger, and to make the whole brand attitude younger.

In fact, since 2015, we have done a lot of research on young consumers, trying to redefine consumers, so Lining's brand strategy has changed since then. Of course, our new definition of consumers in 2015 is still at an early stage, and there will be some defects and deficiencies. In recent years, we have been working together to develop in a more fashion direction, and brand positioning is becoming clearer. For example, in the entire product line, besides professional sports products, we also have the product line inspired by street basketball. The product line was born at the time of consumer research. We design young consumers' favorite street clothes and develop products that really live with young consumers.

Yi: what problems have you encountered in the middle and how to solve them in the end?

C: the problem of New York fashion week is in the late stage. We were all in a state of excitement at that time. We have a total of 7 designers, 5 of whom were sent to the factory to follow up the progress of the sample, and the other two were assigned to try with the factory to make clothes that were difficult to achieve. This process requires designers to constantly adjust their fabrics, adjust their accessories and zippers, and do these things crazily every day. By the end of the show, several of us were responsible for bringing all the show money to New York, with an average of 4 suitcases per person. So when it comes to aircraft, we must keep looking for suitcases and confirm luggage.

When attending the Paris men's wear week, the team members who participated in the design became more and more diverse. The show in Paris later came to feel different from the place in New York. It adopted a more cultural and lifestyle way to interpret. For example, the gymnastic clothes to be re used for the competition are actually difficult to make. The fabrics are made of imported fabrics from Italy. Chiffon is also imported with chiffon and zippers, because it is a single item representing the origin of Li Ning Co sports, and its raw material and processing technology is also the most difficult. The final clothes were only two days away from the show, and then the meat was taken to Paris.

Yi: from New York fashion week to Paris men's wear week, many consumers are exclaiming the rapid change of Lining, and regard it as a tide card. What do you think?

C: I don't think so. Lining is also a sports brand. But in some directions we are doing now, we will incorporate some fashionable elements and street elements into the design, and combine this more fashionable element with the DNA of sports. These classic retro costumes and street culture costumes come from Lining's classic culture, which is the 1990s award culture, which also accords with the image of Mr. Lining, the founder of gymnastics.

Yi: Lining's performance in recent quarters has been brilliant. After 2018, did the Li Ning Co make new demands on the design department? For example, the frequency of designing the new season or new product needs to be speeded up?

C: indeed, the requirements for designers and product systems have become even higher. Because you have already played a higher stage in sports culture and street culture. There are many tide shop buyer shops will also come to seek cooperation, will put Lining's new products in the central core area display, more channels on the product quality and style has higher requirements, different channels also need different speed products, so cooperation and joint name also increased a lot of new product launch time.

In the past, the promotion channels were relatively simple, and now there will be more parallels. But now we will consider doing some event selling, and a shoe will be launched in many channels. It used to take about 3 to 4 months to launch a new series. Now, basically, it has broken the original working mode, including structural adjustment, which has become more flexible and diversified.

Yi: from a designer's point of view, what do you think is the biggest change of Li Ning Co in the past one or two years?

C: if we take the fashion week of New York as an outbreak node in 2018, Lining used to feel like a "sensible way" and realized something, but there was a lack of a right time to speak out. Just like we actually took a lot of big products to go to the show, what we exhibited at that time is something that has been prepared in the past three or four years.

Yi: how does the new product design style and direction reflect the subtle changes in Lining's brand positioning?

C: Li Ning Co's habit of doing things is to include colleagues in the product and marketing departments, first of all, sit together to make a more precise positioning. Before you make a new plan, do a lot of things in advance and think about what you should bring to the consumer. Then, to the stage when designers produce product design and creativity, we will choose the right product that resonates with consumers. What kind of slogan, what kind of attitude a product can show and what kind of lifestyle can appear is based on a large number of research work we have done before.

We have already found that young consumers are quite different from before. For example, we need to do some positive energy guidance in consumption attitude, such as "three good students" and "sunshine boys". But when we do research, we find that the mentality of this group of young consumers is rebellious, but it is not completely rebellious. Therefore, he is a rebellious attitude and a true personality. We then fused treason into younger products. For example, when we think about what colors are more representative of young people, we find that what they want is actually very simple. The color matching relationship between black and white can make them express themselves. So at that time, we had created many things that were cooler than before.

Sports brand used to use polyester fiber blended fabric, but now young people are more comfortable with comfortable, pure cotton and oversize products. In the past, sports brand loved to do the traditional sports jersey, but now we find that young people do not like these things, but are more street culture. Besides sweaters, you have to help him consider matching pants and shoes. In the past, brands liked to divide consumers by age. But now we find that you are targeting young people between 16 and 26, or 18 to 28. You should position yourself in the younger age of your heart, not your physical age. Some people are very young, but they like to stay at home. Some of them are thirty or forty years old, but they also like things in the city.