Kapok: How Does Hongkong'S "Little Colette" Continue To Create Freshness?

After more than 10 years of opening, the Hongkong independent fashion buyer shop finally moved to the new store next door, but for the new store, Kapok founder Arnault Castel insisted on persuading the landlord for four years.

"This place is very relaxed, a little European atmosphere, and is also located in the core of Admiralty, where you can start anywhere in Hongkong."

Wearing a printed shirt Castel, sitting in the new shop, explained the insistence of this four years.

Four years ago, the scale of Kapok was still small, but the store, which was hidden in the corner of sun Street on Sunmoon street, still attracted consumers from all over the world. Kapok provided medium priced "French elegant" clothing and lifestyle products, which enabled the buyer shop to continue to develop in a changing retail environment.

In terms of goods selection, Kapok's clothing is concentrated in men's and women's casual fashion brands priced between one thousand and three thousand yuan, with an average age of twenty or thirty years.

Here you can find casual clothes and accessories such as MaisonKitsune, Louvreuse, O.N.S, and lifestyle brands from Hay, Feret Parfumeur, etc.

Relying on its precise elegance and elegance, it currently operates 4 Kapok stores, including pop-up temporary store including Freitag, New York menswear brand O.N.S and cosmetics brand Buly 1803 four single brand stores (Kapok in the past ten years before the establishment of a joint venture with the Chinese men's wear brand nine Mu Wang), and the Kapok of French fashion brand Maison Kitsune in Hongkong is expected to earn HK $60 million this year.

The steady development of Kapok plans to open a new shop in the new K11 in August this year.

"They are kind of like a little I.T, but Arnault is a bit like Shen Jiawei."

Monocle Hongkong station James Chambers told BoF.

Monocle's Hongkong office is also Kapok's neighbor.

Kapok Star Street District, known as the "Wan Chai back garden", is composed of Japan street, Yuet street, Star Street and Jin Jiao Wai. It takes Tai Koo square as the core of the three blocks. It is a creative block similar to Shanghai's Yuyuan Road. Its developer SwireProperties started in 1988, retaining the literary atmosphere of the streets, but gradually began to commercialize. Besides Kapok, Monocle, here also opened Le Labo, PureYoga, Maison XXII, and so on, making it a representative of Hongkong gentry.

"In this competitive retail market in Hongkong, you have to offer some unexpected, extra services, and the real estate developers Swire know this very well, and they need some anchor tenants like Kapok."

Chambers said.

"From the fast changing restaurants here, we can see that the rent pressure here is not small, but we live with Kapok, because the developers are interested in it."

Chambers said.

To a certain extent, the emergence of Kapok is a precise location shop, finding an example of retail space that is consistent with brand positioning. Like any successful buyer shop, Kapok initially opened shop without considering purely commercial considerations.

More than 20 years ago, Castel, who moved to Hongkong for financial work, soon found that her hobby was in fashion. Hongkong also lacked the casual but French style clothes that he wanted to buy. So he decided to open a fashion showroom in the days of heaven. Because her sister was the top of Maison Kitsune, the showroom started selling Maison Kitsune products.

A few years later, Kapok discovered a small shop on Japanese street. Although the degree of commercialization was not high at that time, Castel was acutely aware that this place was very similar to the familiar left bank of Paris. Although the flow of people was not prosperous, it was just suitable for Kapok's low-key sense of excavation.

"My first store was very deep, and it was very inconvenient to find it. But I thought at that time that I had to open a different retail shop with no common sense.

I feel lucky that I have found such a shop. "

Castel said, obviously, the Frenchman's rebellious spirit is charming enough. The shop which is not easy to find, through frequent small activities, and, of course, the power of social media, Castel personally serves as the corner Party of DJ. Local media reports attract a loyal group of users.

"A lot of people think that we should solve the problems faced by the fashion retailing industry, but I think we should first find the DNA of the brand, and the DNA of Kapok is to build a community."

Castel explains.

"I think the difference between Hongkong is that it is a city with a large population density, a strong shopping culture, and people are interested in shopping."

He said.

"I soon discovered that shopping is more than just shopping. It's just needed."

Castel's "clean but detailed" brand from all over the world has also made Kapok's retail experience inherently enough fun.

"When you talk about retail as a kind of entertainment, I think many people are wrong, and it seems to be artificial. What's more, the shop assistants must be friendly enough. With their help, you can find the brands that surprise you."

Castel said.

"Our customers have travelled around the world, and it is not easy to find enough interesting brands here."

In the bigger shop of RI street, lifestyle products and clothing bags and suitcases account for half of the products. Castel also found Collective, a Hongkong architectural firm, to interpret the dichotomy.

"The proposal that Kapok gave us is very simple. How to combine two stores into one?

For us, the two shops on the street corner, which are connected to Jin Jiao Wai and RI Jie, should use this symmetrical property to interpret with two materials.

She worked as a design director at OMA, a famous architectural firm, and told Betty in 2015 that Betty Ng, who founded Collective.

"This meets the needs of functionality, practicality, architectural history and architectural context."

"I am also a consumer of Kapok. I think the most important thing about lifestyle products is intimacy, localization and light luxury."

Ng said.

"This does not mean that we have to use expensive materials. This time we used three splints (plywood). This is a ubiquitous material, but we found a bit of marble that felt three splints and brushed paint. We created a comfortable luxury through a simple material."

Another material of Kapok, cement, such as three splints, extends from the ceiling to the ground. The consistency of this material means that there is enough flexible adjustment space on the product display, and these two "simple" materials will not be too strong and grab the limelight of the product itself.

"Kapok has a high density of products, but it never seems messy. We want to highlight the advantages of Kapok, but also take into account the need for retail teams to adjust their display at any time."

Ng said.

Ng believes that the essence of retail design is to design a "surface" that carries the product. The specifications of lifestyle products are smaller and more diversified. Therefore, on the side of lifestyle, Collective has made a long three plywood shelf, but at the end of the lifestyle, it provides a short shelf for displaying single items.

This space enables consumers to really focus on the product itself.

Ng said.

Collective will also move a similar concept to the upcoming K11 Kapok store. In this 3000 square meter space, Kapok's liveliness and dexterity can be displayed more clearly: Castel hopes consumers can play here for an hour.

"People will always have a moment of leisure, but I hope their intuition turns into Kapok shopping for an hour."

Castel said.

In his view, if a physical store wants consumers to stay, they should not become a cafe, but should spend more time looking for good brands that attract consumers' attention and display them in a suitable form.

Castel revealed that at present, the conversion rate of Star Street retail store is 40%.

"A store needs to meet the two basic needs of consumers:" I am special, "but" I feel that I am accepted ".

Castel concluded.

"I once read that consumers will only remember the two parts of a store: the space just entering the shop and the checkout place, so we need to pay more attention to the retail experience of the two parts."

In addition, Castel, who is about to move Kapok's office to the shop floor, says that it also enables Kapok buyers and public relations teams to get closer to consumers.

"Working in the retail industry is tiring, you need energy, so a shop design is also considerate to the shop assistants."

In order to maintain the independence and playful character of Kapok, Castel will continue to organize activities at this street store, such as a street party this weekend, and he will personally serve as DJ.

For Kapok positioning, what we need to do now is to attract more mature brands to enter. Meanwhile, we will explore the next interesting new brand.

"Now people travel frequently, they always see the same luxury stores, the same coffee shops, but I want to resist this' homogeneity ', and I don't want Kapok to be a" same "buyer I can see in Seoul, South Korea.

Castel said.

But at the same time, maintaining a certain degree of stability is also an essential quality of a mature buyer's shop.

"We need to have a clear positioning, long-term development goals, of course, change is very attractive, you walk in the street surrounded by street fashion, but if Kapok abandon the original position, every six months will be completely different, and start selling shoes and big logo T-shirt, then it is not Kapok."

Castel said firmly.

"We will keep up with the trend, but we must start from Kapok's own perspective.

If we pursue how to meet the needs of everyone in Instagram, we will lose ourselves.

Castel said so.

Kapok, the shoe brand that has been selling G.H Bass, is now selling Veja, Soloviere, Common Project, fashion shoes and casual shoes as well as O.N.S.

Norse Projects, Gitman Vintage such as French and Nordic style casual wear brand.

Kapok's approach is to find its location in the trend of the street breeze, which also meets the creative and commercial decisions that make Kapok less easily replaced.

Castel will still go to Paris fashion week to find new brands every season. At the same time, he is busy launching Kapok's own brand FutureClassics in autumn and winter.

Of course, this will also be an interesting French dress brand.

The new brand of Kapok store has not been used, because Castel does not want it to have a sense of "buy shop sub line brand". "This will make you lose the sense of creating a new brand," Castel said.

In addition to the new brand, Castel also believes that the Chinese market is a new continent that will break through sooner or later. But as the development of its Hongkong and Singapore businesses, he is not in a hurry.

"We need to do things step by step, for example, to do well in social media. After all, this is a competitive new market.

We are very close to China, and I do not want to regret it because I did not enter the Chinese market, but I do not want to do it deliberately.

Castel says.

"But I know this story is very beautiful, and a Frenchman has opened a shop in the French concession."

To a certain extent, this is also the key to fashion retailing in a rush to change the Internet age.

"The law of retailing is not dominated by algorithms, but should be seen by consumers."

Castel said.