The North Face Wants To Connect With "Tide". What Can They Conquer The Vanity Of Young People?

Jiao Tianyi is 25 years old, reading second Masters in Barcelona, Spain and doing business in amateur clothes. He was a fashion enthusiast from high school. He spent 3000 to 5000 yuan a month on clothes.

That period was also the time when he wore the The North Face (TNF) clothes. It was the first time to buy TNF and fashion brand Supreme joint clothing and down clothing before and after 2010. On the one hand, they liked Supreme earlier, and he thought that the early joint names were very "fried" designs, such as "metropolis" and "cashew nuts", which stimulated his desire to buy.

In addition, he also cited his current buyers: Although the style of the joint assault clothing is often the classic version of TNF itself, it is more "cool and expensive" after having the logo of Supreme, which is often the most important criterion for buyer selection, practicality is second and even vanity is caught inside.

In addition, TNF's "Purple Label" designed and produced in Japan is also one of his most familiar product lines. At that time, in addition to constantly browsing the fashion public numbers and forums, he liked Shawn Yue and Edison Chan as well as many young people who liked the tide cards, and imitated their wear. The clothes of the purple standard line were often picked out by the sellers from the daily photos or the stills of the two stars, and the words "Shawn Yue same money" were used.

Recalling the preferences at that time, he felt that the "Purple Label" design was low-key and well dressed. "Everyday jeans are waterproof and crease resistant, giving me a very relaxing feeling." The "Supreme buying group" may be an unruly Rapper. He believes that the image of the people who buy the purple label from him should be the office workers in the city, paying attention to details and "knowing what they want".

As for the professional outdoor style that The North Face has been good at, he has never bought any of the coke days, and, like the buyers he mentioned, pays more attention to "cool and expensive". His consumption of this outdoor brand product is entirely due to its beginning to enter the city life and to link with the young people and the trend.

If you look at the history of the outdoor brand established in 1966 for more than 50 years, you can see that the route from outdoor to city has been running through the company's development: it only served professional outdoor sports enthusiasts at the beginning of its establishment, but eventually it took the route of "turning minority into public demand".

After the transformation of the company's founder and extreme sports enthusiast Douglas Tompkins in 1969, The North Face continued to expand. At the end of 90s, it was acquired by veteran clothing company, VF Corporation with Vans and Dickies now.

After that, products of The North Face have become more like "big roads": the target audience is becoming more and more blurred. It has been jokingly known as "outdoors clothes that people can't wear in Beijing's five rings". On the one hand, audiences of all ages do appear, but they are all beginners or not very demanding fans; on the other hand, they want higher core audiences to turn to more elite brands.

British lifestyle magazine Dazed has described TNF: "for many people, The North Face reminds us of the hot pints, Land Rover cars, and a slightly diffused racism in central England." on Grey Sunday, this may be your father wearing a rain boot and walking a dog's clothes, because it has the characteristics of dad's likes of clothes: practical, comfortable, and no need to spend too much thought. "

The brand of "Dad like" is the result of The North Face's early expansion of the market to the city, but now it seems that the brand is not satisfied with it.

The North Face also wants to expand the market of young people, as is the case with big, traditional companies. The importance of this is obvious. The curiosity Daily reported in 2015 on the "aging of various industries" and quoted the "China consumer trend report" released by Boston consulting company (BCG). By 2020, China's consumer market will expand by half, while 65% of the increments will come from 80, 90 and 00.

Just like the fashion design of sports shoes, fast fashion brands actively operate the electronic business platform and social media, the outdoor sports elements of The North Face have gradually integrated into the city story, and have begun to interact with young groups meticulously, attracting more and more people like Jiao Tian.

They really did something. So Tim Bantle, general manager of lifestyle line, can conclude that The North Face regards "exploration" as a way of thinking that can be used everywhere, not just sports itself.

With street brands and shops, the sub culture story in history has become the current marketing strategy.

Joint names with street clothing brands and shops always seem to make "tide changing" quick and efficient. The "TNFxSupreme" joint name, known as "Jiao Tian Ren", is one of the hottest cases. This cooperation began in 2007 and continues to date. For Supreme, a street apparel brand with many partners, cooperation with TNF is also one of the most stable and long-lived projects.

Another Tim, The North Face's global brand director, Tim Sedo, told curiosity daily that "this cooperation has made us proud." First of all, it is because "it brings new consumers to the The North Face" and attracts a lot of eyeballs. In addition, "it itself is the most old school street clothing brand in New York, creating a culture, and The North Face has done something similar".

Tim Sedo is happy to talk about the United States of 80 and 90s, when he thinks that The North Face is a symbol of wealth to be worn by Rapper for expensive and good quality: for example, the members of the hip hop group, Wu-Tang Clan, have taken MV in the TNF jacket, and similar to the shoe brand Timberland, and the Carhartt of the production uniforms. "It's not that we want to be fashionable and fashion is adapting to us," Tim Sedo said proudly. "(then) you walk in the street wearing The North Face clothes, and everyone else will think," this man is rich. "

It's hard to say how many young people will buy their products because of Rapper's favorite The North Face in New York in 90s. But what is certain is that the joint name with Supreme has turned the history back to the The North Face. These products really become fashion costumes, and then appear in the popular Rapper's MV.

The way of cooperation between TNF and Supreme is to redesign the classic style of TNF history. For example, in the autumn and winter of 2010 and the spring 2013 TNF and Supreme Mountain Parkas jacket, you can see the shadow of 1990s's Gore-Tex mountaineering jacket. This style is labeled as "revolutionary (recolutionary)" on the official website, and now it becomes a landmark (iconic).

The Tech Steep Jacket, which was passed by members of Wu-Tang Clan in the 1993 Method Man MV, was also resurrected in 2016 in the joint name of TNF and Supreme spring and summer. The color matching of Wei Yi Liang Huang and light blue was evaluated by the German street dress blog Highsnobiety as "nostalgia color matching" and "salute for hip-hop style in 90s".

In addition to cooperating with Supreme and other big brands such as Vans, The North Face also penetrated into some of the tide shops, such as Etra Butter, which originated from shoe stores in Lower East Manhattan, New York. Compared with the bigger brands, the consumers' preferences of this shop are more detailed, which enables The North Face to lay down their brand names and make unique and even unexpected styles. In 2017, they released Nuptse jacket, which was covered with color stripes of "no signal" on the low definition TV of the last century. The product announcement on the social network is an old TV, which is alternately flashing "technical difficulties", colorful stripes, and "TNF x Extra Butter" subtitles accompanied by the noise.

The cooperation with Chao shop or neap brand seems very clever. It makes people feel that The North Face has indeed infiltrated into a relatively closed community of subcultures, producing products targeted, instead of being big brands that are attached and admired as many years ago. This may be a way of impressing the changing and dispersed young people nowadays.

In an interview with curiosity daily, Tim Sedo even mentioned Chengdu's rap combination Higher Brothers and Xiamen's fashion designer Shangguan Zhe. He believes that if you cooperate with such people, the brand will grow with them, so that consumers can pay "emotional rewards" and consume products like stars. "Maybe we need not consumers, but fans."

Indeed, although "sub culture" is not the same thing in China today and two or thirty years ago, it may indeed become the origin of consumption.

Japan is an important part of developing the "branch line" of different cities with designers everywhere.

The trend series of The North Face have several clear classifications, which are distinguished by the color of the logo. They are often referred to as the purple standard of Japan, the white standard of Korea, and the red label of Italy. Their common point is to cooperate with local designers to redesign the traditional outdoor clothing in order to serve the city life. Among them, the purple standard was first developed in Japan (2003), and the latter two were only after 2014.

Joint names with designers and brands in Japan play an important role in The North Face "changing tide", but it seems that many outdoor brands with similar appeals are hard to avoid. According to the American lifestyle media Gear Patrol, in Japan, lifestyle oriented outdoor products market has been developing more vigorously. In addition to The North Face, American skiing equipment manufacturer Burton and outdoor brand Gregory specialize in producing and selling products in Japan.

"What happened and happened in Japan was that they really attached importance to the craft, simplicity and story behind the products. An undecorated thing is worth more than anything hanging around a bell or whistle. This is hard for us to understand in the United States. This is a point of view that focuses on the story rather than the technical strength, "an American designer described in Gear Patrol about the" living "design of Japanese outdoor products.

It seems that The North Face is still developing a style of learning while opening up its market in Japan.

"Purple Label" is the most important product line of The North Face in Japan. When working with Japanese design brand Nanamica in 2003, designer Motoma Yuichiro (Eiichiro Homma) defined "Purple Label" as "integration of advanced, fashion and function" and "matching with modern Japanese people's life while influenced by outdoor style". This concept was put forward earlier than most other TNF city series. The classic outdoor section of The North Face was then converted into a casual sportswear using functional technology materials.

The unique design style and the avant-garde concept at that time made the "Purple Label" a special trend sign of The North Face. Although the "Purple Label" was only produced and sold in Japan before 2019, according to GQ's interview with Motoma Yuichiro, Tokyo's Nanamica store sold 40% to 50% of the purple label products in other countries. In 2019, "Purple Label" began to be sold in the United States, while the "international Purple Label" series was launched. This series contains 16 popular styles of "Purple Label" in the past, but it has been improved to suit Westerners' figure and aesthetics. The North Face from the US has returned to the United States like new things after carrying out the "Japanese style improvement".

In addition to the "Purple Label", we can see from the joint names of The North Face that the cooperation with Japanese designers and brands is relatively frequent, and the same as the purple standard, it distinguishes the American style of design from a moderate and simple way of life. Many designers are good at making use of functional technology to make urban clothing, such as Watanabe Junya (Junya Watanabe), and some more tend to fashion and fashion design, such as brand Sacai and Mastermind World (formerly Mastermind Japan).

The North Face has also launched a joint venture with BEAMS, Japan's fashion department store, including jackets, vests and other clothing and handicrafts, magazines, and traditional calligraphy and paintings.

"Urban exploration" has officially become the product category of The North Face, but there may be some problems.

Tim Sedo found a business opportunity when he was a marketing manager of The North Face Greater China in Hongkong from 2015 to 2018. Many Chinese people would go to Japan and Korea to buy The North Face products. On the one hand, the price of Japanese coins was lower; in addition, the styles of TNF in Japan and Korea seemed to be more fashionable, such as "Purple Label" and "white label" series products. In Sido's view, compared with North America, China's market has changed rapidly, demand has increased rapidly, and even business leaders are more willing to try to change.

In addition to these factors, in 2015, Sedo and team opened a Urban Exploration (UE) store in Shanghai and Hongkong respectively, which initially sold products from Japan and Han Yunlai, and then began to have UE exclusive designers and the flagship "black label" series. The "black label" is similar to other TNF trends, highlighting the "functional style" of combining function and fashion.

Different from the previous "different colors", "urban exploration" is a bigger concept that emphasizes the trend of the city. It is parallel with TNF's Mountain Sports, Mountain Athletics and Mountain Lifestyle. According to Sedo's statement, "UE" stores may sell all kinds of "standard" clothes: for example, the UE store in Sanlitun, Beijing, besides selling the flagship black label, this year also starts selling purple labels.

Compared with previous shops such as "Purple Label" and "white label", the "UE" store expands faster and has wider scope. According to Sido, at present, there are more than 30 stores in Greater China and have opened to Europe and the United States.

Of the 35 TNF stores in Shanghai, four are "UE" shops, which are located in Zhengda Plaza in Lujiazui, Shaanxi iapm in Nanjing West Road South Road, Jiu Guang Department Store in Nanjing West Road and Hong Kong Union Plaza in Xujiahui. The UE store, which Sedo said, was used in 2015 to test, is the "art shopping center" K11, opened in Huaihai Middle Road, Shanghai. It is closed at present. According to the iapm UE's salesperson, shop closures are related to the small volume of people's traffic. "There may be more people who consume luxury goods around."

The UE store of iapm is located on the four floor escalator of the shopping mall. The products currently sold are only "black label" series. According to Xu Jinhua, a salesperson, there are about 2 passengers and 30 thousand people in the shops every month, and the customers of UE are 8 to 25 to 45 years old. He said that one of the reasons for the high turnover rate in the four UE shops in Shanghai is that there are NIKE LAB and Supreme stores near Shaanxi Road near the shopping mall, which can attract young people who are concerned about the trend and have equal spending power.

The WeChat public number of TNF UE shows that the UE series of down coats and jackets are priced at 3000 to 4000 yuan, 300 to 500 yuan for T-shirts, and 1000 yuan for trousers.

In the current situation, the "black label" under the name of "UE" is the TNF trend in mainland China. But how the effect of the coverage of the tidal current is wider, whether the coverage is consistent with the product design orientation, and how to integrate with the original "DNA" of TNF can still be a problem.

A trend magazine editor who does not want to reveal his real name and calls himself "hamster" thinks that the black label is "a little bit high but not low." He usually wears TNF clothes. The biggest purpose is to go out for hiking and travel. Therefore, he is more inclined to the functional style. He often selects the "more potential" plain clothes from the traditional outdoor clothes of TNF, while some of the black ones are not suitable for outdoor sports. He also likes the "mountain wind" of "Purple standard", and thinks that it makes people "integrate into nature in the city and is a way of life". Relatively speaking, the black label "urban functional wind" comes from cyberpunk culture, "black and white, cold." It's not that he doesn't like "functional wind" because he thinks buying "black label" for "functional wind" seems to add some money and has more professional choices, such as Stone Island in Italy.

In the UE store of iapm, there are still 50 or so middle-aged and old people asking. One old man said, "I know The North Face, the kid bought it for me," but "the coat is too expensive, it must be for young people." TNF UE's public relations Kivan Qiao told curiosity daily that as consumers, she wanted to see outdoor and city styles being sold to a store. "The North Face," she said.

As for Jiao Tianyi, he said he did not pay much attention to UE and black label clothes. He thought that the black label and UE "get more channels", more like a "young people's clothing brand": "for example, you are a person who doesn't care about dressing, and also have the opportunity to visit UE and black label when visiting, and (I am in College) Purple will not give you this opportunity."

In the final analysis, scarcity and subtlety of fashion have created the essence of "cool". The The North Face that we hope to tie in with this is also as subtle as controlling the success rate of consumers.