Designer Brands Were Sluggish, But Why Did Jacquemus Succeed?

It is not easy for global designer brands to survive, but Jacquemus has gone out of an enlightening new path.

French designer brand Jacquemus welcomed 10th anniversary this year. Simon Porte Jacquemus, founder and designer, has revealed that since its publication of the "La Bomba" series in the spring of 2018, its personal brand business has grown rapidly, and its revenue has almost doubled. According to his estimate, Jacquemus sales in 2019 will reach 23 million euros to 25 million euros, up from 11 million 500 thousand euros last year and 7 million 500 thousand euros in 2017.

In fact, Simon Porte Jacquemus, as early as 2016, said that the sales of the autumn and winter series in 2016 were two times that of the previous quarter, and the total income of 2016 autumn winter series and 2017 spring summer series is expected to exceed 5 million euros. This means that the annual sales of Jacquemus surged by 500% in about four years.

As a former LVMH Young Designer Award winner, Jacquemus is different from many forgotten designer brands after winning many awards. In 2015, the brand was awarded the prize of LVMH 150 thousand euros and professional guidance. It jumped to the highest brand designer's brand in the past year.

In a sense, the success of Jacquemus is "anti common sense". Simon Porte Jacquemus came from the southern French village. At the age of 19, she started a brand of "starting from scratch", without professional education background, nor experienced professional manager or "business brain" plus, even with the color of family business. This obviously breaks the industry's stereotypes of designer's brand, and brings new ideas to the designer's brand.

Replace entrepreneurship thinking with Entrepreneurship

Simon Porte Jacquemus was born in Mallemort in southern France and moved to Paris at the age of 18. At first he enrolled in ESMOD, a French fashion academy, but a few months later, the sudden death of his mother hit him hard. He began to realize the importance of grasping the importance of the moment, and then left school for a short time in the fashion magazine Citizen K. At the age of 19, he officially launched the personal brand Jacquemus named after his mother. He also served in Comme des Gar ons store, and began to run the brand full-time after the improvement of her personal brand business.

In 2012, Jacquemus, which founded only 3 years ago, officially boarded the official schedule of Paris fashion week. Commented that for the conservative fashion capital of Paris, Jacquemus helped young designers break the door of Paris. 3 years later, Jacquemus won the LVMH youth Designer Award. Its popularity spread further, boosting the brand to a new level.

If the sales volume of Jacquemus in 2016 reached 5 million euros, the Jacquemus in 2015 will be relatively mature in business, and the brand can rely on the sales revenue of the previous quarter for the next quarter's production, so that Jacquemus will be able to connect with the industry resources and professional guidance from LVMH more deeply, and the 150 thousand euro bonus provided by LVMH is just icing on the cake.

Unlike those who graduated from professional fashion colleges and started from the practice of big brands and gradually moved towards the establishment of individual brand targets, Jacquemus is obviously a heterogeneous group. If the former represents a kind of "student thinking", the latter is "entrepreneurial thinking".

The typical manifestation of "student thinking" is that entrepreneurship requires adequate preparation, such as obtaining professional education, internship experience in large enterprises, and interpersonal connections in the industry. These are also prerequisites for successful entrepreneurship. But "student thinking" often represents a linear causal stereotyped thinking. Its potential danger is that people think that adequate pre preparation can be exchanged for successful returns, and then plunge oneself into a mental state which is never ready to avoid solving problems.

In fact, the success of personal brand is the result of various factors including luck. Every year, thousands of fashion design students from all over the world graduate. According to data compiled by Graduate Prospects, only 1/7 of British fashion design students graduated in 2014 have found designers' jobs, and the employment problem has become a chronic disease in the industry. In recent years, the fashion industry has begun to call on people to give up their paranoid pursuit of high tuition fees, and face up to the fact that fashion degrees are not necessarily a fashion career.

Unlike personal designers, designers only need to focus on the development of styles, but the problems encountered in creating personal brands often come from all sides. Nowadays, professional education in fashion colleges is obviously not enough for designers to face complex brand management problems, and also causes designers' weak brand business capability.

For the designer brand in the future, the awareness of problem solving has become more and more important. Simon Porte Jacquemus is very gifted in solving problems. For example, in his interview, frank and simple design can help him save costs. If the cost of a single product exceeds 1000 euros, he will consider changing the design. At present, the price of Jacquemus products is between 200 and 900 euros. Although the brand has been increasing in price in recent years, Simon Porte Jacquemus has said that the price of the product has not gone up much more than the speed of brand expansion.

In addition, Jacquemus advocates "show money", and 90% of the products that people see on the brand fashion show will remain intact on the shelf. The brand does not specifically design business. In the past, luxury brands needed to present a series of concept costumes in fashion show, only a small part could be mass produced, and the design team needed to develop commercial piece on the basis of seasonal concept and eventually sold in stores.

This initiative is also reflected in the latest luxury brand FENTY of Rihanna. The brand creative team has saved a whole set of processes from creative concept to business, avoiding unnecessary waste, thus preventing the psychological gap of consumers in the fashion show and shop due to product inconsistency, allowing consumers to buy the same products they saw on the Internet. It is reported that Simon Porte Jacquemus checks the sales of brand websites every day, and the website's performance exceeds million euros in the first quarter.

The cost consciousness of Jacquemus in the early days of brand creation enables the brand to solve the survival problems first, and thus achieves the balance between creativity and commercially. Simon Porte Jacquemus once said, "I am both a designer and an entrepreneur. Any lack of these two roles will make me unhappy. "

"Telling a story" is more important than making clothes.

Simon Porte Jacquemus is the Internet aborigine. In the process of running Jacquemus, he embodies the use of social media thinking.

"Telling stories" is one of the most important means for people to get attention in social media. Jacquemus is very good at it. Since its inception, the brand has continuously strengthened the connection between the founders, the brand and the three southern France. It has created a typical holiday atmosphere from the popular single width and eaves cap to the layout of the show. Unlike traditional fashion brands, Jacquemus does not emphasize the different sources of inspiration for each season, but constantly enhances its brand image through every fashion show.

The advantage of this is very obvious. That is to let consumers speak of Jacquemus, which can quickly reveal the scene of South France holiday in their minds, and generalize brands with several keywords, but not ambiguity. The secret of brand success comes from "letting consumers know what you represent."

Simon Porte Jacquemus is also keen on shaping personal images on platforms such as Instagram. Designers' personal charisma is magnified in the age of social media. Like Virgil Abloh, Simon Porte Jacquemus has many followers in social media. He releases many personal photos on the official account of the brand, becoming part of the brand story, and also gives Jacquemus a strong personal color, which benefits from the designer's appeal. Professionalism has been considered the passport of fashion industry. Marc Jacobs, Raf Simons, Nicolas Ghesqui re and other star creative directors once had great appeal in the luxury industry. But at the moment, personal influence has obviously become a new currency. At present, Jacquemus has 1 million fans on Instagram, and the number of fans has doubled in the past year.

In the early days of brand building, Simon Porte Jacquemus organized a Jacquemus parade on Vogue Fashion's Night Out activities, interrupted the speech of the editor in chief of the French version, and presented bold brands to French TV stations. He also wrote letters to all the fashion designers at that time to promote the brand. He is good at getting acquainted with celebrities in social media through social media. For example, when he met French fashion icon Caroline de Maigret on Facebook, he invited her to shoot the brand lookbook.

Simon Porte Jacquemus frequently says on various occasions, "I don't make clothes, I tell stories." This is a modern brand manifesto that poses a great challenge to the traditional fashion industry, but its new brand concept has also become the focus of criticism for Jacquemus.

The most negative comment of Jacquemus on the industry is that it criticizes the lack of substance and emphasizes the packaging of brand image. However, people can not see the designer's breakthrough attempt in design for every season because of his lack of mind in product design. Some commentators worry that if this continues, if people continue to belittle the importance of "making clothes", the brand of the future will be empty.

But in today's fashion industry, learning to tell stories has become an essential skill no matter whether the brand is willing or not. Vetements and Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia are also known for their "storytelling". Storytelling is very important, but not necessarily through oral expression. Demna Gvasalia is convinced of this. He said, "if I'm not making clothes, I might make films."

Last July, Vetements released the 2019 spring summer series under a viaduct in Paris, and Demna Gvasalia explored the memory of Georgia in this way. During this January men's show, he also took the Internet as a theme to explore the danger of losing personal privacy. With the development of Demna Gvasalia and team, Balenciaga's popularity in social media has been increasing. The number of Instagram official account fans has soared to nearly 9 million from 1 million 200 thousand in 2015.

As long as the brand can tell a story that resonates with the current consumers, it can quickly get the response from consumers; as long as the brand can keep telling the fresh "story" of relate, it can continue to catch the attention.

The success of explosive bag is more important than anything else.

Accessories are fashionable brands of "cash cows", which has almost become the basic knowledge of the industry. But even with luxury brands with hundreds of people, many of them have been trapped for a long time to create a "burst" handbag that impresses consumers. In terms of designer handbags, handbags in the market are numerous, with little difference in style, and unable to provide consumers with social needs like luxury handbags.

Jacquemus has injected the brand symbolic geometric elements into the handbag design from the early stage, attracting some people's attention with unique design, but designer brand handbags are still not enough to make a significant contribution to brand sales. Until Jacquemus launched the super small handbag Chiquito, the commercial kinetic energy of accessories category finally began to break out. In 2019, 30% to 40% of Jacquemus sales came from Chiquito and other handbags.

The success of super large and super small handbags, which is practically useless, benefits from Jacquemus's precise grasp of consumer psychology. Because designer brand handbags can't provide social needs that highlight their status as luxury brands, people are more willing to pay for creativity when they buy designer brand handbags. Most of the designer handbags on the market have not jumped out of the current market trend, and the size of the handbags can bring the freshness to consumers.

In fact, the development of product size and "play" are the consistent design ideas of Jacquemus, and gradually become consumers' brand impression labels. Brand logo of the super wide eaves hat is also due to the size of ordinary single product changes and become "explosion".

In fact, the super small handbag has been popular for some time, and all kinds of red envelopes and cigarette packets emerge in an endless stream. Jacquemus is not the first brand to launch super small handbags. But Jacquemus is aware of the resurgence of decorism, which is the only way for people to give their handbags their functionality. The exaggerated oversize straw woven bag is also the same. So to a large extent, the success of the Jacquemus super size handbag lies in the development of its handbag design boundaries.

In addition, the price of the handbag is basically the same as that of the consumer, and people are willing to spend 200 to 400 dollars on products that can add flowers to life. Jacquemus's recognition in social media gives the brand handbag a social function, making the handbag a synonym for a specific lifestyle and minority tastes.

Simon Porte Jacquemus pointed out, "people come to us looking for something specific, whether it's a mini bag, a back dress or a Matisse style printed men's shirt. Unlike many other brands, I hardly sell T-shirts and sweatshirts. On the contrary, I sell more leather bags and straw hats than I do T-shirts.

For designer brand, the brand of explosive accessories and brand without explosive accessories will soon widen the gap. Jacquemus will be able to make use of accessories profits for category expansion. In March this year, Jacquemus launched the men's wear series for the first time. The industry has different opinions on this series. Simon Porte Jacquemus says his mood has been affected by negative reviews, but the sales condition of this series has satisfied him.

Not long ago, Simon Porte Jacquemus also collaborated with Caviar Kaspia to design a cafe called Citron, located at the old Buddha's department store on Champs Elysees. He designed all the facilities from menus to napkins, and further presented the Jacquemus brand iconic southern style. The launch of cafe by designer brand will undoubtedly bring new topics and further reflect the brand's lifestyle. Jacquemus also placed a brand handbag sculpture in the restaurant, which is undoubtedly a further publicity for brand products.

However, Jacquemus has no intention of building itself into a "super brand". At present, the brand has about 250 entities and online retailers in the world, and women's clothing still occupies a large part of the business. Simon Porte Jacquemus has said that although he is also considering setting up a brand's own store, if it makes him less free, he would rather give up. The Jacquemus team now has about 50 people. Last year, the brand also opened a logistics center, and hired his father, stepmother, aunt and best friend to add a lot of family business color to the brand.

Jacquemus is also very cautious about capital. He insists that he will remain independent and will never work for anyone. He said his talks with potential investors have so far been fruitless and have so far not seen valuable investors. From this perspective, the healthy operation of the brand itself and the early business foundation have gained more autonomy for the brand, enabling it to control its own size and retain its attitude in front of the capital.

As a heterogeneous brand in the designer's brand, Jacquemus represents a new generation of designer brand under the influence of social media. Although Jacquemus's success is not replicable, it clearly brings new guidelines to the industry. Times are changing, and designer brands may need to break the traditional restrictions, more daring and radical.