MO&Co.: Innovation And Courage Of A Local Women's Clothing Brand

With the opening of the experimental electronic DJ Felicita, the MO&Co. brings a new electronic music party like "the matrix" in the shade of black and white lights. MO&Co., who has insisted on fifteen years of cooliness, has completed a centralized release on this anniversary. The brand new era of the sensory Internet, which is increasingly blurred by Internet and reality, coincides with a staged show with tolerance and broad freedom.

"F Prince" Freja Beha Erichssen, local new generation model representative Wang Qu you, Jie Zhaoyu and Z era cool girl Jazzelle Zanaughtti and British new generation supermodel Hannah Motler form the "MO Girl" cool girl camp. The show was deliberately designed to create a sense of simplicity. Cool girls wear classic silk dress, leather goods, tannin jacket, suit and tooling suit. They appear on the spot under the promotion of the square spot. It is like walking directly to the Huangpu River in Shanghai from the virtual electronic world of Instagram.

Behind the international supermodel line-up, behind the show is actually the collective voice of China's indigenous creative forces with the support of MO&Co.. From the overall creative idea of BoF 500 member and designer Zhou Xiangyu (Xander Zhou), to the large scale stage photography, the local accessories brand Yvmin elegant hard core accessories design, and the Willow Smith surprise performance by STD invited by Shanghai local music creative agency, all of them have presented a local commercial brand and bold and innovative in the linkage of local creativity.

Zhou Xiangyu told BoF that he started preparations for the show of the show in the first two months of the show, and improved the planning of his showcase and business style. This is his first in-depth cooperation with MO&Co.. Zhou Xiangyu believes that it is this open attitude towards gathering local creative talents and attention to details that will keep the brand forward-looking. "This kind of foresight is not only reflected in its grasp of clothes or style itself, but also in the" periphery "of products, such as what kind of music they want to cooperate with, and what kind of music they want to cooperate with. Zhou Xiangyu said.

MO&Co.'s courage, awareness of brand positioning and pursuit of experimentation not only stay in the show. In the fiercely competitive Chinese clothing market, the local women's wear brand has maintained a consistently advanced market position. Instead of creating a "cool girl" image, they have created a market for local "cool girls". Today, they continue to be "rebellious" in business.

In the view of MO&Co. founder and EPO Group CEO Jin Ni (Jenny Kim), the inspiration of the brand has always been the ordinary girl walking on the street in Shanghai or Paris, wearing a cowboy coat and carrying a skateboard. She herself was dressed in black and white, and she said, "really cool may not be a tidal wave, but needs a strong sense of life."

"What MO&Co. wants to show is such a state that every girl can express herself with" dressing "and insist on being herself. This is what we call "Girl Power". The same is true for people who create and brand. We can stick to what we love and do what we like in our own way, and do our best to do it well, which is a very cool thing, "said Jin Ni.

Fifteen years later, looking back, MO&Co. still looks ahead. In the early days of the founding of the people's Republic of China, MO&Co. seemed somewhat out of place. At that time, the fashion clothing retail market in China was still popular with the previous generation of casual and overly feminine clothing brands. They lacked stylistic design and lack of brand tonality. They did not have the complete design concept and Xian Mingfeng style, but kept up with the trend of the season.

This has also become a unique feature of MO&Co. business. When the brand was founded, these factors were taken into consideration. With a dry Bob head, a light red lip, a suit on a shoulder and a pair of high heeled shoes, Jin Ni has chosen a seemingly rebellious way for MO&Co.. She wants to emphasize a kind of overall simplicity, frankness, and even some neutral style. It has also become the first domestic popular Freja Beha Erichssen popular brand that was popular at that time.

In addition, unlike the Chinese clothing brand's foundry or agent genes, MO&Co.'s original establishment is based on the strong personal interest of King Nye on clothing. Its priority is brand positioning and product starting. It provides a young Chinese consumer with hundreds of thousands of Yuan's casual wear, providing a fusion of international and local, but more modern choices.

McKinsey has pointed out in the report of "double click" Chinese consumers that Chinese consumers are more meticulous about global brands and local brands, and they pay close attention to the price performance of products. Among them, respondents who prefer domestic brands of clothing and footwear to 42%. Obviously, this market is a big cake.

With its outstanding brand image, MO&Co. has rapidly expanded its channel resources. In 2019, its stores nationwide are expected to exceed 1000. The brand knows well the complexity and diversity of China's clothing market. On the one hand, it pays attention to upgrading the brand tonality in the second tier cities. On the other hand, it also pays attention to the value of the sinking market. This summer, a new VIP appreciation in a store in Leshan, Sichuan, has achieved 700 thousand turnover in just three days, proving that the development of the two or three tier cities and the fashion environment are becoming more mature. In addition, MO&Co. has also prospectively established a new retail channel layout including third party platforms Tmall, self run official website, WeChat small program mall, etc., and will further open up platform data in the future to create high-quality shopping experience for consumers.

Taking the success of MO&Co. as a template, EPO group extends its exhibition to display the complete brand matrix, including high-end women's clothing Edition, children's wear little MO&Co., Menswear Common Gender and make-up brand REC, and more accurately serve consumers of different styles and age groups.

Jin Ni's sharpness has also expanded a new commercial brand development path for MO&Co.. In recent years, MO&Co. has initially established the brand tradition of "open source cross-border". Earlier it started the use of animation IP cooperation form, in depth cooperation with different IP such as Warner Disney's Mickey, Donald Duck, Alice and so on. It is also the first brand to cooperate with the classic animation of Shanghai art film studio "Hakkah Hakkas". The latest release of the MO&Co. Sailor Moon beauty girl series has successfully evoked collective resonance in 80 and 90s, and broke through 1000 sales in the 3 hour WeChat launch.

Compared to the early style of MO&Co., the fifteen year old brand is even more low-key, and under the trend of asexual style, the brand service crowd is also extended to the new generation of middle class who will wear the MO&Co., Common Gender and Edition together with the growth of the Internet, "do not want to be defined". In order to expand the new concept of "cool", MO&Co. also broke through the original design ideas, and chose to cooperate with the French brand Koch ye, who has a tolerant and multicultural gene, and launched the first designer co operative Series in the history of brand.

"We like Koch AI's control over the design, their future inspiration from the culture of young people and the easy integration of high fashion, which is very real, handsome and very similar to our brand temperament," Kim said in an exclusive interview with BoF.

"I think the aesthetic of our two brands is exactly the same. What's more, I saw Kim Ni when she was completely touched by her. She was just bringing the children back from Egypt, and we naturally started talking about music, art, books, and couldn't stop, "Koch Christelle, designer Kocher, told BoF. "MO&Co. is the brand I have always heard of. From the beginning of my brand, I often come to China to do research, which is also known by my team as brand."

Co operating with young brand and KOL to launch limited edition, China special fund and other joint cooperation series is a solution for many brands to solve the problem of high frequency innovation. However, as this marketing mode becomes routine and routine, it is hard to collide with bright fire.

Christelle Kocher has just won the French ANDAM Fashion Awards this year, and has also been selected for LVMH Prize. The central Saint Martin graduate serves as the artistic director of Paris Lemari feather Plaza, and serves as the chief assistant of Dries Van Noten. In Europe, she was hot in the streets because of her high profile. But for MO&Co., the first cross-border cooperation in the past 15 years has chosen Koch. The reason behind it is still the independent attitude of the brand itself and the recognition of the same concept of Kocher.

Kocher revealed that after two days of working hard with Kim Ni in her studio in Paris, she set out the keynote of this series. "Every product was conceived by us together. It was a real creative process. We almost forgot to eat on the two day," Kocher told BoF. "This is a real joint partnership. We want to remind you of tolerance, tolerance for culture and tolerance for women." Kocher said.

In other words, this is not a superficial design called "cross border joint name", which releases two brands of Logo. It is also a dialogue between two creative talents and female entrepreneurs who are eye-catching in the fashion industry. They have a common fashion and business attitude in common.

In this collaboration, MO&Co. and Koch E also reflect the diversity of women through the splicing and Deconstruction of Polo skirts, sports jackets and knitted sweaters. They offer a brighter dress and find a perfect balance between wearing and dressing.

Koch, a new generation of Paris designer brand that combines advanced custom fashion style with street furniture, has completed an in-depth dialogue and collision with the cool girl image of MO&Co., and has also inspired the complexity of the MO&Co. cool girl gene. Kocher revealed that the joint series is aimed at the consumption of Chinese young women. She hopes that these designs can convey infectious and broader women's strength.

"Koch and MO&Co. may be influenced by the street breeze, but we still do fashion design. We just want to bring the comfort and confidence that the street represents to fashion expression," Kocher added. With this openness, this series has been real-time live broadcast through Tmall and WeChat applet, and the number of online users has exceeded 100 thousand.

From the outside, this cooperation is just for the purpose of "carrying goods". It is an important part of the marketing campaign of brand 15th anniversary. But Jin Ni really hopes to bring this new pattern of democratization of creative process and product design and brand operation to Guangzhou headquarters of MO&Co. and EPO group.

MO&Co. and Koch Ye's cross-border joint name series is the first designer co operation Series in 15 years since the establishment of the brand.

"This cooperation is more like a joint venture, which is more like a mutual discussion and exchange between design and product," said Jin Ni. "EPO group launched the creative talent project Innovation Center last year, aiming at maintaining innovation and carrying out deep cooperation with outstanding designers, creative talents and institutions all over the world, and constantly innovating in product design, vision, creativity and so on. This is the long-term project of the group, and the joint venture with Koch Ye brand is the beginning.

Behind the establishment of Innovation Center is the further enhancement of the brand to the product itself. For each group of relatively independent EPO groups, Innovation Center can become a "creative power station" existence. In the front end of the brand design process, the cross boundary creative communication between brands can be strengthened. It can effectively break the fundamental problem of the lack of effective communication among various departments of the matrix garment enterprises. In terms of business, it will effectively affect the speed and sustainable development efficiency of product development, production and channel, reduce the profit space, enhance the effective utilization rate of fabrics, stimulate the organic growth of brand sales volume, and reduce the unsalable proportion of goods.

In Jin Ni's view, in this era of increasingly diversified culture and style, brand inclusiveness has become a necessary skill. It is particularly important for MO&Co., a brand that focuses on diversified local markets, and how to keep the brand core DNA not being led by the market.

Although it has been chased by capital in recent years, Jin Ni believes that maintaining the independence of the "small world" and maintaining a certain distance from the capital market can continue to optimize the brand matrix and continue to break through in creativity.

The brand side revealed that MO&Co. did not have a plan of rapid expansion, and more investment would be placed on boosting the creative power and guaranteeing price stability, so as to serve the new generation of consumers who are accustomed to "consumption upgrading".

Although MO&Co.'s brand consumer loyalty has been very high in the industry, with the new brand of Everlane facing the consumer brand, the new players of H&M group's high-end women's clothing brand Other Stories continue to enter the Chinese market. MO&Co. and other brands of the group also need to go ahead in the forefront of the market under the premise of steady development, in other words, keep this "cool" strength 15 years ago.

"With the rise of youth culture, the popularity of high fashion and street culture has soared, so you can relax and mix freely, not completely lost in the heat of the trend, and listen to your heart more deeply," said Jin Ni. "Therefore, MO&Co. should make a solid product and join hands with some creative talents to provide consumers with good products that can develop more personal styles."