Why Is The Offline Physical Store Scene Unavailable Online

"Why do you want to open an offline store?"

"Owning a physical store has always been my dream."

When asked about the offline layout, the manager of Chaopai COKEIN replied in a nutshell.

"This is the perceptual side. What about rational and commercial considerations?"

"It's not necessary to make money. I just want to see customers consume in offline stores, which can't be done online." Doudou added, "Stores are more about brand sedimentation than sales."

Of course, it is unrealistic to "fever" just for dreams. As the manager of a commercial brand, Doudou does not always hesitate to choose the former between "art" and "business"

This may also be a problem faced by many Chaopai managers. The choice of "art" means that the business is difficult to sustain, and the choice of "business" will inevitably flow into stereotypes. The crux behind this is that the development of domestic fashion brands has not yet been better spread.

Dudou admitted that he still needs to learn communication experience to make more hipsters recognize him. However, before that, he also found a way of compromise - to make more brands to cater to the public, to implement himself, and to use profitable brands to support unprofitable brands.

For the brand itself, it is hard to say whether this compromise is a success or a compromise, but from the perspective of consumers, the existence of the small fashion brand itself is a manifestation of value. The diversity of choices and aesthetic diversification are not only aesthetic gifts brought by Chaopai to consumers, but also commercial nourishment given by consumers to Chaopai.

Invited by AnswerLimited, Yintai Department Store Chaopai Collection Store, ID: TideSight recently talked with Doudou, the manager of COKEIN, Li Yichao, the manager of ENSHADOWER, Jason, the manager of CHINISM, and Lili, the product manager of KODAKBLACK, to explore the growth path of four Chinese Chaopai brands and predict the future trend of domestic Chaopai business.

Go to the front of the platform

"Chaopai" is not a localized concept. Its English is streetwear. Literally, it has a deep connection with street culture. It can be traced back to New York hip-hop fashion and California surfing culture.

Stussy, recognized by the mainstream media in the United States as the first fashion brand, was obsessed with skateboarding and surfing when he was young, often signed his signature on the skateboard, and later began to sell T-shirts with graffiti. With the increase of sales volume, Stussy gradually became famous and became one of the three largest fashion brands in the United States.

Since its birth, the concept of Chaopai has been characterized by subculture and non mainstream. Compared with mainstream clothing brands, Chaopai is more individualistic, emphasizing self-expression, and does not cater to the aesthetic preferences of mainstream consumers. This feature coincides with those of the post-95 and post-00 generation.

The 2017 Online Fashion Consumption Trend Report pointed out that the preference for "trendy brand" shows the young people's attitude of pursuing individuality and freshness. The younger the age is, the higher the preference for "trendy brand" is, and the preference for "trendy brand" is especially significant among the post-95s and post-00s.

Although Chaopai is preferred by young people today, its germination in China can be traced back to earlier.

In 2002, the Tide Brand UNDEFEATED, which means "not to be overthrown", was born in Los Angeles. In the future, it will be merged with Stussy and Supreme as the "three giants of American Tide Brand".

In the same year, I.T Group, known as the "originator of fashion" in China, marched north into Shanghai and settled in the then undeveloped Xintiandi Business District.

Coincidentally, in 2002, Edison Chen met BAPE in Japan ? Nigo, the manager of, and Hiroshi Fujiwara, the godfather on the streets of Tokyo, founded CLOT, known as China's first fashion brand, after returning home.

The trend wind blows from Europe and the United States to Japan and South Korea, and then lands in the mainland through Hong Kong and Taiwan. After the new century, the generation of post-85 and post-90 ushered in the impact and baptism of trend culture.

However, at that time, the communication mode of fashion culture was not developed. Even though the Internet had emerged, it was far from today's social media, which allowed individuals to speak freely and convey their dress sense to that era.

Doudou recalled that he had the first computer in 2003. "At that time, it was dial-up networking, and the channels for obtaining information were very narrow." The aesthetic changes of the generation that Doudou grew up at the same time depended on Hunan TV and other TV media with obvious entertainment styles.

When this group of people began to grow up and become economically independent, their understanding and pursuit of trends accumulated in the process of growth became their original intention to establish their own doors.

Different from the founders of Li Ning, Anta and Seven Wolf clothing brands of the older generation, the original intention of Chaopai managers who grew up after the millennium to start their own clothing business is more to "please themselves" than "commerce". Dudou said frankly that he started this way by making clothes for himself.

In 2009, Doudou, who was still in college, started his own Taobao shop and accumulated his first batch of customers in those years. With the growth of business, Dudou founded the first brand COKEIN in 2015.

In that year, the company was also founded by ENSHADOWER (a hidden person), whose manager Li Yichao had similar entrepreneurial experience with Doudou. He was a fashion designer who loved the dead flying bicycle in college. So in his sophomore year, Li Yichao founded a brand related to the dead flying movement with a capital of 40000 yuan, which is also the prototype of the hidden man.

The rapid development of the Internet and mobile Internet has driven the change of communication channels. From early forums and post bars, to microblog and WeChat, to today's Diaoyin and Xiaohongshu, as well as overseas Twitter and INS, young people find their favorite styles under more diversified and intelligent algorithms.

"In the past, only one in 100 young people might understand fashion, but now there are 10 out of 100 people who understand fashion." Li Yichao pointed out, "and these 10 people have different information on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Diaoyin. Under the guidance of different styles, they will gradually find their own clothing concepts."

(Image source: Given, a small red book blogger)

For China's Chaopai market, 2017 and 2018 are inseparable years. It was mentioned that in those two years, China's Internet clothing e-commerce witnessed explosive growth, and he also made his first huge fortune in 2017.

Li Yichao also verified this statement. According to his memory, 2017-2019 was the best time for Chaopai. A large number of Chaopai began to settle in Tmall in those years

Behind the rise of tide brand is the rise of national tide. In 2018, the sub brand of "China Li Ning" appeared at New York Fashion Week with the theme of "enlightenment", opening the "national tide era" of Li Ning. It was also in that year that the market share of Adidas, an overseas giant, turned from rising to falling. The subsequent "Xinjiang Cotton" incident accelerated the decline of overseas giants and the rise of domestic products.

In Doudou's view, the migration of mainstream consumer groups has directly changed the value concept of consumption. "Many of our parents think that imported goods are good, but with the change of the main force of consumption of trendy culture and the constant publicity of their own culture, many young people have also seen the ingenuity of domestic products."

"Art" or "Business"

After the rise of the national trend, Chinese clothing began to become the favorite of young people.

The report Baidu 2021 Guochao Pride Search Big Data shows that the popularity of Guochao has increased by 528% in the past 10 years, of which Guochao Clothing is the second topic of Guochao in 2021, and the popularity of domestic clothing rose by 56% in 2016-2021.

Capital is also helping to heat up the track. According to incomplete statistics, there will be 48 financing events in the domestic clothing industry in 2021, and the disclosed financing amount will exceed 10.4 billion yuan, including 33 financing events before Round B, accounting for 68.75%.

The rise of domestic products has also attracted the attention of "gold miners". More and more laymen have poured into the clothing industry, and the "inner volume" has arrived as scheduled.

"The biggest feeling this year is very curly." Doudou mentioned that before 2017, there were not so many trendy brands in the clothing industry. COKEIN has accumulated a batch of old fans since it started early, but the proportion of "old fans" among customers is not as good as before.

More importantly, these emerging trendy brands may not all be "good money". "Now the industry is really in a mess, and some people dare to say they are trendy brands only after making a few sweaters." Dudou said frankly, "A sweatshirt costing dozens of yuan can sell four or five hundred."

In the opinion of Jason, the head of CHINISM, for many emerging brands, "Guochao" is just a label to facilitate them to contact young people

Compared with insincere marketing, the more serious problem is plagiarism.

Lili, the product leader of KODAKBLACK, mentioned that this summer, one of their T-shirts got good sales after being spread by S-class talent, but within a week, they saw a fake. "Just beside our main picture, we changed a small picture," Lili said. "It is very harmful to the original fashion brand, but it is difficult to spend energy to protect its rights."

The popular sweater launched by the new brand TIKIMOMOKA has also been copied, and has been sold on the whole network at a very low price. "We have produced too many products. It is impossible to predict which one will sell well, and it is impossible to declare intellectual property rights for every one."

At present, Alibaba has set up an Alibaba original protection platform. In terms of creative protection, the platform stipulates that you can obtain platform protection by uploading design manuscripts and physical images to the original protection platform. At present, it is mainly applicable to industries where products are mainly presented in styles and patterns.

Although the platform is helping businesses protect intellectual property rights, plagiarism is still unavoidable. In Doudou's opinion, plagiarism cannot be eradicated with the development of the times, and can only rely on the brand's own attention and investment.

"How much similarity rate is plagiarism? Is similarity in design points plagiarism? There is no clear quantifiable definition standard in the industry, and there is no good solution now. We can only say that our products have been copied and proved to be very successful." Lili said helplessly.

Plagiarism reflects the practitioners' infatuation with "blockbusters". Compared with the original brands designed by their own companies, these "blockbusters" have been verified in terms of sales, and the temptation of "take it" is hard to refuse.

"This style is easy to sell, this style is easy to sell, and this craft is easy to sell. There will be a lot of people around to do it right away. The font is the same, the elements are the same, and even the models are the same. The only difference is the logo." Li Yichao said frankly, the homogenization phenomenon in the industry has become serious, and he has no hope for Chinese fashion brands.

"The one with the lowest sales volume on Taobao is the one with the best originality."

The soul of Chaopai is art, but it must survive because of commerce. It is often necessary to bow to fashion and the mainstream.

In order to balance "niche" and "mainstream", and give consideration to "commerce" and "art", many fashion brands choose a multi brand strategy to cater to the public on the one hand, adhere to self on the other hand, use profitable brands to support unprofitable brands, and use basic models to support niche brands.

COKEIN now has three style lines, the basic style, the sweet and cool hot girl and the Japanese tooling. This year, it also launched two Japanese style sub brands, TIKIMOMOKA and TOKUHON. The former focuses on retro color stitching in style, while the latter focuses on small suits and trousers, which are older.

KODAKBLACK launched two sub brands, Anti Candy and KBLC, respectively in 2020. Each brand will also be divided into designer style, popular style and basic style.

The business strategy of "not putting eggs in one basket" has kept the company running, but for the brand itself, it is difficult to say whether it is success or compromise.

Li Yichao mentioned that he had once made a brand with a very high degree of originality, but it went bankrupt this year. "I also have a brand with a low degree of originality, which sells well, but I never wear it myself."

Lili said frankly that the visual effect of the design in the company is good, but in terms of sales, it must be popular.

"The designer style is not selling well, so I will buy it myself, which can also be regarded as supporting our designers." Lili smiled helplessly. In her opinion, it is a success to be able to enter designer collection stores, buyers' stores, and participate in catwalks at home and abroad.

What is "China Fashion Brand"?

"Small crowd" is difficult to support "business", and the crux is still communication.

The avant-garde attribute means that Chaopai needs a group of avant-garde opinion leaders as preachers, but when looking for opinion leaders to spread, the situation of foreign and domestic Chaopai is obviously different.

According to Doudou, foreign stars have a higher degree of freedom of choice. If the dress style matches the star himself, they will buy it directly. However, the internal entertainment is more inclined to the mode of "bringing goods". The stars are often operated by brokerage companies. They are not trendy preachers with fresh personality, but a mechanical exhibition card that is simply operated for "just eating".

There is no doubt that the promotion of traffic stars will bear a high cost. The annual endorsement fee of top stream stars will reach more than 10 million yuan. Even some small flow stars will spend more than 100 thousand yuan once to cooperate, which is far from being borne by small crowd fashion companies for a long time.

More opportunities are available to KOL and KOC on emerging platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Tiaoyin. Doudou usually prefers individuals who are not bound to companies. "Most of the experts in MCN institutions start from three or five thousand people, and the number of individuals ranges from 300 to 1000."

In terms of specific cooperation mode, Daren will publish publicity photos on his social account, and mention the brand official micro blog, "but the impact on the brand is very low." Dudou said frankly, "because they only bring goods for the single item, this item may sell well under his influence, but it does not help the brand promotion."

Li Yichao also mentioned that many original styles are not cheap because of their good materials and workmanship. In addition, too strong style will make it difficult for KOL to match, thus increasing the difficulty of promotion.

In addition, many fashion brands started online and have not yet gone offline. Nowadays, a large number of shopping malls, department stores and other shopping malls are dominated by mainstream brands, and few fashion brands appear.

Now, many Chaopai have begun to go offline, and shopping malls have become their first choice. It is reported that more than 20 Chaopai stores, such as COKEIN and KODAKBLACK, have cooperated with fashion collection stores to settle in Yintai Department Store.

In the opinion of He Qing, the person in charge of "limited answers", compared with street stores, malls can radiate higher passenger flow, and they have requirements for brand entry, and can also provide consumers with credibility endorsement.

But at present, Chaopai's offline scale is not large. Doudou mentioned that the inventory depth is carefully controlled, so it will not open too many stores for the time being. The offline stores are not for sales, but more for brand awareness.

In fact, the bigger difficulty is that the concept of Chaopai has been passed on for so many years, but it has never been clearly defined.

Qingshan Capital used to distinguish between fashion brands and designer brands. The latter originated from "temples" and were made by well-known designers, which were expensive and luxurious clothes; The former is rooted in the street and is not famous for its high price.

Nowadays, the definition of fashion brand and designer brand is becoming more and more vague. Fashion brands are gradually moving closer to street brands with the flavor of fashion brand, and street brands are also gradually moving closer to fashion, entering the fashion week and starting to show off.

How to define it may not be important. After all, the industry has no clear consensus on "trendy brand", and even has some resistance.

COKEIN once held an exhibition in Shanghai. The first sentence was "I'm not a trendy brand". In Doudou's view, fashion is an attitude, not a style of clothing.

Li Yichao was even more outspoken. If someone said he wanted to buy a trendy brand, it showed that he didn't understand the brand at all, "We seldom tell others that we are a fashion brand, because it is really unprofessional to say so. I don't think that many people who really do fashion brands are willing to say that I am a fashion brand, but more about what style of brand we do, such as outdoor, sports, dark, functional, etc."

Jason believes that the so-called "tide" is to repeatedly wash a label to make everyone believe that it is, and then look for points that can be used for themselves under the label

Although the principals have repeatedly refused to be "Chaopai", it is undeniable that the word "Chaopai" is still a stereotype that the public attach to them. Compared with the subdivision concepts of "retro", "sweet and spicy", "dark" and "sports", the popular and inclusive explanation of "Chaopai" tends to attract more consumers.

In Li Yichao's opinion, people who do not understand the trend are consuming with the concept of "fashion brand", and they just want to wear the labels of "youth" and "fashion".

"Although there are more young people who understand the trend now, on the whole, the consumption concept of young people has always been led by KOL and KOC. It used to be a post bar and forum, but now it is a twitter and a small red book."

In addition, despite the prevalence of national fashion, many managers revealed that most domestic fashion brands are still referring to foreign designs, and pure Chinese elements are rare, while Chinese fonts are difficult to make more stylized designs, leading to the fact that most Chinese fashion brands are still not named in Chinese.

epilogue

Recently, the American fashion brand Supreme officially landed in Beijing Dover Street Market, which is the first time that Supreme has been sold in the Chinese market through official channels.

Since the reform and opening up, China's apparel industry has experienced many ups and downs, from Adidas, Nike, Li Ning, Anta, and now the small fashion brand. The trend has been passed on from generation to generation, and the new talents are constantly breaking the ground.

In the ups and downs, the aesthetic of Chinese consumers is increasingly improved. The emerging trend brands nourish the public aesthetic, and also prove that the Chinese trend brands still have a larger stage with their strength.

In 2020, "Summer of the Band 2" began to broadcast. East China, the lead singer of the remake, said when preparing for the show, "It is hoped that the remake music can select the audience, not the audience to select us." Finally, the remake won the championship with its strange style known as "formula music".

The same is true for the tide brand. In the context that will only become more inclusive, there are no bad tide brand, only undiscovered tide brand.