Author: Zoran Week
Is there any way to save the Chinese men's dressing style?
For this soul torture, there are clothing brands trying to give a positive answer.
In the West Bank Art Center on the night of January 30, the atmosphere was warm, although Shanghai after the snow fell to the present. This is the first big show of this men's brand called Common Gender, officially announced its establishment. Alcohol, the drums of The Garden and the angular faces of the models brought the people on the scene to the rock age of London.
Few people know about the existence of Common Gender, but it is also known to many women consumers as its women's brand MO&Co., Edition 10, children's wear brand Little MO&Co. and beauty brand REC. Common Gender is the company's first menswear brand, and its name has the meaning of "common/universal". Although the theme of the first season was "rock", Common Gender did not want his style to be too steep and avant-garde. Its target customers have the consumption of ordinary urban men, providing them with classic and real wear, so the practical men's styles such as suit jackets, patent leather down jackets, shirts, jackets and pullovers account for a large proportion of the goods.
Chinese male consumers and female consumers present a very different maturity level of how to wear clothes. The local menswear brand is highly polarized, with conservative and rigid sides on one side and exaggerated and trendy on the other. As for the vast area in the middle, there are not many competitive brands, but no one denies that its potential is huge.
Common Gender first show party
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No shortage of big menswear company, but lack of good menswear brand
The most common attire in Gu Qiao's winter work in the telecommunications industry is jeans, gray-white printed T-shirts with military green down jackets, he admits that he is a fashion idiot. However, after working for these years and jumping a few times, the quality of conscious clothes has improved a lot. He put his own wearing reference line on "business leisure", with "a few brands that always stare at buying." ".
In fact, walking on the street, most Chinese men are dressed like Gu Qiao, a shirt with a nice sleeve, a pair of pants that are not loose and a jacket. Compared with yesterday's popular normcore and today's popular street style women's style, the style of men's wear has been stable and boring.
But the opposite is true, in the top 100 Chinese clothing companies, except for the supply chain companies, the number of men's wear companies far exceeds that of women's wear. According to the market value ranking of listed clothing companies in 2017, the "Men's Wardrobe" Haishu House ranked fourth, with a total market value of 46.7 billion yuan; Youngor fifth, with 35.9 billion yuan; followed by Jiu Mu Wang, Giordano, Seven wolves, Lilang and so on. In the past two decades, many local menswear companies have even occupied the bulk of the apparel classification in the A-share market.
When analyzing why most of the clothing brands listed on the A-share market are men's wear, I know that there is a special discussion post on the opening. The answer shows a striking agreement: in the past, because the requirements for the style of men's wear are far lower than that of women's wear, it makes it even more Similar to capital-intensive industries, even if the design is more common, as long as the advertisements on the TV station for several months, you can get a very good return.
This means that big companies are not equal to good brands. With the rising purchasing power of the Chinese middle class in recent years, male consumers have already generated a huge segmentation demand for dress. But in addition to LV, Ralph Lauren, Dunhill, Dolce & Gabbana and other traditional luxury men's clothing, fast fashion brand men's clothing classification and local people-friendly brands, the Chinese men's mid-end market is seriously lacking. Count down, self-contained, price mid-range brands are only sketch, GXG, Trendiano and so on.
Common Gender wants to focus on the mid-end market, and its pricing is mostly between 1000-2500 yuan, targeting men aged 25-35. This group does not necessarily care about fashion, it can be from all walks of life, the education level is higher, and more importantly, they have already pursued the quality and spirituality of the clothing.
The culture of these male customers, born around 1985, has already awakened. Kearney Consulting released a report in January this year, showing that Chinese young people's recognition of local brands is increasing compared to overseas brands. He Xiaoqing, head of Kearney China's consumer and retail division, said: "Chinese consumers, especially the younger generation, are increasingly accepting local head brands, which is a sign of the rise of Chinese local brands.
Too few talents who can take into account business design thinking
The EPO Group did not have experience in menswear. For the first season of Common Gender, the creative and styling consultant was independent fashion designer Zhou Xiangyu. 11 years ago, Zhou Xiangyu, who completed his studies in the Netherlands, set up a personal menswear brand, Xander Zhou, and walked the show on the official London Fashion Week schedule. Compared with the popular men's clothing, Xander Zhou's style has a vivid experimental color and a strong sense of design.
After deciding to open up a new menswear line, EPO has built a mature menswear design team, but there is no menswear design director with both business thinking and creative thinking.
Around 2008, a group of Chinese independent fashion designers came to the fore. Most of them have overseas design education background, good family background and courage to start a business. Although the design language is more international, the price of an independent designer brand is usually not very friendly to ordinary consumers, ranging from three to four thousand to more than tens of thousands. Finding a balance between design and market is not an easy process. .
“Composite talent is still extremely lacking,†Lea Chen, creative director of EPO Group, told the interface news. Most designers are unable to design and manage their individual consciousness while balancing mainstream aesthetics.
Thanks to previous experience in operating brands such as Mo&Co., the solution that EPO Group has found is “cooperationâ€. On July 21, 2016, MO&Co. had a great show in the green can of Beijing 751 Fashion Design Plaza. At that time, Zhou Xiangyu was responsible for the selection and modeling of the model.
In Zhou Xiangyu's view, MO&Co.'s operation has been integrated into the thinking of independent designers two years ago. Although the cooperation between the two parties in 2016 is not deep, Zhou Xiangyu feels that unlike many local clothing brands, MO&Co. is more open to accepting aesthetics and resources such as models and photography provided by independent designers.
In preparation for the preparation of Common Gender, Zhou Xiangyu and EPO Group founder and design director Jin Ni went to Japan. "I and Jenny (Jin Ni). They have lived in Tokyo for many days. What are you doing? Just go to the squatter bookstore and start looking at the collection of the oldest rock band, see what young people of that era are wearing, and I brought a lot of information back to Guangzhou from Japan." Zhou Xiangyu recalled the interface. From the previous research, looking for fabrics to providing design advice, Zhou Xiangyu was involved in various dimensions of Common Gender preparation.
The preparation process for Common Gender lasted about a year. Lea Chen revealed that during this period, she and Jin Ni and Zhou Xiangyu also had many disputes, mainly about how to define rock and how to convey the brand concept to today's male consumers. After all, rock music and the mainstream Chinese market still There is a cultural distance.
The three people pulled each other and were still very strong in search of some suitable intermediate state. As a designer who is already familiar with the British creative environment, Zhou Xiangyu is obviously more likely to leave the habit of independent design. It may be more crazy, arrogant, reckless, and in fact, his eponymous brand has always been gender. A typical representation of fuzzy fashion, which is inconsistent with the goal of targeting ordinary men. But for Jin Ni and Lea, a market brand needs to consider more real sales results.
Finally, Common Gender's brand identity is defined between "restraint and indulgence." "The word "rock" is hard to understand by the young Chinese now." Lea Chen described, "Like this season's theme 'rock', we hope it will fit the rock of the new era, not those outdated. To symbolize too much, just emphasize the spirit of freedom and be yourself."
The reflection of this positioning on the product is: a solid color pullover is only embroidered at the neckline, with a small "Side A" on the front and "Side B" on the reverse side to simulate the 1980s. The tape; or a windproof jacket only uses color stitching on the shoulders, so that wearing it outside the suit will not be awkward. Common Gender hopes that this way of replacing the large-scale exaggerated patterns with "wild" and "details" will enhance the acceptance of fashion by Chinese men, while taking into account the proportion of Asian men, many styles focus on the upper body. On, to extend the visual effect of the legs.
“A lot of learning, when the revision, their design team will give all the pictures to everyone, so one by one, from the design, materials and concepts to consider whether the single product is suitable for the market, this and myself Branding is not the same, I will be more self-willed, because this thing I have the final say." Now recalling these processes, Zhou Xiangyu said frankly that he did not know how the company actually operated a commercial brand from zero to zero. Even in recent years, he has learned a lot from the "capsule series" of cooperation with popular brands such as Lenovo and Haishu.
Common Gender publication first issue
After everything is ready, do you have enough consumers to know the goods?
The new Common Gender series will be officially launched in August 2018, and the group has now set a good store plan. In 2018, Common Gender will open 40 stores, and by 2022 it is expected to reach 360 or so. The decoration style of the store will be displayed according to the concept of the season. For example, in the first season, some environmentally friendly but fashionable old things will be used to render the nostalgic atmosphere, and it can also echo the products of deliberately worn denim and shoes.
At the same time, because MO&Co. is a cool girl style, some models of Common Gender will also take care of the female consumers who buy men's clothing in the sister brand and do the XXS number. But in order to form a unified brand atmosphere, all this should not be too hasty.
“This market still needs time to develop,†Lea Chen said.
The brand is ready, but the aesthetic education of the public is still time-consuming. The potential male consumers in the Chinese market may not be able to notice the brand new. In the past, Chinese men were educated to put their careers first, and others, in addition to the lack of aesthetics in traditional exam-oriented education, there are not many applicable scenarios where men need to show “tasteâ€. A male consumer said to the interface: "Most Chinese men don't have the energy to wear clothes. Unlike Europe and Japan, it is similar to the United States. Today, the dress style of men around the age of 30 in China is - no style. â€
In fact, by searching for a few men who are close to 30 years old, it is not difficult to find that their commonality is extremely prominent: the sensitivity in style is far less than that of women, and it is not easy to identify new clothing brands through store decoration or brand tonality. This means that it is not a one-off thing to establish a brand recognition of straight men, because they tend to have high loyalty to old brands and low taste. Wang Xiangbo, the designer of Mieu's design glasses brand, thinks that he is a rational straight male consumer. "As long as the design, tailoring and fabrics are suitable for its price, I will buy it." The main factor leading the purchase of clothes is not aesthetic.
But it is worth noting that male consumers are very vulnerable to the influence of the circle. In the interface published in the article "How can I live like a middle-class man", I have described three "pretenders" who want to integrate into the surrounding living environment. They will pack themselves through clothes and shoes bags. I define class temperament and integrate into the workplace.
This feature has greatly affected the marketing of today's emerging menswear brands. It is reported that Common Gender is about to operate in a "community" way. In the two days of the big show, it also released a thick publication, and found musicians and architects in New York, Tokyo and other places as brands. Endorsement, but these words are different from advertisements. Most of them are written from the perspective of their familiar areas to understand the masculinity, to convey the proposition that "clothing can also have thinking."
This is actually not a new method. In general, the entry of emerging brands will experience the process of moving from part of the customer base to the broader market. It is the normal state of the fan economy today, and content operation is its conventional means. Just over a year ago, Cai Chongda, former reporting director and bestselling author of GQ China, also proposed the concept of “stereo magazine†when he founded the men’s clothing collection store “Mingtang Magmodeâ€.
"I want to use Mingtang as a platform for publishing good content. Whether it is articles, shops or videos, we want to publish everything about 'good life'. This is not necessarily a loss. If done well, it may save a lot. Pen marketing expenses.†Cai Chongda once said to the interface, currently, there are men's wear brands such as Sean by Sean, Mattitude, Arc, and Feng Chen Wang.
Cai Chongda is a Jinjiang native in Fujian. He has witnessed the development of men's wear brands such as Qipai and Qiwowo and their strength in supply chain resources. But today he is more optimistic about the future of clothing as a "spiritual product", which is consistent with Common Gender. "Now China is very similar to Japan in the 1980s. Traditional brands are dying. A new wave of internationally influential designers such as Yamamoto Yoshi and Kawakubo are born." Cai Chongda said two years ago. Two days ago, Lea did the same analogy.
They are all waiting for a new era in which men’s clothing will break out again.
Source: Interface
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