New York Fashion Week Season 3 "China Day": Let "National Trends" Showcase International Fashion Context

What is contemporary Chinese youth culture? How to solve the problem through the carrier of fashion is a major proposition that "China Day" entered the third quarter.

The theme of this "China Day" is "YOUTH MADE CHINA", which is attended by PEACEBIRD MEN, a representative brand of contemporary Chinese youth culture, and NPC, the first trend brand integration store in China. Two brands that have achieved commercial success in China are very good at grasping the balance between fashion and business.

The third quarter of "China Day" is after February 7 and September 10, 2018, after two successful "New York Fashion Week China Day" by SunTeng Fashion (Suntchi) and the American Fashion Designers Association (CFDA), China The brand debuted at New York Fashion Week.

Sun Tao, founder and CEO of Suntchi, hopes that each season's "China Day" will bring different Chinese designs and Chinese fashion to the North American market. The theme of the first season is that Chinese brands are in the name of "National Day" for the first time. Appeared on the stage of the global fashion week, the second season explored "Women's Power", the third season's theme is "Youth Made China" - focus on the local youth culture, the common ground of the three seasons is obvious, by reflecting the local fashion brand The culture is confident and inspires more local original brands. “'China Day' has a complete brand selection mechanism. We hope that the selected brands will best represent the real Chinese design and best represent the wearing and aesthetics of today's Chinese consumers,” Fang Tao said. “This year’s theme is based on youth culture because we have found many outstanding Chinese youths in the past. They have made outstanding achievements in various fields and have left a very deep impression on us. In the field of fashion There are also many young designers who have created very good works. These young people are the representatives of the Chinese millennial and z generations, so we hope that this season will be able to bring this crowd and the Chinese brand that expresses this crowd. Presented to the world."

In the CFDA's view, the effect of “China Day” continued to be strengthened this season. “Youth culture is a very relevant theme for this season's 'China Day', and we look forward to learning about the Chinese youth generation through this season's two brands,” said Steven Kolb, CEO and President of the American Fashion Designers Association (CFDA). .

The three-season "China Day" ready-to-wear products also assembled into a special retail show called "Nordstrom Celebrates China Day", which was held in the "China Day" at the newly opened US department store Nordstorm Men's Store NYC in Midtown, New York. Two days before the show and the following week, consumers and industry insiders who participated in New York Fashion Week will be able to see the brands and products of the “China Day” designers, so that “China Day” can be extended to the retail side and reach the public. consumer. “This time, with the support of Nordstrom, this special exhibition of Chinese designers and brands was made during the Chinese Lunar New Year. This is the first time that Chinese brands have cooperated with the largest retailers in North America in this way. 'China Day' is also a useful attempt. In the future, we hope that Chinese designers and brands can cooperate extensively and in-depth with North American retailers, not only in the fashion week show, but also in business. The field can also achieve good development. This cooperation with Nordstrom is the beginning of promoting business development," Fang Tao said.

Inclusive, diverse, more flexible and commercialized New York Fashion Week, has gradually become a breakthrough for local designers who want to take care of fashion and business to test the overseas market. After the "China Day" in New York Fashion Week in the first quarter of 2018, the concept of "national tide" was more widely mentioned. In 2019, it was even considered a year of Chinese fashion fashion. The brands PEACEBIRD MEN and NPC, which participated in this season's fashion week, also show the different paths of the local trend brand more comprehensively.

PEACEBIRD MEN's trending awakening comes from the core strategy of this commercial brand transformation in the past few years, and has become an important local trend force for the mass market. NPC was founded by Li Chennic and Pan Weibo ten years ago. Initially, through the influence of two people as stars, NPC established a medium-sized retail network and was the first brand to capture the trend culture business opportunities.

The concept of "China" is expressed through the theme of the trend, making the "China Day" in the third season more vivid and focused in style.

Rethinking the cross-border joint name and opening up a new trend of PEACEBIRD MEN

Young is the most intuitive impression of PEACEBIRD MEN's show.

Taiping Bird chose to cooperate with Gucci, popular artist Trouble Andrew (Guccighost), Instagram artist REILLY, and the large-scale cartoon IP Sesame Street to jointly design the core logo throughout the season. How to make people aware of the sesame street, which is a household name, the graffiti of Trouble Andrew, and the work of REILLY, which is a brand of love and spoof, is the PEACEBIRD MEN want to break through this time. "We hope to break the original image on the basis of the foundation, so that it will be more dynamic and create a new foundation." Xu Ying, design director of PEACEBIRD MEN explained. She confessed to BoF that the original idea was relatively flat and completely different from the metal accessories that were finally presented.

Trouble Andrew's street graffiti style, the elements of Chinese calligraphy, and the interesting style of Sesame Street have created a new spark, which is in sharp contrast with the concept of "punk". “The Taiping Bird gave me a lot of creative space. The Sesame Street icon puts a lot of avant-garde elements, a little rebellious, and the contrast with the traditional Sesame Street is very strong,” Trouble Andrew said. Trouble Andrew, who took his son to see the show, came to see the show from California. He also shared his personal understanding of fashion and fashion with BoF after the show. “In my understanding, fashion apparel has always been a part of fashion. I don’t have a cold for luxury goods. I think streetwear is my fashion language.”

Through this sesame street cooperation, the Taiping Bird completed a new thinking on the "common cross-border" that has become a normal state. "The most common reason for the joint name is that I will consume you, and you will consume me." Wang Mingfeng, general manager of PEACEBIRD MEN said. “Really successful joint cooperation should be effectively re-created and break the original understanding. If no new things are produced, the result of the cooperation will not become part of the brand, just a hammer sale.”

In the more than ten years of Taiping Bird, Xu Ying, who is very familiar with this brand, also believes that PEACEBIRD MEN should present more of the brand's own things. For example, the Chinese calligraphy element that was added this time is actually not a very old thing, but it can be very cool." Xu Ying said.

Wang Mingfeng even hopes that Xu Ying will boldly innovate and break through. He believes that the brand needs to accelerate its pace to keep up with the development of consumers in the international arena. He does not want the brand positioning to be solidified, otherwise consumers will have aesthetic fatigue and the brand will naturally not go. Go on. “Everyone sees the transformation of Valentino, Gucci, Balenciaga. We can't frame ourselves with a positioning. The brand should be richer. Although the creativity is going to be a thing of the past, the brand needs to be able to land. If you are a commercial brand, you have to Believe in a simple matter, consumers are not obligated to vote for you, this is a very real problem," he said.

The Peace Birds participate in "China Day" to better understand this three-dimensional Taiping bird consumer, regardless of the mass minority. “Our team has an unwritten rule. After getting the data analysis, we must see the two sides of the data. The designer should know how to promote and lead the consumers. To find the right degree, if you have been pleased with the consumer, Very repetitive things. Many people will find that fashion is really no standard, because there is no standard, so it is very important for designers to grasp the heat." Wang Mingfeng added.

Wang Mingfeng believes that the Guochao brand should boldly go out to sea. "Of course, we also hope to go out and let more consumers feel that the peacebird is good. We have actually been in line with the international fashion trends. We can still make our own things. But this time the more important purpose is to To be a good brand, we must consider the issue from the perspective of consumers," he said.

In the European and American markets, Instagram has almost replaced magazines as the most important fashion medium, which has turned many fashion brands into a “media platform” for content, and this time PEACEBIRD MEN, who participated in New York Fashion Week, also realized this. “This time we see ourselves as a media, and the show is our 'news press conference'. Through this centralized release, we can make our 'publications', that is, products, into every consumer who loves fashion. In their respective life scenarios, bring them strength." Xu Ying concluded.

PEACEBIRD MEN, the men's main line of the Peacebird, will continue its path of fashion transformation and focus on the lifestyle products that this fashion show will extend. "We want to make the peace bird more full, not just the pure clothing itself," he said.

"National Tide" NPC's New York Debut

Although the NPC is somewhat unfamiliar to the audience in New York, the choice of "50th Anniversary of the Moon" as the theme of the first show in New York quickly broke through this cultural barrier.

"We feel that the NPC 10th Anniversary has something special to do, and there is a strong willingness to make great changes. It just happens to have this opportunity." Li Chen said. Li Chennic believes that “the atmosphere in New York is different.” Participating in a professional fashion market is largely a cognitive improvement. In addition, on the stage of a fashion week, it can be made even more. Conceptualized attempts to complete breakthroughs in different forms of artistic creation.

Before deciding to participate in China Day, NPC decided that the theme of autumn and winter of 2019 would be related to "outer space." From Armstrong's moon landing to Michael Jackson's "walking the moon" dance, it is difficult to limit the space theme. The brand even chose "weightlessness" as an important keyword.

"This kind of weightlessness that gravity can't grasp is very attractive to me. Besides, I remember that everyone would say that Armstrong's landing on the moon is a conspiracy theory. I didn't expect humans to start self-doubt? From a brand perspective, it is easy to start self-doubt after ten years of branding, but if you insist on your own ideas, initial ideas, and grasp it, I don’t think it will go too far.” Pan Yibo explained His more personal interpretation.

Li Chen's idea is more optimistic: "Weight loss may be a state of drift, but you actually know where to go." "You have spent a lot of hard work. In the end, it may be easy for a person to believe you, but you know that you are doing something great for yourself. We actually hope that more young people will not escape this. The state, not the blind rebellion. Many young people think that rebellion is a personality, because they don't know that it is not so simple to be creative, and we have more responsibility to let them know the necessity of hard work." Li Chennic added Explain.

Although the stars of the two are amazed, the next NPCs are more concerned about how a new generation of young people view a local trend brand.

NPC's cooperation with the Forbidden City's court culture and Guochao brand also has a different meaning of combining Chinese and Western. The NPC and the local original fashion brands PHANTACi, ANB BRAND, the MAD HATcher and UMAMIISM from all over the country released a joint series, which provides a more stereoscopic local trend.

Li Chennic believes that working with creative teams in New York is also a challenge to brand management. "Don't underestimate the difficulty of making a piece of clothing." Li Chen said, "Nothing great comes easy" (this journey, up to the sky) has also become the theme of this season. Li Chennic is more willing to emphasize that a good brand needs a stronger resource integration capability. "We are not designers. We have created NPC for so long. We rely more on integrating a lot of resources. Before we came to New York, in the case that almost all factories in Shanghai were closed, we will make samples on the last day before the Spring Festival. Come out. Later in New York, this coordination is a step closer. They are artists, people with individuality, and coordination is also an art." Li Chen said.

He also frankly said that the tide brand needs to consider more things. "For example, we respect the stylist very much, but we will say in advance which styles have been placed, and which ones are expected to be more exposed." Li Chennic also brought the NPC e-commerce operation team to New York, " I hope that everyone will go and see what can be bought, which can be synchronized online and offline, and which ones can be extended. Commercial brands still have this kind of thinking, this is still in the second step, things Well, the results will naturally appear." Li Chen said.

In recent years, Li Chennic has gradually infiltrated into the brand back-office management operation, and has reorganized the integrated supply chain and online and offline retail networks to lay a commercial foundation for NPC. There are multiple possibilities for the changes that the New York Fashion Week can bring to the brand. Li Chennic also takes a sensible view of the return on investment of this fashion show. "Because we are stars, many of our costs are saved. We are also very clear about where this investment will come from, and hope that the domestic market can catch this wave."

Enhance the international influence of local youth culture and build a more complete Sino-US exchange platform

“The value of 'China Day' is not only to bring Chinese designers and brands to the stage of fashion week, but also to create opportunities for them to engage in dialogue and interaction with the North American market. To promote Chinese designers and brands to enter the major retail systems in North America, and form a close cooperation between products and sales,” Fang Tao said. In the previous season's "China Day", Centrino fashion, with the support of CFDA, launched a fashion IP resource platform called "Shangjiao FASHION EXCHANGE", more than 200 American men's, women's, jewelry, designer brands. Entered the platform. CFDA CEO and President Steven Kolb also told BoF that Sino-US brand exchanges can stimulate more possibilities, and for those who want to come to the United States, they can quickly connect with the core of the fashion industry here.

The “China Day” of the past two seasons has been in the form of diverse activities, including China Day Showroom, China Day Talk and China Day Pop-up Market. Bringing Chinese fashion and brand to the world from a holistic perspective, it also caused large-scale attention and heated discussion at home and abroad: The first season of "China Day" led Li Ning, Taiping Bird, CHENPENG and Clot, four different Chinese brands to land in New York. It has attracted more than 800 international industry authorities and more than 300 international top media. Once China Day was released, it received an exposure of 1.5 billion international media and more than 20 million discussions on domestic microblog topics, which triggered the “China Day Effect” spread across the markets of China and the United States.

In the third quarter, thinking about how to internationalize Chinese fashion and establish a communication mechanism between China and the United States began to shift from lively to rational thinking. "China Day" hopes that the world, which is the most suitable for Chinese fashion in New York, will let the world see the "local" and "world" Chinese fashion, and then comprehensively outline the diversified and complete ecology of the Chinese fashion industry.

This time, I chose two brands that focus on the positioning of “Chinese Youth” to participate in “China Day”. Fang Tao hopes that “China Day” can continue to build a more perfect Sino-US exchange mechanism and create more commercial value. Obviously, it is appropriate to think internationally in the context of New York. This coincides with Wang Mingfeng’s thinking. "We are actually hoping to more intuitively internalize the world's popularity and finally make our own things. On the other hand, many people's impression of the Chinese market is actually staying. Ten years ago, we still wanted to show you the difference in Chinese brands in the development process," he said.

Another major breakthrough in this season is that at the same time, it is a rational reflection on the "national tide." "Fashion brands are basically street-based. I hope that this "China Day" will really let NPC begin international operation." Li Chen said. He believes that the national tide must truly go international and requires a complete framework. This is not a debut of a brand. "In terms of art form, there is also a need for different breakthroughs," he said.

Although this season's theme is YOUTH MADE CHINA, whether it is the designer brand or commercial brand involved in the previous two seasons, from a longer-term perspective, “China Day” can really inspire more local brands to return to the product and improve the brand. Positioning and carrying out the brand operation mode in line with international standards, let the Western world change the existing thinking of “Chinese brand” and make a real breakthrough for Chinese fashion and Chinese design.