How far can you go on the road of fashion with "National Trend"?

Mission: Build a profitable enterprise with a sustainable attitude

Vision: Make sustainability a habit

Values: From "the world's most "Good enterprise" to "Enterprise that makes the world a better place"

What belongs to the nation belongs to the world.

Recently, the "new national trend" sportswear brand Li Ning appeared in the 2020 Autumn and Winter Paris Men's Fashion Week and invited Jackie Chan to "cross-border endorsement" the Li Ning co-branded model, once again attracting global attention. With Li-Ning's frequent appearances in major fashion weeks around the world in recent years, it has changed the image of a slightly rustic "middle-aged brand" in the past and swept young consumers with the "national trend" style.

2018 is known as the "first year of the national trend". In this year, domestic brands gradually found a transformation path that suits them. Li Ning, Hui Li, and Feiyue opened their arms to embrace international fashion culture, renovated the original brand design, and created a trendy sports style with Chinese characteristics; brands such as White Rabbit, Want Want, and Forbidden City also benefited from the seemingly incredible cross-border co-branding. A lot of hot topics.

Li Ning, as the "leader" in the national fashion industry, appeared at the 2018 Autumn and Winter New York Fashion Week with a new look that coexists with retro and avant-garde, and performed in the Chinese team's classic "tomato scrambled egg color" Various innovative designs. The four big characters "China LI Ning" are printed on various items in a high-profile manner. Sportswear with a sense of the times has been transformed into the most popular trendy products. Li Ning's classic gymnastics moves are also printed on T-shirts to pay tribute to those years. Glory and confidence in the Olympics.

So, what is national trend? Some people say that the national trend is the product of the collision between Chinese culture and international trends. With the "entanglement" and personality of Chinese young people, it has entered the new consumption market with a high profile. Some people also say that the national trend is a fashion trend originating from China. Elements with Chinese characteristics are widely used in various original designs, gradually forming a trend style that is based on Chinese culture and highlights personality and life attitude. .

From domestic fashion brands to "taking the country as the trend", the combination of "domestic brands, trendy styles and Chinese culture" has produced a wonderful market chemical reaction. National trend has gradually become a Chinese original trend that carries changes in Chinese culture and social trends of thought, and is developing towards a more popular consumer market.

In fact, the initial prototype of Guochao appeared in 2000-2010, and first entered the market in the form of "Chinese brand trend style". The most famous ones are CLOT, NPC and other trendy brands founded by celebrities. The design style of this type of domestic fashion brands is still based on European and American street culture. Although they are sought after by many fashionistas, they are still relatively small-scale consumers in the market at that time.

In 2017, the development of national fashion took a turn for the better, and the "beautiful fashion" that integrated hip-hop culture and street culture entered the country. The consumer demand for trendy brands in the market has increased significantly, which has pointed out a "clear path" for the transformation of old national brands.

On the first day of Tmall 618 sales in 2020, the transaction volume of more than 37,000 Chinese brands increased by at least 100% year-on-year. The turnover of domestic brands such as Huawei, Gree, Xiaomi, and Honor has exceeded 100 million yuan in a short period of time, and it has a sense of "domestic products dominate". The expansion of consumption power, the growth of consumer demand, and the diversification of marketing channels have simultaneously given rise to the birth of new consumption - people's consumption is no longer limited to satisfying life needs, but also pursues the satisfaction of lifestyle and cultural attitudes.

The "sweetness" of increasing the national trend is also reflected in Li Ning's financial report. Data show that since the end of the continuous decline in revenue in 2014, Li Ning's revenue growth has remained above double digits over the years. In 2018, Li Ning's operating income reached 10.51 billion yuan, breaking the historical record of 9.48 billion yuan in 2010. And 2019 has also become the highest data since Li Ning was founded.

In 2019, Li Ning’s revenue reached 13.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.0%. Profit attributable to equity holders was 1.499 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.96%.

At the 2020 franchisee third quarter order meeting held by Li Ning in December 2019, Li Ning brand product orders (excluding China Li Ning and Li Ning YOUNG) recorded a mid-10-20% year-on-year growth based on tag prices. Overall, the improvement of sales discounts and the optimization of tag cost ratio increased Li Ning's gross profit margin by 1.0 percentage points last year.

Comments from Yang Dayun, the initiator and founder of sustainable fashion in China

As China’s earliest sports brand, Li-Ning has witnessed the development history of China’s entire sports industry, and Li-Ning, as the only A famous sports athlete has successfully created his own brand. His entire development is a history of sports development in China. China's earliest sports brand agents, Li Ning, also had Double Star and Conway at the same time, but the latter two have basically withdrawn from the market. 361, Xtep, and Anta are all sports brands born in the second stage. Li Ning also faced some problems in the process of witnessing the development history of sports and sporting goods in China. This is also a problem that all brand operators will face - brand aging.

The Chinese market has gone through two stages. In the first stage, the Chinese market is a market where demand exceeds supply. So far, China’s brand-making A-share listed companies have basically completed their original development in this stage. Accumulation, this stage is very important. In the second stage, supply exceeds demand in the Chinese market. In the overcapacity stage, this trend has become particularly obvious since 2010. The process of overcapacity has also brought about other changes to people, such as the rise of e-commerce, the Internet, and the iteration of consumers. After 2010, China's mainstream consumer groups have evolved from individuals who were the mainstream consumers in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s to young consumers mainly composed of "post-85s" and "post-90s". Their consumption values ????and consumption Consciousness also changed dramatically.

This means that Li Ning, which emerged before 2010, is facing the aging of the mainstream consumer groups of the "post-60s", "post-70s" and "post-80s", and has gradually withdrawn from the mainstream of consumption. This requires the brand to study how to attract the love of young consumers. In the process, Li Ning is also aware of this problem and has adopted various methods. This includes internationalization and de-localization, as well as increasing product research and development efforts and setting up studios in the United States, Germany and other places to improve the internationalization of products.

In fact, during this process, Li Ning went through a painful process. This painful process was the iteration of consumer updates brought about by the aging of the brand. At the same time, it was also due to the past channel operation agent model and Unable to adapt to the Internet, Li Ning has been trying to use various methods to transform since 2010 to grasp the needs of the market. During this period, Li Ning was under tremendous pressure, such as declining performance, shrinking market, and loss of consumers, which resulted in the entire company being heavily in debt.

However, after 2015, that is, between 2016 and 2017, Li Ning seized the opportunity. This is the trend of sports sports brands. In fact, the trend of sports brands is not just about ideas. Brands such as Nike and Adidas are gradually moving from the professional sports market to the trend market. While many consumers need its functionality and professionalism, they also need more popular elements in the product.

The so-called popularity is actually a social phenomenon and problem. Through the creativity of designers, it finally penetrates into products and expresses social consciousness. This kind of consciousness will form a trend of concentrated consumption in a short period of time. We call this popular. Li Ning has seized this time and given fashion and street elements to its products. This is a very good point.

The success of Li Ning is that it does not look for trend highlights from around the world like Nike and Adidas. Because Li-Ning is a local brand after all, Li-Ning has properly captured the consumption trends of Chinese people.

What are the consumer trends? After 2010, as China became the world's second largest economic entity, China's economy grew rapidly, its global influence expanded rapidly, and Chinese consumers began to pay attention to the rise of local national culture and populism. China's own value includes expressing its self-confidence through China's own culture. At this special moment, Li Ning appropriately grasped the focus of society, combined this focus with trendy culture, and coupled with its own influence, therefore, Li Ning deservedly led the national consumer trend in China.

Li Ning can lead consumer trends, can other brands do the same? What I want to emphasize is that not every brand has the opportunity to set the trend. Because Li Ning was a cultural symbol in China in the 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, countries such as the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team and Li Ning's five consecutive championships attracted much attention. The reason China had the greatest influence in the world at that time was not because of our economic size or our global influence, but because of the contributions our athletes gave us. The glory and sense of achievement it brings. And Li Ning deserves to have a huge influence on Chinese sports, history and the Chinese nation.

Therefore, the biggest difference between the Li Ning brand itself and the Fujian brand lies in the brand connotation. The miracles in the sports world created by Li Ning, including its influence on the culture of a generation of Chinese people, have always remained in the hearts of Chinese consumers. However, Li Ning failed to realize this potential in its subsequent development process. When Li Ning realized this problem, he combined his own content and influence with fashionable brands to control and lead the national trend in China. Li Ning also deserves to have this quality and influence.

In fact, in addition to Li Ning, brands such as Laoganma and Peacebird are also playing the national trend, but we must be aware of a problem: the national trend is not a popular phenomenon, nor a trend driven by a certain company. , the national trend is a social phenomenon and social problem, which needs enterprises to capture and discover, and express it through creativity and products. This form of expression includes popular music, culture and art, etc. But compared to our fashion industry, it must reflect faith and creative value itself.

So, is every brand suitable for following the national trend route? Different brands follow the national trend route, how should they be combined with brand genes? What I want to emphasize is that not every brand needs to imitate the national trend. National trend is a kind of fashion, and this kind of popularity is a consumption trend. Any brand can present itself to the society while retaining its own personality, DNA and style elements. In Internet terms, this is called traffic - it can cater to the needs of consumers at a very small cost and gain market dominance. Great feedback, it's very important. Therefore, when different brands choose national trends, they must consider the characteristics of their own brands and then consider how to integrate them perfectly.

What inspiration and significance does the national trend have on the fashion industry? Philip Kohler: "Excellent companies meet needs, and outstanding companies create markets." Therefore, a company that creates market demand is a great company, but it must first do one thing - how to express the focus of society through creativity and products. When many of our companies are designing products, they blindly follow popular information and big data provided by various popular organizations to judge product consumption. This is not wrong. But this approach can only seize market demand and become an excellent enterprise. And if you want to become a great company, you need to lead the trend, drive market consumption, create market demand, express social issues, and actively participate in it. When social issues create buzz in the market, consumers will express them in various forms. If our company can integrate this social focus issue into its own corporate culture and daily business, then we will have It may guide this enterprise from an excellent enterprise to a great enterprise. Therefore, China's fashion industry needs more of these great companies in the future. However, a great company must have beliefs and value propositions.

After 20 to 30 years of development, Chinese companies have completed primitive accumulation and built brand awareness, market share and market position among consumers. China's fashion companies need to think about how to break into and find new growth platforms in the next round of competition to build more great companies. At present, China does not lack excellent fashion companies, but it lacks great companies, such as Dior, Hermès, Nike, Adidas, etc.

In the next 5-10 years, China’s fashion industry will face the crisis brought about by the epidemic, and will face the global confrontation from economic confrontation to Western political system. This actually also provides opportunities for our Chinese fashion companies. Because in this confrontation process, China first needs an internal circular economy as Greece said. Internal circular economy means that China’s internal consumption potential needs to be tapped. In this process, many international big names and companies, under the influence of the epidemic, especially when the market in Europe and North America is uncertain about the epidemic and the Chinese market is already recovering, they will create more Chinese elements in the future. culture to attract and please Chinese consumer groups. For local Chinese companies, we should see that the crisis is also a business opportunity. In this process, if we can change our thinking, change our perspective, and consider the future development of our companies with a higher level of thinking, China will also be in a better position in the near future. There will be many great companies.

So, what kind of enterprise is the future type? It is to build a profit-oriented enterprise with a sustainable attitude. A future-oriented enterprise must be able to fulfill its social responsibilities while making money. This is a great enterprise. He can express his views on society through his own field and take action in the current environment, politics, and humanities. Only such enterprises can influence the future, influence consumers, and leave clear enough traces in the development process of China's fashion history. Therefore, Guochao is the beginning.

How long can the national trend last? This is an important question. I think the national trend still has a long way to go. However, at this stage, this way of expressing national trends has begun to decline. In the future, there will be a deeper, more sustained, and more intrinsic expression of Chinese elements, which will take 5-10 years. Because the current confrontation between China and the United States has developed into a political confrontation, and in the future it will develop into a confrontation between Eastern culture and Western culture.

This confrontation process is actually a problem that China must face in its rise. What's the problem? Be included and accepted by global culture. This acceptance is not about forbearing and giving in, but about going on with strength. China's influence is definitely not the cultural influence achieved by the West's humility and respect, but must be the result of persistence. Because culture cannot be separated from the country, nor can it be separated from social phenomena. For Chinese companies, I think that in the next 5-10 years, if fashion companies can seize social focus such as Chinese cultural elements, Chinese brands, Chinese manufacturing, and even Chinese phenomena, then the rise of China will also be The rise of China's fashion industry is also the rise of Chinese fashion brands.

But what needs to be noted is that we must build a most profitable enterprise and brand from a sustainable perspective, because this is what the future will look like. China's future must not only have profound Chinese DNA and Chinese cultural elements, but also have global consciousness. Only in this way can we achieve globalization.

China’s fashion cannot be limited to China. Only when China’s fashion stands global and reaches a global consensus, then can China’s fashion go global.

This is equivalent to Japan today. In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan also imitated and followed a large number of American and European cultures to establish today's Japanese fashion. By the late 1980s and 1990s, Japan began to realize that if local industries wanted to stand and survive, it was not a deliberate imitation, nor a transcendent imitation, but how to achieve globalization based on Japan's cultural values.

Whether you see Muji or Uniqlo today, no matter where they open their stores in the world, you can see that they all have strong Japanese consumer values ??and Japanese cultural thinking. There is a saying that goes well: "What belongs to the nation belongs to the world." Therefore, it is worth learning from us on this point.

Looking at the development of the global fashion industry, we will find that every time a cultural trend of thought comes, it will drive the development of some brands. For example, feminism became popular after World War II. We saw that Chanel used her understanding of feminism to influence a generation through her designs, and feminism slowly began to gain greater recognition: she put women in bikinis, Wearing miniskirts allows many women to show their self-confidence through fashion and demonstrates the importance of women in society. In addition, the peak population period brought about by the United States after World War II and the stable and rapid development of society gave birth to punk and sexual liberation cultures, which also contributed to the rise of many American brands. For example, gap, banana republic, D&Y, Ralph Lauren, etc., they are all symbols of the rise of the United States in a specific era.

So far, we hope that China’s fashion industry and enterprises can view this opportunity from a higher level, and by seizing this opportunity, a number of great enterprises and brands will be born, and they can become the leading fashion industry in China. Historical symbols and cultural heritage-level brands left behind in every historical stage of China. Therefore, a crisis is also a business opportunity.

I am not sure what elements will become another starting point for national fashion in the future, but what is certain is that consumption that can express social phenomena and show social phenomena and problems through attitudes will be very popular. It is easy to resonate with consumers, which will become a trend and consumption trend. Our enterprise cannot just look down at big data and make products that can be consumed by the market. It also depends on how we shoulder our social responsibilities.

If we can consider issues from the perspective of social responsibility and reshape the company's vision and values, we can always seize every social change, social progress, and social trend of thought. Only such an enterprise can become a great enterprise. A great company is one that has faith, responsibility, and considers sustainable long-term development. Therefore, what height we stand on and what angle we think about problems often determines what kind of company our company can become.

Author: Yang Dayun Sustainable Fashion Chinese Initiator and Founder