More than a dozen sexy male models were at the door of the store
Welcome scene
Do you still have an impression?
As the "first generation of Internet celebrities" of Modu fashion brand
It is located on Nanjing West Road in The Jing'an District of Shanghai
A&F flagship store
Recently, there was news that the store was about to close
On-site "clearance discount"
It has attracted many citizens to go shopping for goods
Compared with the brand's first store in mainland China in 2014
A bustling scene when you move into Shanghai
Today's gloomy departure is unavoidably lamentable
In fact, as early as the beginning of last year
The brand side has been confirmed
The Shanghai flagship store will be closed in 2022
However, the rumors of "withdrawing from China" are not true
A&F HEN Taikoo Hui store is currently unaffected
It is still in business
It's just how A&F's future Path to China will go
How long can I go
It's still unknown
Once hilarious, now it's out of the scene
The sign "Our store will close at the end of February" was not displayed outside the main entrance of the street along Nanjing West Road, but was located in a gap in different shelves, which also read "Looking forward to meeting you online and offline" and indicated the address of the store located in IB Taikoo Hui.
In fact, the American-style sports-inspired casual brand has been a big deal when it entered China, a tradition that continued when the mainland's first store opened in Shanghai in 2014.
Judging from the online feedback, many consumers still remember the grand occasion of the opening day of the first store in Shanghai: more than a dozen male models hired by A&F with bare upper body muscles stood at the entrance of the store to welcome, attracting a lot of onlookers. At a time when the influencer economy has not yet become popular, A&F can be regarded as the "first generation of Internet celebrities" of Mordor.
This is also the sexy marketing that A&F used to do best
Caused controversy for the brand for a long time
But it also achieved the purpose of creating momentum
A&F's "Macho Offensive"
Brand side: All flagship stores will be closed by the end of 2023
It's only been 8 years
Why does the "originator of internet celebrities" have to say goodbye?
The flagship store staff asked about the reason for the store closure
The response given was "decided by the company"
In fact, as early as the beginning of last year, A&F brand executives have made it clear that they will close the remaining 7 global flagship stores by the end of 2023, including A&F's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York, and the Shanghai flagship store has also been included in the 2022 store closure plan. Brands have announced that they will invest more capital expenditures in digital businesses.
Overseas fashion brands are difficult to survive
Flip through the social platform netizens' evaluation of A&F
Combined with the reporter's interview at the store site
We can also draw a little bit of it
Part of the reason for the decline of this brand:
The viscosity of the product is not high, the replaceability is strong, and the brand memory point only stays in the male model who helped when opening, which naturally cannot firmly grasp the attention of consumers;
After the decline in clothing quality and the tilt of brand positioning towards fast fashion, the pricing remains high, and it is naturally impossible to persuade discerning consumers to pay;
In recent years, the rapid development of China's e-commerce market, coupled with the rise of national tide culture, people's recognition of local domestic brands has risen, which has further compressed the living space of overseas clothing brands.
Compared with gap, ZARA, Uniqlo and other head fast fashion brands, A&F Group's layout in China is obviously too late and too cautious. Compared with the number of hundreds of stores in China, the presence of A&F Group's brands is obviously insufficient.
In addition, the brand did not set up a new headquarters in Shanghai for the Chinese market until 2019, and the lengthy reporting chain of international brands in regional markets is obviously not conducive to the brand's response speed in the local market.
With the increasingly fierce competition in the Chinese apparel market, from M&S to Forever 21, from C&A to Topshop, there are many fast fashion brands that have slowly struggled to gain a foothold in the Chinese market over the years, and A&F is not the first and will not be the last. How to make the future development of the Chinese market better for overseas fashion brands is still a difficult issue.
Have you ever bought A&F clothing?
What do you think about the closure of the store?
Tonight's Newsroom