laitimes

Why is it said that Li Ningchang is on the aesthetic point of this young people? 丨Chinese style brand

On the fifth "China Brand Day" on May 10, 2021, Sohu Fashion [Chinese Style] Tasting Awards project was officially launched. In the past year, the [Chinese Style] Tasting Awards project has always maintained close observation and in-depth reporting on major Chinese brands, and gained insight into the cutting-edge development of the industry. In order to further sort out and summarize the achievements of major Chinese brands in the past year, on the occasion of the sixth "China Brand Day" on May 10, 2022, Sohu Fashion, Sohu Auto, Sohu Technology, and Sohu Finance jointly selected the "Annual Top Ten Style Brands":

Now please go through this article and enter the world of Li Ning's style.

In 2021, Li Ning handed over an eye-catching report card.

Judging from the disclosed financial report data, for the whole of last year, Li Ning's revenue exceeded 20 billion yuan to reach 22.572 billion yuan, an increase of 56% year-on-year, and it was the third consecutive year of continuous revenue growth.

Net profit in 2021 increased by 136% year-on-year to 4.011 billion yuan; gross profit margin was 53%, an increase of 3.9% year-on-year.

In terms of product categories, in 2021, Li Ning's clothing revenue was 11.824 billion yuan, an increase of 60.5% year-on-year; footwear revenue was 9.506 billion yuan, an increase of 50% year-on-year; equipment and accessories revenue was 1.242 billion yuan, an increase of 64.9% year-on-year. The three types of business have achieved growth, the overall development has shown a good trend, and the strategic effect of "single brand, multi-category, multi-channel" has been remarkable.

Behind Li Ning's good achievements, from the perspective of the general environment, it has been affected by the successive holdings of the Tokyo Olympic Games and the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, which has made the enthusiasm of the whole people to pay attention to sports events and participate in sports projects more vigorous.

From the perspective of fashion, it is that domestic consumers are more and more affirmative and supportive of Chinese fashion brands, especially Chinese sports fashion brands, and under the support of the concept of "supporting domestic products", the revenue of domestic sports brands represented by Li Ning is basically showing a good trend in 2021.

Of course, the core driving force that ultimately makes China's younger generation willing to buy Li Ning and choose to wear Li Ning is that Li Ning's own design is attractive enough. As the first Chinese sports brand to land on the runway of New York Fashion Week, after successfully reshaping its brand style in 2018, Li Ning entered the vision of the younger generation with a new "national tide" image. "Chinese Li Ning, this time you can wear it to go on a blind date!" Such a cute summary is the most sincere affirmation of Li Ning's new image by this young person.

In 2021, Li Ning will continue to interpret Chinese culture and Chinese traditions in a young and trendy way, and become a representative of the original spirit of domestic sports brands. And boldly join hands with popular film and television stars and Chinese young generation designers to inject different cultural and fashion perspectives into sports style design.

In addition to good design, Li Ning can cause a sensation every time he holds a big show. In April, September and December last year, Li Ning held the 2021 Autumn and Winter Series Show in Henan, the 2021 "Wu Xing" theme show in Nyingchi, Tibet, and the 2022 Spring and Summer Series "Whimsical Trend Music Festival" theme show in Sanya.

Inject fashion vitality into national elements

In April last year, Sohu Fashion and actor Xing Zhaolin visited Li Ning's headquarters.

At the Li Ning Sneaker Museum, we met a room full of Li Ning's classic treasure sneakers that are enough to make shoe fans scream. Also deep into the Li Ning brand inspiration room, this Room where Li Ning designers check materials every day, fully demonstrates Li Ning's enthusiasm for traditional Chinese culture, the room is not only filled with books closely related to traditional Chinese culture, but also many handicrafts, pottery, architectural items that show the elements of traditional Chinese culture, and precious textiles collected by Li Ning's designers from ethnic minority areas. These traditional Chinese cultures and elements extracted from ethnic minority costumes are vividly reflected in Li Ning's new works released last year.

In the spring of 2022, Li Ninggang launched the Chinese cultural series "Tiangong Enlightenment" theme product, which is inspired by the world's first comprehensive work on agriculture and handicraft production, "Tiangong Kaiwu", and looks back at the brilliant chapter of technology and craftsmanship in the history of Chinese civilization. The theme products of "Tiangong Enlightenment" also make the magnificent and beautiful Zhuang terroir, Longji Rice Terraces and other natural scenes, as well as the beauty of Zhuang handicrafts passed down from generation to generation such as patchwork, Baiyuan and tie-dye collide with modern styles, interpreting the simple and vivid vitality of the Zhuang people with modern sports trends.

In order to create China's Li Ning Spring/Summer 2022 collection, the designer team traveled to the Miao living area in western Hunan to collect style. The 30-meter-long fabric wrapped around the heads of Miao women, the Miao embroidery patterns, splicing styles, and strong natural elements used in Miao costumes all strongly resonate with the keywords of "nature" and "outdoor" in China's Li Ning's Spring/Summer 2022 collection. In this series, the designer draws on the totem pattern representing the auspicious meaning of the Miao cloth film, bringing a unique pattern presentation. Tie-dye sweatshirts inspired by the mottled walls of Miao Village, combined with the blending process, and the pattern prints used in wool-textured clothing are all inspirations generated by designers after feeling the beauty of the Miao scenery and costumes. Turning the national culture into a trend, using a young, modern and full of life to let the tradition and classics be passed on in a vivid way, this is a highlight of Li Ning's design.

Released in Henan last April, the designers of China's Li Ning Autumn/Winter 2021 collection also transformed the rich materials accumulated in the collection of styles from ethnic minority areas into the most important design language of the season, incorporating traditional handicraft elements such as handmade cross stitches, woven tassels, and plant dyeing. The addition of ethnic elements makes the costume create a rare non-industrial texture, adds the warmth of traditional handicraft to the whole series, and makes the young people wearing it feel the Chinese craftsman spirit more.

In addition to ethnic elements, Chinese life interest is also the highlight of Li Ning's attention in China. Li Ning's Spring/Summer 2022 collection combines the art of origami that Chinese has been involved in since childhood, and applies the creation and cutting concept based on origami techniques to cloaks, t-shirts, sportswear, bags and other products.

It has a different collision with popular actor singers and Chinese independent designers

In addition to innovative design, choosing to cooperate with young people's favorite popular actors, singers, cultural celebrities, and independent designer groups, using their creative dressing and design ingenuity to carry out multi-dimensional creative interpretation of Li Ning's products is also a form of dialogue between Li Ning and young people.

In February 2020, Li Ning officially announced that Hua Chenyu served as the spokesperson for Li Ning's sports fashion products, and Huahua also became the first star brand spokesperson of the Li Ning brand, and the slogan of #Thirty and Standing Everywhere new was launched by the two sides, which triggered an excellent communication topic in that year.

Last year, Li Ning signed a young actor and singer Xiao Zhan with 30 million Weibo fans as the global spokesperson for Li Ning's sports trend products, and the related topics were on Weibo's hot search as soon as they were released, and the brand popularity heated up again in the young market.

In October last year, Li Ning announced the signing of young actor Zhong Chuxi as Li Ning's women's sports ambassador, and the two sides worked together to show the other side of contemporary Chinese women's spontaneous atmosphere, full of strength and beauty. At the scene of the China Li Ning 2022 Spring/Summer 2022 Trend Music Festival held in Sanya last December, Zhong Chuxi also vividly interpreted Li Ning's unique style in the form of a catwalk.

The addition of stars highlights the youthful, diversified, personalized and fashionable positioning that Li Ning wants to create.

In addition to the traditional model of inviting spokespeople, Li Ning has also deepened cooperation with celebrities through cross-border cooperation and other means.

At the beginning of 2020, at the paris fashion week show, the popular kung fu superstar Jackie Chan and the world-recognized gymnastics prince Mr. Li Ning appeared hand in hand, announcing the official debut of Li Ning x Jackie Chan joint series. This joint name takes the soul of Chinese kung fu culture and the shape of sports trends, showing the creative integration of Chinese kung fu culture and trend culture.

In April last year, the 2021 autumn and winter Li Ning x Jackie Chan joint kung fu series continued to debut, the new kung fu series is inspired by the "Wind Forest Volcano" in "Sun Tzu's Art of War", interpreting these four imagery into the design visually, the entire series of materials is relaxed and flowing, the silhouette is simple and neat, showing the flowing charm of traditional Chinese martial arts.

On April 2 this year, Li Ning x Jackie Chan's joint kung fu series was renewed again, and this season is inspired by the "Beauty of Fangyuan", which is rich in Chinese philosophical meanings, and under the aesthetic and philosophical system of "Fangyuan", it has created a trend aesthetic of free retraction, movement and quiet, rigidity and softness, and explored the spiritual world behind Chinese kung fu.

In addition to working with celebrities, China Li Ning also pays great attention to working with Chinese independent designers to collide with inspiration. In the "Wu Xing" series released in Nyingchi last September, Li Ning united a number of Independent Chinese designers to bring more insights about clothing design to the public, and once again promoted the voice of China's original design in the field of sports fashion.

Chen Peng, the founder of the CHENPENG brand and a well-known independent designer who designed the clothing for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, used the rolling snowy mountains and the vast skyline as inspiration to design the beauty of nature, and also showed his experience and insight in the continuous climbing of the design road to higher peaks.

Zhi Chen, an independent designer collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the founder of the ZI II CI IEN Zhichen brand, is inspired by the five-color prayer flag to explore civilization, and the designer's love and continuous exploration of knitting technology coincides with the spirit of climbing advocated by Li Ning's "Wu Xing", and uses design to show the practice of human beings for the spirit of excellence.

This year, the Li Ning CF series and the YU PRIZE Creative Awards 2022 jointly launched the "Dream to fly" attitude TEE theme project. The top 20 contestants of this competition used ancient Chinese flying machines as inspiration to tell the story of chasing dreams in contemporary design language, showing the spiritual core of persistence, breakthrough and love.

Dig deep into the brand's 30-year history and design accumulation

As a fashion brand with a certain historical precipitation, it is also a common creative mode in the fashion industry to dig deeper into the brand history and creatively reproduce the classic products of the past. Founded in 1990, Li Ning has created countless classic products that have been deeply remembered by a generation of Chinese. Its brand founder "Gymnastics Prince" Mr. Li Ning, the spirit of continuous climbing in the sports world and corporate world is even more legendary. The brand's excellent historical precipitation has made the deep digging inside another important source of creativity for Li Ning.

When Sohu Fashion and actor Xing Zhaolin visited Li Ning's headquarters, they had a deep understanding of a shoe that Li Ning focused on in the spring and summer of 2021 - MIX ACE, which is Li Ning's Redesign version of the classic design born ten years ago.

Mix ACE each component is inspired by the "mortise and mortise" buckle structure commonly used in traditional Chinese wooden furniture, each layer can be disassembled and recombined, and a pair of shoes can be derived from a variety of different ways to play. The integration of oriental wisdom has made this shoe win various design awards such as German IF and Chinese Red Star, and its first year version represents a sign of Li Ning's original design, and this shoe has also become one of the ace shoes independently designed by Li Ning brand. The powerful function of seamless transformation of shapes such as sandals, fashion shoes, outdoor river shoes and indoor shoes also makes this pair of shoes very much in line with the lifestyle of modern young people, so it has become the first choice for Li Ning's replica shoes.

The design inspiration for the new "overload" trend sneakers launched by China's Li Ning Autumn/Winter 2021 series is also derived from the most classic IP image "ultra-light" in Li Ning's history, fully absorbing its retro elements, breaking the design boundary in the collision of deconstruction and structure, and unlocking the sports tide to play new postures.

In addition to the product reproduction, last November, Li Ning launched a new independent high-end sports fashion brand LI-NING 1990 (Li Ning 1990). Its inspiration is precisely from the founder Mr. Li Ning's sports career, LI-NING 1990 (Li Ning 1990) with "champion gold medal" and "medal" and other design elements, emphasizing the concept of "classic return" and "original intention unchanged", with the valuable cultural and spiritual assets accumulated in the development process of the brand for more than 30 years since its establishment to create a new "Li Ning Story", and strive to further develop the segmentation of the sports market.

And "tide" and "cool" and "attitude", such a Li Ning story, look forward to you to write together.

Read on