Historically, every economic cycle cycle is a process of upgrading and transformation for the market and enterprises, and of course, it is also an opportunity. Around the world, different countries and companies have experienced several economic cycles, and the consequent growth and great changes.
Over the past 40 years, China's fashion industry has experienced rapid development and expansion in a rapidly growing economic environment. Even slight fluctuations in the economic cycle tend to show rapid recovery. On the one hand, this confirms the advantages of the comprehensive and coherent industrial chain of China's fashion industry, as well as the resilience and stability that come with the scale of the market; It is also why, after gradually coming out of the difficult situation in 2023, many international groups quickly bet on firm confidence.
However, as we gradually move towards higher peaks, behind the flower-filled scenery, there are bound to be greater challenges. How to continue to take into account the uniqueness and irreplaceability of its own industrial structure in the market environment full of huge changes such as upgrading and competition will be a particularly huge and complex issue in this era.
Looking back in recent years, the continuous industrial uniqueness output of China's fashion industry is not only based on the improvement of advantages in a certain dimension, but also runs through culture, technology, sustainability, retail innovation, etc. in line with the background of the times, and gradually moves to a higher place in the continuous expansion of the business environment and the continuous upgrading of supply chain advantages.
In the future, the more dazzling report card of China's fashion industry requires not only redundant and eclectic refinement of the past industrial structure and historical experience, but also needs to gather regional economic partners from the perspective of pathfinders to find development and innovation in collaborative exchanges. This is the original intention of WWD Chinese Edition to launch "New Map of Asia", and it is also the expectation of rationality in the future.
Facing the new beginning of China's fashion industry,
Confidence and determination from the international arena
Bain noted in the China Luxury Market Research Report that the Chinese luxury market contracted for the first time in five years in 2022, falling by 10%, but the company also noted that it expects to return to growth in 2023 and return to 2021 levels in the first half of the year at the earliest.
Among them, the growth engine brought by China's high-net-worth people and high-income families, and the increasingly mature and perfect duty-free industry drive and other market structures will bring crucial growth impetus to China's luxury market. Previously, Jacques Roizen, general manager of consulting business of DLG (Digital Luxury Group), pointed out to WWD Chinese that with the growth of millions of income groups and the number of high-income households in the next five years, there is no doubt that China's luxury consumption will grow faster than the industry level and the rest of the world.
In the 2022 China Luxury Report, the VIP Research Institute pointed out that in 2022, the online sales of China's luxury goods market reached 200 billion, and the online transactions of international luxury brands in China increased by about 31% to 220 billion yuan. At the same time, the trend of high-end customers in China's luxury market in 2022 has further emerged, and in 2022, there will be about 5 million high-end consumers with a net worth of more than 10 million yuan, contributing 82% of the luxury consumer market.
UBS analysts pointed out in a new report that although the share of Chinese consumers in global luxury spending fell to 17% last year due to the pandemic, Chinese consumers will be more important for luxury brands in 2023 than in 2019. Asset manager Flornoy Ferri's Arnaud Cadart expects luxury spending in China to grow by 30% year-on-year this year.
Hermes Nanjing Deji Plaza store
Not long ago, when releasing the 2022 annual performance report, Hermès executive chairman Axel Dumas told analysts that since the fourth quarter, it has still seen strong demand in the Chinese market. He added: "The Chinese market has maintained stable sales over the past two years, and it is not so much a recovery as a continued strong growth momentum in China. ”
Also in the release of the 2022 full-year results, Jean-Marc Duplaix, Chief Financial Officer of Kering, also pointed out that better-than-expected sales during the Chinese New Year holiday and a strong rebound in purchases in Greater China "are quite encouraging starts to the year," said Jean-Marc Duplaix.
Earlier, the WWD Chinese edition also mentioned in "Through the annual financial report, the "Chinese confidence" of international luxury giants" that Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, Gildo Zegna, chairman and CEO of Zegna Group, Marco Gobbetti, CEO and general manager of Salvatore Ferragamo, and Swatch Group also expressed optimism and confidence in the Chinese market.
Over the past period, Gildo Zegna, Chairman and CEO of Kering, François-Henri Pinault, Cédric Charbit, CEO of Balenciaga, Francesca Bellettini, CEO of Saint Laurent, and Guillaume Motte, President and CEO of Sephora, LVMH. Ms. Alia Gogi, President of LVMH-Sephora Asia, and other international group executives have come to China.
Mr. Guillaume Motte, Global President and CEO of Sephora by LVMH, Ms. Alia Gogi, President of LVMH-Sephora Asia, and other executives, Taikoo Li Sanlitun, Beijing
Among them, Gildo Zegna is one of the first luxury group executives to travel to Hong Kong and Macau after the optimization of epidemic prevention and control policies. Last month, François-Henri Pinault visited four cities, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Nanjing, and expressed his great concern for the opportunity of Chengdu to become an international consumer center city. In addition, the Group will strengthen its strategic investment in Shanghai, combining sustainable business innovation and digital transformation expertise to launch new products, technologies and services through the China International Import Expo platform.
Although the contraction of consumption is inevitable in the face of cyclical fluctuations in the economic cycle and short-term difficulties, it is not difficult to see that in addition to firm confidence, international groups or brands are also showing determination to continue to raise.
Independent era background,
Unique fashion value system
In fact, in the past four decades, the fundamental advantages of China's fashion industry may be divided into two parts.
The first is the unshakable essential advantages, such as cultural assets that have been discussed and excavated many times in the past and have a long history, and objective industrial structures such as land, population, and even supply chain and market scale; Second, it is to grasp the development focus of the main theme of the times, such as technology, sustainability, retail innovation and other multi-dimensional accelerated innovation, all of which provide a vital weight for the uniqueness, resilience and comprehensiveness of China's fashion industry in the international arena.
At the same time, after more than ten years of high-speed growth and multi-step progress, and after the short-term tempering of the past three years full of challenges and uncertainties, China's fashion industry is constantly reshaping its industrial structure and seeing more innovative paths worth exploring.
Therefore, we may be able to boldly imagine that as China's fashion industry is getting closer and closer to the 3.0 development stage, confidence, determination, and opportunities are coming, and how far is the Chinese fashion industry, which is based on the world's forest, from establishing an independent background of the times and a unique fashion value system?
With fashion as a window,
Culture becomes a two-way street
In the past, when it came to China's cultural assets, it was bound to be measured by the age of the year. But now, the cultural label of China's fashion industry is being deepened in the business environment, releasing a long-term influence and application space that is more in line with the modern social context on the international stage. Introspection, this is a natural process of cultural evolution, and it is also an important industrial fission signal.
Just as cultural consumption is constantly valued by policies and markets; The long-standing cultural exchanges between China and the West are becoming increasingly close; The continuous rise of local emerging creative groups... The "Blue Book of Cultural Industry" "China Cultural Industry Development Report (2022-2023)" pointed out that the high-quality development of the cultural industry is not only a summary of China's development since 2022, but also the future development direction emphasized in the report of the 20th National Congress. Its basic principles include combining the strategy of expanding domestic demand in the cultural industry with deepening supply-side structural reform, combining the promotion of effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth of the cultural industry, and combining the social and economic benefits of the cultural industry.
More than Watching: From the "Brothers Cup" to the "Han Award" China International Young Designers Fashion Competition 30 Years Exhibition
In addition, the importance that international brands attach to Chinese culture has also evolved from symbolic links or consumption orientation during traditional festivals more than ten years ago, and has increasingly evolved into a localized identity and sense of social responsibility as a civilized community. Just like in the past year, cultural landmarks such as Shanghai Zhangyuan Garden and Aranya have been favored by many international brands; International brands such as Louis Vuitton, Loewe, and Burberry focus on the inheritance of traditional Chinese skills through numerous cultural conservation projects.
The cultural exchange between China and the West with fashion as the window is also a two-way line. While international brands continue to enter the depths of Chinese cultural life, domestic brands and local Chinese designers are also further influencing the future of the global fashion industry, just like Chinese designers who shine in New York, London, Milan and other fashion weeks; In the upcoming LVMH Young Designer Awards, three groups of designers from China, Louis Shengtao Chen, Marrknull Wei Wang and Tian Shi, and Namesake managers Michael, Richard and Steve Hsieh, were shortlisted for the semi-finals.
Not long ago, the French fashion trade fair Tranoï signed a three-year cooperation agreement with the China Fashion Association to launch the "China Select" project at Paris Fashion Week to showcase the work of Chinese designers.
The French fashion trade fair Tranoï and the China Fashion Designers Association launch the "China Select" project to showcase the work of Chinese designers
Today, we have clearly seen the accelerating industrial vitality of the two-way line of fashion culture. So next, what kind of Chinese culture should we let international brands see? What kind of local creative forces need greater support to go global? It will be a crucial problem-solving idea.
business environment, supply chain system,
China's fashion industry is accelerating towards a stage of high-quality development
Together with China's cultural assets, it constitutes a solid soil for the fashion industry - the fast-growing, and at the same time constantly renewing the economic aggregate and modern business environment, from the comprehensive and systematic production scale to the supply chain system empowered by intelligence. In the past, the Chinese market and China's textile manufacturing industry attracted remarkable volume. The development soil of China's fashion industry, as well as domestic and foreign brands, is shifting from high-speed growth to high-quality development.
Although in 2022, retail sales of consumer goods other than automobiles fell by 0.4% to RMB 393961, of which total retail sales of clothing, shoes and hats, knitted textiles fell by 6.5% to RMB1,300.3 billion, total retail sales of cosmetics decreased by 4.5% to RMB393.6 billion, and total retail sales of gold and silver jewellery decreased by 1.1% to RMB301.4 billion. However, more than 120 trillion yuan of GDP has achieved 3% growth, compared with 98.65 trillion yuan in 2019, 101.36 trillion yuan in 2020, and 114.92 trillion yuan in 2021, which is still in the process of growth by different magnitudes.
For example, changes in the GDP ranking of new first-tier cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Suzhou are bound to further affect the focus of China's business environment and the layout planning of international brands in 2023. Among them, Chongqing surpassed Guangzhou and became the "fourth city" of China's economy; Chengdu's GDP reached 2.08175 billion yuan, exceeding 2 trillion yuan, becoming the seventh city in Chinese mainland with an economic total exceeding 2 trillion yuan.
The first Ralph Lauren House in South China, MixC in Shenzhen
Facing a new starting point and recovery momentum, China's retail industry is gradually moving towards the next stage of expansion and improvement from scale to quality. According to incomplete statistics at the end of last year, Shanghai will welcome 23 commercial projects in 2023, with a total commercial volume of about 1.7252 million square meters. In the southwest region, 74 commercial projects are planned to open in 2023, with an additional 7.243 million square meters of commercial volume.
For the southwest region, although the number of projects to be opened has been significantly reduced for two consecutive years, it is worth noting that the trend of individual regions is good, and high-quality projects under well-known enterprises have emerged.
Maison Margiela, Chengdu Yintai Center store
According to the Action Plan for the Transformation and Upgrading of Commercial Districts in Beijing (2022-2025), by 2025, on the basis of consolidating the efficiency of the previous round of 22 business district renovations, a new round of 54 business districts will be completed and the transformation and upgrading of traditional business districts will be launched from 2019, and Beijing has completed the phased transformation and upgrading of 22 traditional business districts such as Wangfujing, Qianmen Dashilar and Sanlitun. Jingxiang Street, located in the core area of Beijing's CBD, has been upgraded and will become a digital experiential commercial block with Chinese cultural heritage in the future; In the CBD outward business district, the new The Box will focus on creating a landmark of Beijing's young power center focusing on Generation Z; Tongying Center, which also belongs to the Sanlitun business district, will also create the "Tongying Center Metaverse Commercial Complex Project" that focuses on online and offline technology consumption experience.
In addition, it includes K11's first flagship project in mainland China, and the K11 Ecoast jointly built in Shenzhen with China Merchants Shekou; With commercial real estate groups such as Swire Properties and Wangfujing landing duty-free projects, China's duty-free market is also showing a different spark.
For China's textile supply chain, from digital model empowerment, intelligent manufacturing of Industry 4.0, personalized customization and flexible production, to the improvement of innovative scientific research capabilities, etc., all aspects have constantly refreshed the face of China's textile industry chain.
Chen Dapeng, vice president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council and president of the China National Garment Association, said: "The new development of digitalization, networking, informatization and intelligence provides the possibility for large-scale personalized customization. The core of live streaming e-commerce is to shorten the distance between consumers and provide consumers with the best products in the shortest time. ”
In order to cope with the increasing demand for global competition and personalized demand, Bosideng opens up flexible channels for two-way interaction between production and marketing through digitalization, accurately controls consumer needs, and provides precise marketing and appropriate services, so as to achieve brand value growth; Achieve internal optimization management at the level of procurement, production, inventory, sales and so on; Digital innovation of the supply chain, the data middle platform connects all links of the supply chain in the technology of enterprise data, opens up the front-end sales, mid-end inventory and back-end production outsourcing processes, and responds to market demand in the shortest time.
Bosideng opens up flexible channels for two-way interaction between production and marketing through digitalization to accurately control consumer demand
Another example is Longsheng clothing, the intelligent production business has developed a customized clothing one-person-one-version model, with remote measurement to achieve most of the orders from the network, consumers only need to take photos as required, can intelligently identify the key data of multiple ministries such as waist circumference, and then choose fabrics online and participate in style design.
Sun Pan, partner of PwC Advisory Services, also previously mentioned to WWD Chinese that there are many new enterprises like Wanzi in China's upstream supply chain, which continue to accumulate technology and continue to make breakthroughs and innovations through industry service experience, actively build a global supply chain network, and establish overall solutions for the supply chain of high-end fabrics.
Not only that, in the past few years, China's position has become more and more prominent in the R&D investment of multinational beauty giants. Construction of The Estée Lauder Global R&D Center China officially began in May last year, with an investment of more than US$35 million and more than 200 R&D personnel in the Caohejing Science and Technology Oasis Park in Minhang District, Shanghai. In October last year, Shiseido officially opened its third R&D center in China, located in Oriental Beauty Valley, Fengxian District, Shanghai, and will focus on the development of cutting-edge cosmetic technologies including high-efficacy cosmetics, excellent usability, breakthrough cosmetic formulations, and new efficacy evaluation methods.
The Estée Lauder Global R&D Center opens in Shanghai
scientific and technological innovation, sustainable fashion,
Inevitable industrial upgrading capital
For the development focus of the global fashion industry such as scientific and technological innovation and sustainability, it is also for the comprehensiveness, stability and resilience of China's fashion industry, further enhancing the background of the era in line with the inevitability of the contemporary industry, and quickly establishing global competition barriers and forming unique upgrading capital through sustainable and scientific and technological innovation capabilities before the arrival of a new era chapter.
Just like the rapid development of Web 2.0 in the e-commerce era of China's fashion industry in the past decade, live streaming and virtual makeup try-on related to consumer scenarios and experiences have repeatedly overcome the physical limitations of the real world, and have also brought fashion and luxury goods into the frenzy of China's Internet + based on big data, social networking and digital experience. On the basis of the development scale of the digital economy and the huge consumer population, the development level of artificial intelligence and the innovative application of various industrial chain links have also brought more imagination to the exploration of the combination of virtual and real in Web 3.0.
With the continuous strengthening and strong support of national policies for sustainable development, especially the emphasis and emphasis in the 14th Five-Year Plan and the long-term goals of 2035, sustainable development has become the key direction of China's fashion industry.
The sustainable development practice can be traced back to the Erdos Cashmere Group in the 90s of the 20th century, and the group has formulated the "Erdos Way" from the three dimensions of supply chain, brand and employees as the group's sustainable development program, carefully creating sustainable actions for the whole cashmere industry chain from grassland to shopping mall, from herdsmen to customers.
Seven Wolves has long been in harmony with animals and deeply rooted in the brand's DNA, and is committed to animal protection and environmental protection. In September 2020, Seven Wolves and the Yunnan Green Environment Development Foundation announced a long-term strategic partnership to protect rare wildlife. In December of the same year, Seven Wolves once again joined hands with the Yunnan Green Foundation to launch a public welfare action to protect wild wolves in the Baima Snow Mountains of Yunnan. In August last year, Seven Wolves opened a new chapter of strategic cooperation with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment Education Center to achieve a new chapter in environmental protection, participated in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to jointly protect biological diversity, and implemented the concept of public welfare environmental protection into the whole life cycle of design, development, production and manufacturing.
Erdos brand renewal event
However, in the upgrading of the dimension of sustainable development, in addition to the application initiation ports such as supply chain and policy, the penetration of China's fashion industry has also become the innovation point of emerging brands or designers countless times, and has evolved into an innovative consumer life scene in many retail spaces.
Just as Zhang Na, the founder of Reinvention Bank, released her first collection at the Grand Palace in Austria in 2011, she has been committed to achieving corporate beliefs such as "Refuse, Recycle, and Rebirth" for more than ten years. In addition, Zhang Na also explores more new space for traditional fashion creative models through the only way to sustainable fashion. As she brought to the Miffy exhibition, Miffy the Spirit of Love, the material comes from degradable vegan fur made from PLA polylactic acid extracted from corn.
"Blazing Angel Spirit of Love Miffy", Zhang Na, degradable vegan fur
Her in-depth research on new biodegradable materials, the imaginative but feasible R&D exploration of sustainable materials, and the unique and lively and interesting sustainable concept have made Song Youyang win a number of international awards and make her founded Peelsphere a biomaterials R&D start-up that has attracted much attention in the industry. In 2021, Chinese independent designer Susan Fang presented an inspirational collision between environmental protection and technology, art and fashion with Procter & Gamble.
Chinese independent designer Susan Fang has worked with Procter & Gamble to present an inspirational collision between environmental protection and technology, art and fashion
Whether it is sustainable development or technology, it is no longer a tool or even a dogma to improve quality and efficiency, but a certain inevitability of gradually deepening China's fashion industry - an inevitability to refine historical experience and fill the possibilities for the future.
New is the keyword of 2023, and it is also the underlying logic that the Chinese fashion industry needs to ponder again.
But this time, there is confidence, determination, and opportunity. WWD