Sky-high costumes aimed at "rich women" are not a bad thing

Text | Wang Ruoye

"Long Moon Ember Ming" ended more than a month, but the auction of the male and female protagonist costumes in the play once again appeared on Weibo hot search.

At 3 p.m. on May 30, Nanpai Youxuan held a public welfare donation activity for the "Long Moon Ember Ming" costume auction in the live broadcast room, saying that the auction proceeds would be donated to the China Youth Development Foundation in the name of "Long Moon Ember Ming" fans". In the end, the male protagonist Tangtai Ember Proton Period costume was photographed and sold for 170001 yuan. The heroine Ye Xiwu changed the costume of the Devil Bone Period was auctioned at a 100001 price, but because the bidder did not pay within the specified time, the auction was lost.

The high transaction price, the popularity of the series and the fanatical fans of the actors are all creating momentum for the costume auction of "Long Moon Ember Ming", and the term costume auction has once again sparked heated discussions on the Internet.

In Europe and the United States, costume auctions are nothing new. The earliest domestic costume auction can also be traced back to 16 years ago, when the two costumes worn by Jay Chou in "Full of Golden Armor" were auctioned for up to 260,000 yuan. Since then, new and old costume dramas such as "Ancient Sword and Qitan", "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" and "Liuli" have successively auctioned the costumes in the play, with transaction prices ranging from 10,000 to 200,000 yuan.

In recent years, more and more film and television drama costumes have flowed into the secondary market through auctions, and questions such as "is it worth spending tens of thousands of yuan to buy a dress" and "who is so rich is paying for used clothes" continue to haunt the public.

After discussing with costume designers, costume auction companies and costume enthusiasts, Bone Duo found that behind the hype of star costumes, a complete cultural industry chain gradually emerged.

01

 Should costumes be sold?

"Whoever pays for the costume belongs to whom."

Han Jingjing, a designer who has designed costumes for variety shows such as "Saturday Night Live" and "Sonic Partners", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Shakespeare Playing Mahjong" and other dramas, introduced that the designer only has the right of authorship to the costumes he designs, not the right of ownership.

Whether it is film and television dramas, variety shows, stage plays, dramas, and operas, the costumes used by the actors belong to the producer.

"If it's a web show, the costumes go to the production company. If it is a TV show, the costume belongs to the costume group of the TV station. "The same goes for the series. Even if the costumes of a drama are outsourced to other teams, if Party A requests recycling, then these costumes will also be returned to Party A, that is, the drama production company.

Nanpai Youxuan was also authorized by Quantum Pan Entertainment and Otter Culture to become the auctioneer of the costumes of "Long Moon Ember Ming".

Around 2000, China's film and television industry was still in the early stage of development, many crews had limited funds, and costumes were leased from costume rental companies. After the crew uses these costumes, they will return them to the rental company for the next crew to continue to rent and use. Therefore, attentive audiences can often see actors in different plays wearing the same clothes and using the same headdress.

Later, the investment of film and television dramas often exceeded 100 million, and spending huge amounts of money to create exclusive service roads became a high-quality performance of the drama. Big-budget dramas will tailor and customize the actors according to the characters, plots and scenes.

In large-scale costume dramas such as "The Legend of Wu Meiniang", "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Glory of the Great Tang", more than 300 sets of costumes are designed for actresses alone, and the variety of styles is dizzying. The starring costumes of "The Legend of Ruyi" are as many as four or five thousand sets, which cost a lot; The production cost of "Yanxi Raiders" of 300 million, excluding the 24 million actor salary, was almost all spent on costumes.

For a period of time, the inner volume of costume dramas is all reflected in their costume styling. Whether the costumes fit the characters' personalities, whether the costume texture is high-grade, whether the costume design is the same, etc., are all the basis for the audience to judge whether the production of a drama is excellent.

The exclusivity and uniqueness of these costumes also determines that the costumes are not suitable for reuse by multiple crews. "Even if it is to be used twice, designers need to create a second time on the original design." Han Jingjing said. Nowadays, the final destination of the vast majority of costumes is stacked at the bottom of the crew's warehouse press.

For costume designers, being able to see their costumes auctioned off is actually a joy.

Han Jingjing recently tried to sell her costumes on second-hand platforms and received a good response. When designing the costume initially, Han Jingjing did not pay too much attention to the utilization rate of the costume. "In the past, the first thing I used to consider was the presentation of costumes, but now I will also start to pay attention to the craftsmanship of fabrics and upgrade second-hand costumes more."

Like Han Jingjing, costume designer @SEYSEY pretended to be on the scene and told Bone Duo that she would rather see her costume used all the time rather than being abandoned after the finale. "Although it is unlikely that the costume I design will be auctioned, I would like to have other designers update my costume and use its residual value."

The value of a costume is not unrelated to the fame of the costume designer. For example, the works of Megumi Wada, Tim Yip, and Zhang Shuping are often more collectible, and the crew will better handle and keep the costumes they design. @SEYSEY pretended to be on the scene said that these designer costumes may have additional copyright notices, and the auction situation is more complicated than that of ordinary designer costumes.

Although costume design is an important part of film and television drama creation, audiences know very little about the industry. Especially unknown costume designers, after the filming of a play, the costumes they designed will even be discarded. If those costumes that could only be used as "garbage" in the corner of the warehouse are noticed by the public due to the auction, and at the same time gain new "life", it is actually a recognition and encouragement for costume designers.

02

 Is the costume auction inevitable?

Nanpai Youxuan, who played an important role in the costume auction of "Long Moon Ember Ming", previously sold the relevant peripherals of "Tomb Robbery Notes" in his live broadcast room. However, although it is the first time to undertake the costume auction business, the auction process and account publicity of Nanpai Youxuan have been relatively perfect.

Because as the crew's treatment of costumes shifts from backlog warehouses and waste recycling to public auctions, costume auctions have also begun to become professional. After a play ends, the film and television production company entrusts the discarded costumes to the costume auction company, which is responsible for keeping and auctioning the costumes, from which it earns the commission fee or the difference in the appreciation of the costumes.

The person in charge of the collection of Pisces Library, one of the first companies in China to open up the costume auction channel, told Bone Duo that the domestic film and television drama collection industry is in a booming stage.

"My partner and I are both practitioners in the film and television industry, a screenwriter and a director. More than ten years of experience in the industry has made us very familiar with the entire industry chain of the film and television industry, we know the artistry and value of film and television props, and we also know their fate after shooting. Custom-made costumes are difficult to recycle, and fans have no way to collect costumes. So we decided to use the Pisces Collection as a bridge between the two. ”

Click on the idle fish account in the collection of Pisces Museum, and the most recent transaction record about the costume is the Ziwu Jiaoqing regular dress in "Starfall into Sugar", which was auctioned for 4,200 yuan on June 25. In addition, there are Xuanshang Hidden Moon Ordinary Costumes in "Starfall Condensed into Sugar", Shen Yan Tattoo Ink Ordinary Costume in "Starfall Condensed into Sugar", and "Yunxiang Legend" group miscellaneous costumes and other costumes are all sold at a price of about 1,000 yuan.

More than 20 film and television drama projects such as "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", "Tiansheng Long Song", "Kyushu Ethereal Record" and "Crane Pavilion" have also authorized the Pisces Museum to auction the costumes in the play. Some crews auction costumes to give back to the fans, while others are to promote and display costumes. Moreover, many crews will choose to donate the auction proceeds to non-profit organizations.

"After the costume comes to us from the producer, we will try to keep the costume as original as possible and try to preserve the traces of use. Except for stage shooting, no try-on and live life demonstrations are allowed. More importantly, during the broadcast of the series, it is necessary to avoid the early exposure of costume styling, which is our professional ethics as a commissioned agent. ”

The person in charge of the collection of Pisces said that the costumes have the same value as other collections, such as craftsmanship, art, texture, etc., and have the unique added value given by the filmmakers. Consumers who have purchased costumes in the Pisces collection are also roughly divided into two categories: one is collectors who come for the artistry of costumes; One category is fans of film and television dramas, who come for the love of actors.

When they were actually exposed to the costume auction industry and actually operated, the Pisces Collection manager realized that this market could not use age and occupation to profile users. There are younger fans willing to throw a fortune, and older collectors who are expanding their collections. The different needs of the audience also lead to the transaction price of the costumes varies.

On the other hand, the price of costumes is generally higher than that of modern costumes. Costumes are usually specially designed for the series, tailored for the actors, and have their uniqueness and scarcity, which modern costumes do not have. Unless the IP is very strong and the actor is famous in film history, such as the spacesuit of "The Wandering Earth" and the swimsuit of the Bond girl of "007", these examples are obviously not universal.

Up to now, the idle fish account in the collection of Pisces Museum shows that it has sold 24 products, and 98 products have been sold. In addition to the second-hand platform of Xianyu, Pisces Collection also operates a WeChat mini program platform, "We will choose the auction location according to the characteristics of the project." The first condition for the auction platform to be selected is that it must have back-office functions such as auction, markup, and deposit payment. ”

As a mature costume auction company that has been in operation for 7 years, Pisces Collection also has several small teams in marketing, warehouse management, customer service and publicity, which are responsible for docking copyright owner authorization, cargo management, customer maintenance and external publicity business. It can be said that the rise of professional costume auction companies such as Pisces Collection, Ali Entertainment, and Zhu Brothers in recent years is also one of the necessary conditions for achieving the costume auction industry.

In essence, costume auction is still a kind of film and television after-sales, which is a further development of the value of IP itself by film and television dramas, and can also continue the IP life cycle and continue to spread IP influence. The industrialization, standardization and process of costume auction are actually the only way for the development of the film and television industry.

03

Fans are "unjust heads"?

Just as at the costume auction of "Long Moon Ember Ming", the bidders for the costumes of the Proton Period of Tangtai Ember were all Luo Yunxi fans, and the costumes in the drama such as "Ancient Sword and Qitan", "Mountain and River Order" and "Liuli" were also auctioned away by actor fans at sky-high prices.

An ordinary costume can be filmed at a high price that exceeds the production cost, which seems a little incredible to many people, and there is no lack of ridicule about "fans are stupid and have a lot of money".

In 2017, the white and light white tulle fairy costume in "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" bid for more than 5,000 yuan, and the Yehua costume was auctioned for 10,000 yuan after 23 bids. In the same year, the costume of Ouyang Nana, the starring in "Blood of the Machine", was also bought by fans for 180,000 bids. In 2020, the white Hanfu of the male protagonist Yu Sifeng in "Liuli" was sold for 100,000 yuan, another set of blue costumes was sold for 30,000 yuan, and the green costume of the heroine Xuanjie was also sold for more than 30,000 yuan.

In the development of costume auctions, there have also been auction methods that are not accepted by fans. In October 2022, the TV series "Ice Rain and Fire" was broadcast, and the official Weibo posted that he wanted to send big benefits to drama fans. And the so-called welfare is the costumes of the two actors in this TV series.

The crew broke down the costumes worn by actors Wang Yibo and Chen Xiao into pieces, and then coded each piece, including pants, coats, T-shirts, etc. Take the denim jacket worn by Wang Yibo in the play as an example, it was divided into more than 100 pieces, and the T-shirt worn was divided into about 30 pieces, each of which started at more than 200 yuan.

After this auction model was officially announced, it was immediately boycotted by Wang Yibo's fans. In the eyes of fans, the costume auction is understandable, and if the auction proceeds can give back to the society in the form of public welfare donations, it is even more enjoyable, but the "original" sliced and sold is obviously the drama party's leek cutting behavior, and the fans' spontaneous boycott is also understandable.

However, fans of popular dramas or fans of traffic actors only account for a large part of the costume auction audience. Chen Chen, who has purchased more than ten sets of original costumes, is not a fan of any drama or any actor, but a pure costume lover.

Unlike fan psychology, the audience of Chen Chen's costume auction is more concerned about the value of the costume itself. She told Bone Duo, "The price of costumes is very variable. The better the material and the more exquisite the production process, the more expensive the costume will be. Her most expensive costume was auctioned in 2022 and sold for 7,891 yuan.

Chen Chen will pay special attention to the dynamics of the play because he likes a certain character. "Take a look at the Weibo account of the drama production company and the official account of the platform in Xianyu, where auction activities are basically released."

When watching the play, Chen Chen would take a screenshot of his favorite costume when he saw it, waiting for the crew's costume auction. In the past, there were not many crews who publicly auctioned costumes, and Chen Chen was looking for a replica of the costume in idle fish. "Later, more original costumes were sold on Xianyu, such as Youku's many costumes in the play, which would be auctioned at @Ali entertainment. Other accounts that sell costumes appear to be crew members, while others are middlemen and second-hand dealers. ”

In addition to fans and costume lovers, it is often seen that artists buy costumes out of their own pockets out of their love for their roles as souvenirs; Fashion design colleges purchase costumes to assist in the development of design courses; Photo studios and wedding companies purchase costumes for secondary use; Brands and museums purchase costumes for collection or exhibition.

The costume worn by Jay Chou in "Full of Golden Armour" was photographed by his contemporary clothing brand Metersbonwe and is still preserved in the collection of the Shanghai Metersbonwe Museum. Auctions and collections of costumes are more common in Europe and the United States, and Marilyn Monroe's classic subway skirt sold for 30 million yuan at the Debbie Reynolds Collection auction held in 2011.

Although at present, the domestic costume auction is only in its infancy, the collection value of the costume is still not clear enough. However, through the above situation, it can be observed that the secondary market for film and television collections has gradually taken shape. On platforms such as Xianyu and Xiaohongshu, exchanges and transactions in film and television cultural circles such as costumes and props are becoming increasingly frequent.

The costume auction under the fan economy is only a microcosm of the nationalization, youth and openness of the film and television drama cultural industry, including the costume auction, and the appreciation space contained in many industries is very worth looking forward to.