The content described in this article is based on official and reliable sources, which are repeated at the end of this article
In the memory of the post-80s and post-90s generation, clothing brands such as Meibang, Baleno, Semir, Yichun, La Chapelle, etc., were once all the rage, and they were also the "representative names of fashion" in that era.
You must know that if anyone around you wears any of the above brands, it will attract envy, however, some of these trend-setting clothes have already appeared in the state of "no such person", what is going on?
As the saying goes, people rely on clothes and horses rely on saddles, if anyone wears a brand-name dress back then, it is a symbol of a rich person, and some people even save money for a few months to buy a brand-name clothes, or brand-name bags, and even some trendy clothes often appear in movies, which once became the object of imitation in real life.
Baleno
Netizens who have watched the movie "Crazy Stone" should remember that Huang Bo, who is now known as the "5 billion actor", has a sentence in the play that is still popular today, "Brand, Baleno." It was this sentence that made everyone laugh, and since then, people of that era have remembered this brand, Baleno.
In 1981, Baleno was founded in Italy, at first mainly casual clothing brand, later, with the development of the times, it set its sights on Hong Kong, and later in the mainland sales, and it developed quite rapidly, business from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities, extended to Wuhan, Changsha, Heilongjiang and other places.
Giordano, known as the first brother of Asian clothing retail, entered Chinese mainland several years earlier than Baleno, but by 2001, Baleno had surpassed Giordano in all aspects, with more than 600 stores nationwide.
In addition to the quality of the clothes, Baleno also invited celebrity endorsements to increase exposure, and big-name stars such as Chow Yun-fat, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, and Huang Xiaoming were spokespersons.
Good quality, celebrity endorsement, the price of Baleno's clothes is not cheap, in 1996, a T could be sold for 200 yuan.
In 2002, Uniqlo entered the Chinese market and positioned itself as a mass leisure product, but it was beaten by Baleno, and now, look at another different scenery.
From 2012 to 2018, in just six years, Baleno's stores were closed about 3,000 in a row, and based on its own poor development, Shanghai Baleno Garment Co., Ltd. was sold for 250 million yuan in 2016, and then Deyongjia closed all Baleno's factories in the mainland.
Now it is difficult to see the Baleno brand in first- and second-tier cities, but in the years around 2005, Balenono was a well-deserved trendy brand and a big brand.
Meibang
Recently, a topic of "how did Metersbonwe disappear from the pedestrian street" topped the Weibo list, and many people born in the 80s and 90s said that it was Metersbonwe (the abbreviation of Metersbonwe) who witnessed their entire youth.
In the impression of the post-90s, whether it is a first-tier city or a second-tier city, or even a small county town in a remote area, there will be a huge English letter, but it is a domestic casual clothing brand - Meters/Bonwe.
You read that right, Metersbonwe is a domestic brand of clothes, although it is written in English, but it is a homegrown domestic brand.
In 1995, Metersbonwe Group's self-founded local casual wear brand Metersbonwe was born, the company was established in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the mainland China, and the founder of the group was also a native of Chinese Zhou Chengjian.
At that time, Zhou Chengjian opened the trend of casual clothing that local young people liked, and in the past ten years, Metersbonwe was well-deserved as the "brightest cub on the street".
With Metersbonwe as the center, many clothing stores have been opened around it, such as Semar, Yichun, La Chapelle, Tianping Bird, etc., which together form a very harmonious pedestrian street clothing ecology.
When he was a student, which student in the class could wear the same coat as Jay Chou, or the same shirt as Murong Yunhai, that was the brightest cub in the class, and when he waited until winter, he put on a large black down jacket, which could be said to be the envy of everyone in the class, and he did not forget to discuss his clothes in private.
However, Metersbonwe's consumer group is not only the student party, but even the newcomers are very fond of it, but Metersbonwe, which was all the rage at that time, has disappeared now, why is this?
At present, the number of Metersbonwe stores in the country is only 1,152, and some netizens may think that this is already a lot, but you know that these are less than 22.1% of the peak back then.
In 2011, Metersbonwe launched a children's clothing brand, mainly for children aged 2-12.
In addition, Metersbonwe has also entered the field of e-commerce and has been trying to open up the channel of APP, but the revolution has not yet succeeded, and it still needs to work hard.
In fact, the predicament of Metersbonwe is the epitome of many domestic clothing, the impact of e-commerce, and the aging of their own designs and other factors will cause the current situation, but Metersbonwe can survive in this "fashion", there is still a certain amount of capital, after all, it is really the memory of the post-80s, post-90s, and eternal youth cannot be said to fall.
Jeanswest
Speaking of Jeanswest, many netizens are no strangers to it, if Metersbonwe is the youth of the post-80s and post-90s, then Jeanswest is the common memory of several generations, and it is a brand of the times.
Jeanswest's brand positioning is "to be a famous brand that young consumers can afford", which coincides with the time to fill the domestic casual clothing market suitable for young people.
With the development of the domestic economy, Jeanswest has gradually shifted from the original Hong Kong market to the mainland market, and developed rapidly, opening nearly 200 stores in China in 1995, and even many media in the mainland have reported that it is the most popular casual clothing brand in the mainland.
Jeanswest's fire has been on the rise for 20 years, reaching its peak in 2021, with an annual harvest of HK $4.9 billion, but after the peak, Jeanswest has gone downhill, and since then it has been in a slump and gradually faded out of people's sight.
And when it comes to why Jeanswest is going to a strange road, it is also inextricably linked with e-commerce, when e-commerce appeared, Jeanswest didn't care much, but by the time it was too late.
In addition, there is a huge impact on it from foreign brands, and the most important thing is that it can not launch new styles in time, and continue to sell with the old styles, and in the long run, the results can be imagined.
La Chapelle
La Chapelle, the No. 1 women's clothing in China, occupies a lot of position in the hearts of many female netizens, and perhaps many women still have La Chapelle's tweed coats, down jackets, sweaters, etc. hanging in the wardrobes of many women's homes.
La Chapelle is mainly aimed at urban women aged 20-30, with a unique vision, showing the healthy, fashionable and energetic side to the new generation of women, thus once becoming the object of young women's pursuit.
La Chapelle has also relied on its strength to become "the first stock of Chinese women's clothing." It has also ranked first among domestic clothing brands, with nearly 10,000 direct stores at the most glorious time, and it is also the only city enterprise in the industry that is listed on Hong Kong stocks and A-shares.
The once glorious clothing brand is now in an unprecedented predicament, being complained by customers that the quality of the clothes is not as good as before, the brand reputation has declined greatly, and it has been in a state of loss for two consecutive years, and then it ushered in a big crash, and was delisted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in May 2022.
The decline of the above big brands has also sounded the alarm for other brands, since it is to stand at the forefront of leading fashion, it should be given to follow the changes in the market, and the quality style must be traced back to the public eye, otherwise the final result is short-lived, or forced to transform.
Resources:
Tencent.com: "Behind the "Disappearance" of Metersbonwe"
Weibo: "How Metersbonwe disappeared from the pedestrian street" "La Chapelle was filed for bankruptcy liquidation"
Baidu.com: "Baidu Encyclopedia, La Chapelle, Metersbonwe, Baleno, Jeanswest"