In 2011, LABELHOOD started from a small street shop in Jing'an, and today, 95% of China's independent designers have started from Leihu and have gone to a larger international stage, continuously exporting the beauty of Chinese design. The industry calls it the "Leihu phenomenon".
In the Leihu men's clothing store on Julu Road in Jing'an, Liu Xinyao, co-founder of LABELHOOD, excitedly shared with reporters two good news for Leihu in the new year: on January 26, Leihu "went to sea for the second time" and once again "joined hands" with Harrods Department Store (Harrods) in London, England to land the "Leihu New Year Flash Mob", and specially planned the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon - "Leihu Family Portrait" The photo gallery will once again be brought to London to tell the world about oriental aesthetics, and the limited-time pop-up of the Tiger New Year and the limited edition series of the Year of the Dragon will be presented simultaneously on the first floor of Harold.
In addition, it is expected that in the spring of 2024, Leihu will also open a fifth space in Jufuchang - "Leihu Home".
Helping young designers to run shows and take root from scratch, constantly promoting the integration of China's independent design with the international track, and supporting Chinese designers are what Liu Xinyao has been doing continuously for more than ten years, and she has been selected as a BoF500 to influence the world's fashion 500 people.
LABELHOOD, co-founded by her, has flourished in the past ten years of being rooted in Jing'an, and is not only committed to being a talent incubator for Chinese design, but also an international business card of Shanghai Fashion Week.
The first Chinese designer brand invited to enter Harrods
Leihu's dialogue with Harrods, the world's top commercial department store, began in 2019.
"Even in the past few years of the epidemic, the general manager of Harrods insisted on flying to Shanghai to meet our young designers at Shanghai Fashion Week, so we established more than one cooperation contact. Harold is very supportive of young Chinese designers and hopes to provide more stages for us. ”
Liu Xinyao said that during the Spring Festival last year, in order to encourage local Chinese students and also encourage Chinese creativity, Harold proposed to invite Lei Hu to bring the family portrait project to London. As a result, Leihu became the first Chinese designer brand to be invited to enter Harrods, exporting and displaying Chinese New Year's flavor, Chinese stories and Chinese confidence.
Designers in the UK, overseas consumers who know and appreciate Chinese designer brands, and overseas Chinese, including international students, have all taken the initiative to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Here, everyone enjoyed Chinese aesthetics up close, took away hot family photos, and spent the warm Chinese New Year. In Liu Xinyao's eyes, this is not only a display of brands and products, but also a display of the beauty of Chinese design and Chinese culture to the world.
As a result, Leihu also came up with a new development vision - to give fashion design to the core of family and country feelings, and help Chinese aesthetics to be presented on the world stage. After this event, Leihu will plan to carry out more new experiments in overseas markets.
"We have witnessed and participated in the rapid development of China's independent design industry in Jing'an, and through this flash mob event, we are confident and capable of accelerating our going global, embracing a larger market and expanding larger boundaries. ”
Lei Hu started from a small street shop, to 95% of China's independent designers started from Lei Hu
If there is one sentence to define Leihu, it is "95% of China's independent designers start here".
In fact, from a boutique dedicated to promoting Chinese designers to the world's first fashion art festival for the public, Leihu has promoted the ecology of fashion design and business development in China. For more than ten years, Leihu has been committed to building a designer incubation platform, building its own retail and content matrix, providing a display and sales platform for more than 400 Chinese designers, and constantly expanding the vertical community of young fashion lovers.
It can be said that for more than ten years, Leihu has developed together with Shanghai Fashion Week and Shanghai's fashion industry. Since 2016, Leihu and Shanghai Fashion Week have reached an official strategic cooperation, and every Shanghai Fashion Week since then has a show named after Leihu - Leihu Avant-garde Fashion Art Festival.
"These brands often start with the first show of Shanghai Fashion Week, make their debut at Shanghai Fashion Week through Leihu's platform, and then we slowly bring them to the commercial retail environment, season by season, series by collection. Liu Xinyao said that so far, many of the designers that Leihu has worked with have become household names. In July 2022, SHUSHU/TONG, which opened its first offline store in Jincang Mandarin Plaza on Nanjing West Road, is a popular brand that has gone out from Leihu.
"We put the best and most avant-garde young designers in China on this stage, and through we introduce them to all young people and their consumer groups in China, we have gradually formed a community with creativity as the core and Chinese designers as the center. Over the years, Leihu has been working hard around the development of these content, brands and all the outstanding design talents in this community. What designers need, we start to build some professional qualities. Liu Xinyao revealed that in the future, she will continue to strive to expand more channels for designers, add truly touching content to the core of the brand, and through projects such as "Leihu Family Portrait", more Chinese traditional handicrafts will be explored, and they will be combined with young Chinese creativity and Chinese design.
"What we want to keep in the end is something of value for the brand, or for our entire community, something that will last with time. ”
Why does the "Leihu phenomenon" appear in Jing'an?
From opening the first boutique at No. 184 Fumin Road, Jing'an District in 2011, to opening the second store on Changle Road in 2015, and then opening the third store on Julu Road in 2021, Leihu's ninth store "Leihu Home" in 2024 will still be located in "Jufuchang". In this regard, Liu Xinyao jokingly said that Lei Hu is the "aborigine" of the "huge wealth".
Liu Xinyao said frankly that the first choice to come to the "Huge Rich Chang" is because it is a very special geographical location in Shanghai, and the "Huge Rich Chang" area of Jing'an has a deep historical accumulation and cultural heritage, providing a fertile soil for the fashion design industry. In addition, in the course of more than ten years of operation, Leihu's rapid development has been deeply nourished by Jing'an District.
"Here, we have gone from an entrepreneur to a small and medium-sized enterprise, and today we are incubating more small and medium-sized enterprises, and we have received a lot of care and help, which is a very important reason to encourage us to continue to stay here. ”
Jing'an District continues to create high-quality and efficient business services and environments, as well as provide policy, financial and venue support, which helps Leihu have the confidence to expand its boundaries.
"For our start-ups, the $1 million grant is a great encouragement. Peng Yaodong, CEO of Shanghai Leihu Culture Communication Co., Ltd., said that several key changes in the company have benefited from the innovation momentum injected by Jing'an District.
It is reported that in order to further support the development of enterprises, the District Commission of Commerce recommended "Lei Hu" to apply for and obtain special fund support for cultural and creative in Shanghai, and at the 2019 Florence Men's Fashion Week in Italy, "Lei Hu" was able to host a special session for Chinese designers and received a good response. In August 2022, Jincang Mandarin Plaza on Nanjing West Road was updated and iterated to become a new carrier of fashion retail, and "Leihu" was able to open its first shopping mall store in Shanghai.
"Your neighborhood is good, the people who manage you are good, you are reluctant to leave. In April 2023, Leihu was awarded the first batch of alliance member companies of the "Rich and Long Local Brand Development Alliance" in Jing'an District. In recent years, the influence of Guofeng among consumers, especially young people, has been increasing, and on the side of the main street of Nanjing West Road, which is mature, backstreets such as "Jufuchang" and Yuyuan Road are becoming the places where emerging local brands occur, and a new consumption growth boom is constantly forming. Jing'an has always attached great importance to the cultivation and development of local brands, and supported excellent local brands to develop and grow in the "Huge Wealth", and shine on the Chinese and international stage.
Through in-depth research and exchanges with relevant enterprises, the Jing'an District Government listened carefully to the demands of enterprises, actively responded to their expectations, scientifically planned the future development direction, and continued to optimize and improve the business environment in the "super-rich and long-growing" area. For the problems raised by brand operators, such as high entry and operating costs, difficulty in finding space carriers, and how to "go to sea", the leaders of Jing'an District took the lead, and the District Commission of Commerce and other departments collaborated to find solutions.
It is reported that Jing'an carefully combs and revitalizes the block space, promotes the optimization and upgrading of old buildings along the line, highlights the characteristics and artistry on the basis of protection, and provides high-quality space for gathering more local brands and emerging formats. Through a series of high-quality activities of "Great Beauty, Great Wealth, and Longevity" Local Brand Fashion Day, we will activate and enrich the supply of consumption. At the same time, it helps more local brands to connect with incubation platforms or fashion platform resources, organize local brands to curate or sell in a centralized manner, and reduce brand operating costs.
Reporter: Huang Xiaoqing
Image: Huang Xiaoqing, Lei Hu
Source: Jing'an, Shanghai