In September 2021, Le Arome's "Secret Garden" brand launch held at China International Fashion Week was successfully concluded, and when it was praised by countless people inside and outside the industry, brand managers Chen Yifan and Le Arome Were not satisfied, they wanted to do more.
It is impressive to turn the show into a "garden", and the flowers that can be seen everywhere in the show and the fragrance of flowers on the scene make people feel immersed. Let us have a strong interest in Chen Yifan, the director of Le Arome's European curtain. After the show, she talked to Chen Yifan, and she had to say much more than that.
Editor: Why did you choose to enter the apparel industry in the first place?
Chen: I studied fashion design in The Uk, and in those years in Europe, I often traveled to France and was fascinated by the ubiquity of romance and art in Paris. In some ways, Europe's clothing history is nearly a hundred years ahead of China's, and there are many places worth learning from. In the years I studied abroad, I have been thinking about how to combine the French-style clothing concept with Chinese women to design a "new French" clothing style that meets the characteristics of Chinese women. Let Chinese women have their own, tailor-made new French clothing. Based on this, I created Le Arome in 2015. A French light luxury brand with romantic flowers as an element. Le Arome means "aromatic" in French, and we hope to use the taste of French romance to interpret the feminine temperament like fragrance, continue to convey beauty to Chinese women, and accompany consumers like a light fragrance.
Editor: What were you doing when you first entered the industry? Will there be a gap with what you think?
Chen: Of course, there is a gap, I studied fashion design in the UK, and at that time my interest and ability were in the design itself, but when I really set up a studio, I found that there were too many parts to learn, understand and practice, and I needed to transform myself from a designer to a brand manager. From renting offices, buying furniture, recruiting employees, to choosing fabrics, communicating with dealers, each part needs to be done by yourself, at the beginning it was busy, when only 30% of the time was used to do design, and the rest of the time was used to deal with the company's daily chores. That's when I realized that there are many, many things to do to support my dreams.
Editor: It is said that the clothing industry is difficult to do, will it continue to be done?
Chen: I have not changed this question from the beginning to the present, it is very clear and firm, and I will definitely stick to it.
Our brand's Slogan is "You'll be better than ever", and I chose this Slogan because I will find that many female friends around me, including myself, will have a lot of pressure in the current social environment. It seems that everyone needs to be comprehensive, need to constantly weigh family and career, and even have times when they doubt themselves, hesitate or wander. We hope that women can take a step forward confidently and bravely, and not be timid. Slogan is not a slogan, but to be truly integrated into the DNA of the brand. Therefore, no matter what kind of difficulties and impacts we face in entrepreneurship, we will always insist on going.
Editor: Have you ever felt tired or even regretted the process of making "Le Ou Mu"?
Chen: I have no regrets, although I am tired, but I have never regretted it. If I am tired, I am actually the most tired this year, from 2015 to 2020 before the epidemic is relatively relaxed, although the first half of the first half of the year of entrepreneurship is a bit busy, but soon on the right track. Sales channels, production development, and sales volumes are also very stable. After the epidemic last year, we hope that the brand will be more on the starting point, is to plan according to a brand with high gold content, so we have recovered a lot of agency rights and made offline stores by ourselves, so that the overall planning, service, including consumers' offline experience of our brand can be more unified, of course, this also increases my workload. There is also a test, before we only considered the back end of the product and brand, now the front and back end must be considered, including the location of the store, positioning, decoration, design, including the team management of the store staff, including we want to create a very good offline experience, etc., these are the work produced this year, strictly speaking, the workload and difficulty of 2021 are far more than 2015.
Editor: Have there been any things that have been particularly interesting in the past few years of entrepreneurship?
Chen: Yes, let me say two things that I think are very interesting. The first is that from 2017 to 2018, our product sales were very good, when there were 3-4 buyer stores and designer collection stores that would grab goods, and sometimes the same goods were sold in one of the designer collection stores, and the remaining stores would try to catch up, because the number of goods was limited, so there would be a situation of scrambling for goods. It's a very happy and interesting thing for me, because it's a virtuous circle.
The second is that some of my friends around me bought our brand's clothes in the designer collection store and recommended them to me, and I was surprised because I hadn't done promotion, so when some friends bought our brand's clothes without knowing it, it made me very happy and happy, because I thought the best marketing must be "word of mouth". I prefer that customers choose our products not because of advertising, but because of the "recommendation" of friends.
Editor: How do you balance designer creation with consumer preferences?
Chen: This problem has been solved for our brand 80%, my personal initial design style is actually dark, in the years of cooperation with the designer collection store, I began to gradually understand the preferences of consumers through data, if you say how to balance, on the one hand, we have been constantly innovating, to design, to play a designer's strengths. On the other hand, we also pay great attention to market feedback and consumer experience, when we design each new clothing, we must personally try on the white embryo, to the back of the finished product are through my own real experience to improve, because I believe that only when the designer personally experiences the advantages and disadvantages of the product, can be more accurate service to customers. At the same time, we will also find colleagues and fans of different heights, fat and thin to try on, and will carefully ask and record each person's feelings, and adjust through these fitting feelings. We always believe that making products with love and care, solving user problems, and passing on our sincerity to consumers as much as possible will we gain consumer respect for the brand.
Editor: In which direction will the brand develop in the future?
Chen: I hope to build LeOuMu into a brand with high gold content and let consumers feel our "intentions" in the future, so that it is complete, open and different. "Complete" is to have its own brand values; "open" is to constantly innovate, constantly iterate, and know the direction you want to go; "different" is that no matter where you are, consumers can always recognize our brand at a glance. Whether it is from all aspects of the product, the store image or the consumer experience, let consumers feel that we are a brand that has spent a lot of time and energy to build. We hope that consumers will not only choose clothes in the store, but immerse themselves in the aesthetic space we have created for consumers, so we have also developed eye masks, silk scarves, cushions, coffee cups and other products with brand elements to integrate into the lives of consumers.