Chinese fashion hand of small fashion clothes

Chen Rong, who settled in the UK, was one of the founders of the project crossover, a fashion brand agent. In the past, Chen Rong met with retailers in the company's showrooms in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Since 2013, she has added one more important item to her calendar - attending the Hong Kong Fashion Trade Show.

This is an exhibition initiated by the hub of the British curatorial company the hub a year ago. What's special about this exhibition is that it specializes in niche designer brands. The purpose is to build a platform for them to cooperate with Asian buyers, especially Chinese buyers.

Compared with fashion weeks where stars are gathered, events such as fashion trade shows are not well-known, and light-listening names are tedious and uninteresting. But as if the key link in the fashion week is actually the showroom outside the show, the fashion trade show is a highly efficient platform for niche brands that can face buyers and retailers - their markets. The scale and influence can't support a dazzling fashion show, and it can't open a flagship store directly. A small booth is enough to become a key step for it to enter a new market. By observing the feedback from buyers and retailers during the three-day exhibition, they can more accurately determine whether this is a good time to enter.

Chen Rong's project crossover agency is the cutting-edge, niche designer brand, most of which are from the United Kingdom. This has a lot to do with Chen Rong’s personal interests. When in England, Chen Rong had a soft spot for some niche clothing and became a good friend with many designers. "I like these brands and their designers. They all have very good sales reports and great ideas and products, so they want to introduce them to China." Chen Rong said.

Their names seem strange to Chinese consumers, such as aq/aq, three floor, belle sauvage and forever unique. This is why Chen Rong signed up for the Hong Kong Fashion Trade Show. She hopes to reach out to those buyers and retailers who are more sensitive to fashion trends through the show, and then use them to introduce the brand to consumers.

In February 2014, Chen Rong brought 13 brands to the second Hong Kong Fashion Trade Show. She signed more than 20 new orders at the last exhibition. This result made her very satisfied. This time she hopes to have more gains.

The list of 13 brand exhibitors was finalized after some sort of screening, in order to cover different market hot spots as much as possible. Although they all seem to be a single "London design," half of the 13 brands are made in Europe, and the other half are made in China. They are attractive to those who focus on cost-effective or quality-oriented; their average price is from 2,000 yuan to Ten thousand yuan, basically covering the purchasing power of the middle class and above.

Most of the 13 brands have operated in small scale in the UK, and at least have their own counters in high-end department stores such as selfridges or harvey nichols. This is a very effective factor in persuading Chinese department stores and buyers to introduce a niche brand. Of course they have other requirements for the brand. In order to achieve the effect of a rich display of goods, department stores tend to choose new styles with more styles and higher visibility each season, so they will have larger orders each time. Project crossover proxy aq/aq is very good. This brand has been in London Fashion Week for 18 consecutive seasons. Project Crossover has more than 20 department store customers including Lane Crawford in Hong Kong and Shanghai Ouyang Department Store.

Most of the buyers in the store like to introduce more avant-garde brands. The belle sauvage, which is often used for its gorgeous prints, is very popular among them. There are currently more than a dozen buyer stores that are selling this brand through project crossover orders. However, the number of orders for these buyers is often small, and sometimes it is only through the new brand to express the atmosphere of the store, highlighting the characteristics of the trend.

In addition to grasping the appetites of department stores and buyers, Chen Rong also needs to adjust the structure of the agency brand according to the ever-changing fashion trends and introduce new brands in a timely manner. Forever unique, for example, is a brand that she believes is particularly attractive to current Chinese consumers. “Since the beginning of 2 years ago, I have found that demand for sexual clothing has begun to increase in China. Social activities like parties have also begun to increase. People have been wearing clothes in the past and have gradually begun to pay attention to the occasion of dress. Different clothes. Therefore, our women's brand is more often than not wearing a high proportion of dresses, Chen Rong said.

Forever unique main evening dress, and the price is approachable, basically between 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, has more than 500 independent stores in the United Kingdom. One Shangmen, a shopper in Guangzhou, recently introduced this brand through project crossover.

“The dress of this brand is not very expensive, and the overall design sense can fill the vacancy of the evening dress category that is not available to independent designers in the country.” Lin Shu, a product manager at Shangmen, said.

The start-up designer brand was completely excluded by the project crossover. "Given the instability of the newly-started designer, we did not cooperate." Chen Rong said. What she calls “instability” is the lack of years of experience in the start-up designer brand, and the production process and logistics chain are not mature enough. Many start-up designer brands can only develop 40 new models each season, and mature brands can usually launch 200 to 300 new models each season. The ability to develop new models plays a key role in brand expansion.

In addition to the project crossover at the exhibition site, there are many other niche brands wishing to try their luck here. They have basically never set foot in China before, or have only conducted very small sales.