Seven wolves imitate successful menswear brand model and path

However, seven wolves have never been content to only be a simple imitator. Zhou Shaoxiong's habit of thinking is that when he sees a successful clothing brand or company, he first thinks about the logic and mechanism behind its success, and then learns this. The mechanism, not just to directly imitate its external performance, in his own words, is to "replicate Shen Yun."

This man who is referred to as "Zhou Dong" has never denied that he is usually very eye-catching, has a lot of sense of fashion, and goes to the local fashion shops whenever he goes, and the pace is too fast for others to follow. Over time, he has also done his best to the trends and trends of domestic big-name fashion and mainstream mass brands.

Although the love stroll shop, Zhou Shaoxiong is a bit afraid to visit seven wolf's own shop, for fear that after reading will pick out too many problems. Although many years of thinking made him feel that many things already knew how to do it, but he knew that it was difficult to do so, the road still had to go step by step, and the details could only be accumulated little by little, constantly seeing, constantly improving, and doing nothing. The good places are reviewed in a solid manner, and then the priorities are sorted out and changed one by one.

First imitate, learn, and then innovate, and even create a new style of charm and product form. This is a three-phase road map developed by this pragmatic local company to evolve into an international brand.

imitate

Being engaged in the clothing industry has led me to develop a habit of visiting shopping malls and visiting apparel stores. In the 80s of the last century, I saw in Hong Kong the specialty stores of Crocodile and Apple brands. At that time, I felt that their clothes were very beautiful, and the form of selling them at the store instead of the department store counter was refreshing, so I felt very Worship, I think this is what we are trying to achieve.

However, if you go to Hong Kong now, you will rarely see crocodiles and Apple stores. Instead, you will find Zara, H&M, Uniqlo, MUJI, etc. Some of the original brands may be self-decaying, and some may be family members. The second and third generations were reluctant to leave the apparel industry and chose to withdraw. Seven wolves grew up during this time as a leading menswear brand in China.

I think that many companies in China, like seven wolves, have deepened their understanding of entrepreneurs and have driven the company’s constant changes. My personal understanding of the brand has such a process, from the appearance to the connotation, and then to a higher level, continuous breakthrough layer by layer. At the beginning stage, I wanted to be my own brand. The first seven wolves had imitated the crocodile of Hong Kong (crocodile with left crocodiles and Lacoste without France). At that time, I was only in my twenties and knew the brand very well. Shallow, foreign clothing brands are generally seen on the chest and sleeves with some signs, and are usually animals. Just as we are seven brothers and friends working together, we think that the wolf's team spirit is the most worth promoting. Plus, the “wolf” is a homonym with the “man” of the Minnan dialect. So the seven wolves are named. Crocodiles and wolves are very male symbols and they are similar in terms of product form. Until the mid-1990s, we really thought about what the brand's content was.

Many people in the clothing industry believe that our clothes are now coming from the West. Just copy it and it will be OK. However, if we simply copy, the road ahead will be narrower and narrower. Actually, copying and learning is the same process. The question is whether you have learned why you have to copy this way in your study. Why is this copied and not copied? For example, after the 1990s, everyone learned to use the corporate identity system (CIS), and I would think about what is CIS. Is it just the identity of the unified, the color of the unified, what is the meaning and meaning of this, in the end it needs What can be done to achieve this connotation?

Only by understanding the principles and mechanisms behind a phenomenon, can you copy the charm when you copy it. After you understand why, you can understand how to integrate your own culture before you can come up with your own ideas and life. Form, the process of copying also achieved the purpose of learning.

So in terms of our fashion design, we must inject something into it and give it charm. That means we are learning to dress. People wear your clothes because you are thinking, not just copying. That's it. Even copying is using your own thinking to copy, and also your own creative thinking and expression of life understanding. This is what we have been doing now, or that we have always insisted on developing in this direction, and it is slightly One thing ahead of others.

Learn

Now seven wolves' example of learning is the American Polo. I discovered the brand of Polo in the United States very early on. I just started to feel that the brand's clothing is not too bad every time I see it, but I would like to go around after a while, and every time I look at it, I feel a bit different. Now, Polo shirts are sold all over the street, but the imitation goods are sold in the market for 70 pieces and 100 pieces. The Polo can still sell 500 pieces and 800 pieces. Polo's products are hard to learn, but its charms are still available. Did not learn.

Later I saw the personal experience of Polo founder Ralf Lauren. He is a salesman, although he has not received formal professional education, but he has become an outstanding costume designer with his own understanding and created his own Polo brand. But he really tells everyone: I am not a fashion designer. Before Polo, many clothing brand developments were extended and promoted with the designer's core design concepts. It could be said that the designer brand, and Ralph Lauren changed the situation. He is a fashion design. The teacher, but Polo is not a corporate form driven by the concept of a designer, so he is "not a costume designer."

Ralph Lauren started with men's clothing, men's overall change is relatively small, unlike women must have a lot of design elements, men's main requirements for clothing is what kind of clothes to wear, more functional requirements. Later, his concept extended to sum up his product orientation with life forms. What he sold also changed from clothing to lifestyle.

In fact, the earliest developed clothing brand in China is also men's clothing, and it is also starting from casual men's wear such as T-shirts and jackets. Men's clothing is never just a product. The key to the success of MUJI today is that it is also built from the development of lifestyle.

Therefore, we must not only provide excellent products in terms of product quality, but also express our understanding of life forms on a spiritual level. We are advocating how to be a good man, a good man's life form, or what a good man's values ​​should be, and how he is reflected in his dress. We use this approach to study the entire product design, starting from life, to imagine the status of our consumers in various work situations and life scenarios, and then to conceive of a person's dressing and other related products.

In the past, people only went to the clothing store to buy clothes or buy trousers. We hope that consumers will not only buy a single product, but also buy an overall style, and even form a series of clothing and accessories with his family. A harmonious style and atmosphere. The design of future clothing is not a design of clothes, but an overall design, or even a design that contains a scene.

Remodeling

In the past few years, the development momentum of the seven wolves has been fairly good. In an economic environment that was as sluggish as last year, the revenue of the seven wolves still achieved a growth rate of more than 80%, and the profit growth exceeded 70%. Now everyone is talking about how to deal with the economic crisis. In fact, I think the crisis is just a chance to slow down and review itself and reshape the business. In the rapid development of Chinese brands in previous years, there were indeed some bubbles and impetuous things, including cultural expressions, product accuracy, and so on. Now that we are facing a downturn in the economic situation, we may not be able to hold on without being prepared.

What the crisis tests is whether a company has thought and prepared and whether it has a clear goal and direction. Therefore, in 2008, the most significant thing we did was not channel expansion and the resulting increase in sales and profits. Instead, we established the ultimate corporate constitution and made a comprehensive review of our vision and development direction.

According to my own observations and studies by some professional organizations, a major trend of the apparel industry in recent years is to provide value-for-money products at the lowest possible price. Many excellent products are popularized and their potential consumption is expanded. group. We can see that the recent rise of a large brand, whether it is Zara, H & M these fast fashion brands, or Japan's Uniqlo, or the transformation of the US Coach bag, all contain a common trend, that is, to make the original high-end products Some of the features can go down and pursue the best cost-effective products. Its target consumer groups include both high-income people and low- and middle-income people. They adapt to the widest possible population and are relatively neutral in product design style. Such brands have the greatest degree of accommodation and development space. We have already determined that the product of the seven wolves also has to follow this route. What we want to do is to provide excellent apparel products at the most appropriate prices. Therefore, our products will have less personalized expression. However, the product's adaptation to the crowd is the widest.

Chinese consumers also never understand how to understand it. They used to be able to wear warm clothes, wear clothes to look good, and wear a quality and personality. In the mature process of this consumer, we have been groping along with the consumers, basically leading the consumer to come one step or even half steps. Now, we feel that we have enough confidence to interpret the development path of foreign brands. After learning so many years, we can be aware of it. We can inject some new charm into the product. This is what local brands can do and foreign brands do not. To the

In fact, the development track of Polo is similar to our development track. The period of rapid development of Polo is the golden period of the U.S. economy. At that time, the U.S. absorbed European culture on the one hand, and integrated into the native cowboy culture, Indian culture, etc. on the one hand. However, China is also in the stage of economic growth. Culturally speaking, it is also absorbing the culture of European and American developed countries on the one hand, and trying to undertake the tradition of Chinese culture on the other. So like Polo, we need to deconstruct and reconstruct different cultural backgrounds.

Therefore, we say that learning Polo is not just learning from style. In fact, it is only a kind of noisy style. We must learn more about his leadership position in the men's wear industry and its combination with consumer lifestyle. Strategically speaking, I think that Seven Wolves has always been building its brand identity with an international perspective. We have always treated foreign brands as a major speculation on competition and learning, so that it is possible to build an international taste and participate in Internationally competitive Chinese brand companies.