How did the new designers selected by Lane Crawford develop?

Just from the fashion boutique department store Lane Crawford from the entrance to Huaihai Road, people can see Wang Fengchen from afar. As the founder and designer of the men's wear brand FENG CHEN WANG, she now has a brightly-fashioned fashion devil, Anna Wintour-style short hair, who is passionate about explaining the sales points to a group of Lane Crawford staff.

Wang Fengchen took Lane Crawford's sales team and walked around the circular exhibition hall to explain the young designers and their works. In the Shanghai Fashion Week on March 30 this year, Lane Crawford and the Hong Kong Design Center (FASHION DESIGN CENTER) teamed up for the first time with 10 young designers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Japan. Exhibition to show the public their designs.

The design presented this time includes FENG CHEN WANG's latest neutral function set series; each piece is composed of two parts, with black and white ash as the main color, complemented by pink and pink blue, echoing with "my other Half of the theme of the dialogue; Angus Chiang from Taiwan also showed a new season with the theme of “Ocean”. The design is bright, bold and futuristic.

The Chinese designer Gao Xue, who settled in New York, showed her personal brand SNOW XUE GAO's haute couture ladies' suit this season. She was inspired by Wang Jiawei's film and the fashion spirit of the 1960s, and she continued her continuous innovation and deconstruction in design. Doctrine, using a large number of suit elements, to give women a new image.

This is already the fashion boutique buyer's shop Lane Crawford held the "creative assembly number" in the fourth year. Lane Crawford’s designer incubator project began in 2015 with the aim of finding new stars in fashion and lifestyle. It allows new designers, menswear, accessories and creative entrepreneurs to participate in the competition, and the winners of the year have the opportunity to sell their designs in multiple channels of Lane Crawford Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and online stores. .

The exhibition, which was jointly organized by Lane Crawford and Hong Kong Design Center under "Fashion Asia Hong Kong", is a designer who hatched some of the "Creative Assembly" projects and other young designers who entered the Lane Crawford sales channel. And some young designers hatched by the Hong Kong Design Center are concentrated on this display platform, with the theme of “10 Asian Designers To Watch”, to show these fresh creative power to Chinese consumers.

Kannis Chan, head of Fashion Asia, told Interface Fashion that this time with Lane Crawford, the selection of outstanding young Asian designers to stay in Shanghai was the first time for the Hong Kong Design Center. The department had a similar idea four years ago, and the direct connection between designers and customers and consumers is the direction they have been working hard.

As for how the project will progress in the future, Kannis also said that he will make further decisions based on the feedback from the exhibition. What can be confirmed is that at the Hong Kong Fashion Asia event in December this year, “Fashion Asia Hong Kong” will find some designers participating in this exhibition to be the keynote speakers and share with the exhibitors.

In fact, in the new generation of young designers in Asia, several designers who have chosen to participate in this exhibition have matured, which can almost cater to the current direction of the development of the designer brand market. After several years of baptism, independent designers have gradually produced some more promising brands, and it is urgent to find a broader customer base. Like SNOW XUE GAO's Gao Xue, her business partners and buyer resources are mainly concentrated in New York. According to Gao Xue, SNOW XUE GAO is also priced in the US market, so the brand is currently focusing on the US boutique buyers, and she The design has been sold on Lane Crawford.

Wang Fengchen, Fiona and Kain of FFXXXED STUDIOS, and Gong Li of 8ONE8 stood out in the Lane Crawford Creative Assembly Competition; since then, their designs have been fixedly booked by Lane Crawford.

As a young designer who stood out from the earliest “Creativity Assembly” project, Wang Fengchen graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2015 and was accepted by Lane Crawford. Lane Crawford has been a buyer of Wang Fengchen since her first design series after graduation. In 2015, Wang Fengchen held his first big show with the theme of “Life and Love” at Shanghai Fashion Week, and was invited to the New York Fashion Week show in September of that year. Up to now, Wang Fengchen has grown into a mature young independent designer.

Fiona and Kain also stood out from the first creative collection. "(2015 competition) that experience is very good, we were prepared to be rushed, and there is no experience in the competition, just to start thinking about creating a fashion brand," Fiona said. Now Fiona and Kain have entered the next stage, “from incubating designers to becoming a regular designer”; this means that FFIXXED STUDIOS will reach more regular buyers, “no longer a newcomer” Fiona explained with a smile.

8ONE8 brand designer Gong Li is the winner of 2017. At that time, he took the graduation work to participate in the competition. The award-winning graduation design was bought and sold by Lane Crawford in the store. After that, Gong Li “made four seasons, (Cary Carver) bought the four seasons and always supported it.” Regarding how to view the current position of 8ONE8 in the industry, Gong Li is quite confident about himself. He said that he is still on the rise, but "very satisfied with his work for each season."

At present, Lane Crawford is still a mature retail platform for these designers. Nowadays, the traditional garment manufacturing industry is undergoing transformation, it needs to be younger and needs more design sense; young designers also need more traditional resources, such as resources in the factory supply chain, and resources in marketing. The two sides are still in a phase of mutual support.

Fiona and Kain moved their studios from Shenzhen to Shanghai earlier this year, and Angus Ciang from Taiwan recently made the same decision, just to get closer to the industrial center.

But the market is changing too fast, and the pressure that comes with it is increasing. “Designers need to slow down, take time to create, and need to polish in the details... I hope the market can slow down and reflect on the problems that arise every season.” Wang Fengchen used three “too fast” Express her concerns.

In this regard, Fiona also admitted that for the designer, "the biggest pressure is from itself, because the competition is very intense, there are many great ideas on the market, you will always want to be the focus."

So for new designers, there is a better channel to provide a healthy and benign partnership, which can give designers full space to create, allowing designers to slow down and think. For many years, Lane Crawford has been hoping to build a community network based on Asian fashion, and to help and support the development of the regional industry, to explore and nurture a new generation of young designers, so as to play the role and influence of the company in the region.

In addition to organizing exhibitions for cutting-edge designers, Lane Crawford will decide what help and resources to provide based on the needs of the designers. Joanna Gunn, Lane Carver's chief brand officer, said, “They (designers) have different needs at different stages, but we can provide customer insights. We can also give them more visibility.”

For example, Fiona and Kain had no experience in business when they participated in the creative assembly in 2015; before that, they did more of an art design project. But during the past three or four years of incubation projects, Lane Crawford has provided FFXXXED STUDIO with a lot of advice on business and customer insights in design.

Fiona talked about interface fashion: "In the beginning we did a lot of special capsule collections, they remind us which elements should be added in the design."

However, for Lane Crawford, its ambition does not stop there. At the same time, it is time to think about the next step of the project. After all, the "creative assembly number" has been held for four years now, and the practice of incubating young designers, Lane Crawford is also quietly changing.

Injecting fresh blood into the industry is at the heart of the project “Creativity Assembly”. However, the selection of newcomers is no longer limited to Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai; now, the team will go to Los Angeles, Sydney and other areas to explore young designers.

In addition, Lane Crawford will also bring up a new generation of designers trained in non-assembly numbers. Like this exhibition with "Fashion Asia Hong Kong", it also exhibited works by Hong Kong designer Cynthia and Malaysian designer Motoguo, both of which are owned by the Fashion Incubation Program. Cultivated, and the project belongs to the Hong Kong Design Center.

Lane Crawford is also working hard to build a more mature promotion and display platform for young designers, working with industry partners or other sectors of society that are aligned with their goals and visions. This cooperation with the Hong Kong Design Center is a typical collaboration between the industry and the public sector. FASHION ASIA HONG KONG, led by the Hong Kong Design Centre, is one of the goals of the Hong Kong Government in implementing the development of the fashion industry. It is similar to Lane Crawford's Creative Assembly Project, which also supports and displays cutting-edge designers. As your responsibility.

This year, Lane Crawford and Shanghai Labelhood also reached an exclusive retail partnership. This collaboration includes three quarters of sponsorship to support the winning designer of the Lane Crawford Creative Assembly project during the Shanghai Fashion Week. Displayed on the platform. It is reported that the Lane Crawford store has also set up a flash shop in cooperation with Labelhood.