Smalto CEO Gan Nick introduced high-end tailor-made services at the Smalto image display store located in Shanshan Building.
Smalto, a junior clothing brand tailored for many global celebrities such as French President Sarkozy and British football star Beckham, is coming to China to open a high-end tailor-made store. The company that introduced this high-end brand of customized men’s clothing is China Shanshan Group. Recently, Thierry Le Guenic (Chinese translation: Ganique), CEO of French smalto company, came to Ningbo and signed a cooperation agreement with Shanshan Group. This means that Chinese people will soon be able to enjoy Europe’s high-end tailor-made clothing services internationally.
In fact, not only Shanshan and SMALTO have taken a fancy to the high-end tailoring market, but Youngor, another domestic clothing giant, is also preparing to launch high-end tailoring services. The two men’s clothing giants have coincidentally adopted different expansion measures for tailoring, showing that the high-end tailoring market is rapidly expanding.
Zhang Xiaofeng, secretary-general of the Ningbo Garment Association, believes that Youngor and Shanshan are simultaneously expanding into the high-end customization market, which is also a direction for industrial upgrading and transformation and industry competition.
Smalto arrives in China via Shanshan
Men’s clothing brand Smalto is a junior tailor-made brand founded by Italian tailor Mr. Francesco Smalto in the 1950s. Due to its outstanding tailoring and hand-made manufacturing techniques, Smalto has also become the royal tailor of US President John F. Kennedy. The Smalto brand has thus become a successful high-end customized men’s clothing brand in France. French President Sarkozy, British football star Beckham, French football star Zidane, and nearly 20 heads of state and royal family members including the King of Iran and the King of Morocco. At the same time, Smalto also provides official custom-made World Cup uniforms for the French national football team.
In 2007, Shanshan Group began to cooperate with Smalto and became a distributor of Smalto’s second-tier products (mainly casual clothing and high-end fashion garments, excluding first-tier products such as tailor-made clothing) in China. After three years of operation, Smalto found that the Chinese market was very important to it. Smalto CEO Gan Nick said in an interview with reporters that Smalto currently has more than 10 stores in China, and its sales have accounted for more than 10% of Smalto’s total sales. Smalto’s global market sales increased by 20% last year, while sales in the Chinese market increased by 20%. At most more than 50%.
To this end, both Shanshan Group and Smalto intend to increase their efforts to expand the Chinese market. Smalto CEO Gan Nick made a special trip to Ningbo, China, to sign a 10-year cooperation agreement with Shanshan Group. This agreement stipulates that Smalto will work closely with Shanshan to promote a full range of products in China, including tailor-made clothing, high-end fashion clothing, casual clothing and other products. In the next five years, Smalto will open 150 stores in China shop. In September this year, a VIP high-end flagship store will be opened in Beijing’s high-end department store Shin Kong Department Store to accept on-site reservations from Chinese customers. The Smalto Ningbo VIP high-end flagship store is also in the process of selecting a location, with the initial intention to be located on Heyi Trail.
Regarding the tailor-made characteristics of Smalto, its CEO Gannick said in an interview with reporters that the current customization of business attire in factories is usually based on a certain plate shape. Mass production, but Smalto’s tailor-made clothing is partially made by hand, and the clothing pattern is customized according to the customer’s bones, rather than designing clothing based on the pattern like a factory; some craftsmen in the Smalto factory have more than 30 years of experience in craftsmanship , the skills are very skilled, ensuring the excellent quality of Smalto; for example, a suit has 40 processes and takes 60 hours to complete, and customers are also required to come to try on and make corrections, and the task is very delicate; and after completing the customization and entrusting it to the customer, Smalto will also preserve fully usable fabrics in the same size as the garment, providing customers with lifetime maintenance and repairs. Therefore, the price of the Smalto customized brand is also very expensive. Generally, the price of customized clothing is more than 20,000 euros, which is a simple product. To ensure service quality, Smalto will also cooperate with Shanshan to establish a purely handmade tailor-made factory in Ningbo.
Li Qiming, vice president of Shanshan Group, told reporters, “Smalto’s high-end customization service is no longer about selling clothes, but more about selling services. We value Smalto’s brand value and high quality, and are very interested in promoting it.” The quality and management of Shanshan clothing are both beneficial, so Shanshan Club has chosen to cooperate with Smalto for a long time.”
Youngor also wants to promote high-end customization services
Ningbo is a red gang tailor Tailor-made has always been a skill that Hong Bang tailors are proud of. This “Mao suit” was tailor-made for Teacher Sun Yat-sen by a Hongbang tailor. Two clothing companies, Luo Meng and Pei Luocheng, followed the tradition of Hongbang tailors and took the lead in launching tailor-made services for business attire. Youngor also launched tailor-made services for mid-to-high-end consumers in 2008.
Now, more than 100 years after the birth of the Chinese tunic suit, as a descendant of the Red Bang tailor, “Ningbo Suit” once again launches tailor-made services for the high-end market. In addition to Shanshan Group, another domestic clothing giant Youngor has also developed a strong interest in high-end customization.
At the 19th China International Clothing and Accessories Exhibition at the end of March last year, Youngor showed up with its six major brands, including one positioned inMayor, a new brand of high-end customization. As a high-end brand under Youngor Group, Mayor serves official and administrative leaders, draws on leading men’s clothing design ideas, uses global men’s clothing fabrics and tailor-made technology, and leads the fashion trends of high-end people. Li Rugang, chairman of Youngor Clothing Group, told reporters that the current operating model of Youngor’s high-end tailor-made services is still in the design and exploration stage, and Youngor hopes to explore a new model to develop customized services for high-end consumers.
The reporter also interviewed Zhu Xulong, President of Romon Group, about tailor-made services. Zhu Xulong told reporters that Luo Meng also provides tailor-made services. Luo Meng will match customers’ requirements with high-end fabrics and use full manual technology to tailor a full set of suits for customers. Luo Meng is also considering promoting the traditional tailor-made services of Hongbang tailors for high-end consumer groups.
The tailor-made market is rapidly expanding
Generally speaking, during the industrialization period, clothing consumption has entered the stage of mass manufacturing of ready-made garments. Tailor-made customization not only requires measuring and obtaining data from behind the customer’s body, conducting targeted design and tailoring, but also saving the corresponding data for the customer, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. For clothing companies with industrialized clothing production lines and thousands or even tens of thousands of people, customization seems to be a time-consuming and thankless service. However, several major clothing giants are simultaneously targeting high-end tailoring, demonstrating the unique importance of tailor-made services in the future.
“Now that China has become a major consumer of luxury goods in the world, the market for tailor-made clothing is also expanding rapidly.” Li Qiming, vice president of Shanshan Group, believes that tailor-made customization will explode in the next few years. The increase is due to the fact that Chinese people pay more and more attention to the quality of life, and well-fitting clothing is also a part of high-quality life. In addition, Chinese people increasingly agree with the etiquette concept of wearing different clothes in different occasions, which has also greatly increased the demand for supporting clothing for business activities and workplaces, which has also caused the demand for cultural and sportswear to continue to expand.
In 2007, Yuan Weilang, the sixth generation descendant of the Red Gang tailor, opened a high-end handmade custom clothing store called Bai Nian Longhua at the Ningbo Sheraton Hotel. He has personal experience of the expansion of the tailor-made market. Yuan Weilang told reporters that Bai Nian Longhua has been operating in the Sheraton Hotel for almost five years, and the business is getting better and better; especially in the past few years, Bai Nian Longhua’s customization business has been very prosperous. The reason is that on the one hand, the number of Chinese people is increasing Pay attention to one’s own image, but now many people have gained weight, and the clothes produced in batches by clothing factories are basically different. Tailor-made clothes meet the individual needs of these people; on the other hand, people’s income has increased, and the consumption of customized clothes at Sheraton has increased. Among them are not only entrepreneurs, but also ordinary citizens who dress well.
“The high-end tailoring market is expanding greatly, and Shanshan and Youngor are undoubtedly very forward-looking.” Feng Dehu, vice president of the China Garment Association, believes that tailoring can be based on one’s own requirements, personality, and preferences. , choose fabrics, pick textures, pick materials, pick styles, you can also combine fabrics, increase sleeve length, reduce bust, etc. to satisfy everything that ready-made clothes cannot do, and create a set of clothes that completely suits you, which is a piece worth pursuing in itself. things. Therefore, there is a huge space for customization. China has become a world economic power. There are more and more people pursuing life and consuming unique products, so the market for tailor-made clothing will also become larger and larger.
Market segmentation is also an option for transformation and upgrading
Transformation and upgrading are currently one of the core tasks of the apparel industry and even most Chinese companies. Affected by various factors such as declining labor costs, tense power supply, and falling raw material prices, companies are urgently looking for new business opportunities and new markets.
Regarding Ningbo’s clothing giant’s approach to expanding the high-end tailor-made market, Zhang Xiaofeng, secretary-general of the Ningbo Garment Association, believes that this actually comes from the principle of market segmentation. Through in-depth analysis of the market, a new market; high-end tailor-made products are expensive and cost-intensive due to their sophisticated craftsmanship and time-consuming efforts. This method of market segmentation can also be promoted and applied in other aspects. For example, Ningbo women’s clothing companies can also try to launch high-end customized clothing. Ningbo clothing companies can also integrate resources to launch outdoor casual wear, family wear for a family of three, etc. Products for various market segments. “The principle of market segmentation can discover new business opportunities and win new consumers. This is also a way of transformation and upgrading.” Zhang Xiaofeng said.
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