Looking at market entrants, store openings, social media news, retail updates, influencer and celebrity collaborations and also data and recent reports, LuxePulse is a subscription to quarterly reports that allow businesses to stay up to date about China’s fast-paced market.
By Reuter: Intelligence, the leader in luxury research and insights in China, LuxePulse is an annual subscription. The Luxury Conversation has been given a preview of the latest LuxePulse: Fashion quarterly report – here’s a summary of just some of the highlights we discovered, with a short excerpt from a few key sections.
The full report contains many more details in each section (with links to every source and online account), with further contents and insight; read how to subscribe to LuxePulse.
In new product launches
Exclusive editions for ‘Qixi’, AKA Chinese Valentine’s Day:
Balenciaga
Balenciaga launched a limited collection to celebrate the 2019 Qixi Festival. The collection of bags, sneakers and accessories was available in the brand’s offline stores. The WeChat post announcing the collection has been viewed 20,100 views and earned 75 Wows.
Marni
Marni launched a China-only collection including fashion, shoes, bags and accessories to celebrate Chinese Valentine’s Day. The collection was available both at Marni’s offline boutiques and its Tmall flagship store.
Michael Kors
To celebrate Chinese Valentine’s Day, Michael Kors launched a special capsule collection featuring graffiti-inspired clothing, handbags, footwear, jewelry and watches (featured image above). The capsule collection was available for purchase on Tmall as well as the brand’s WeChat Mini-Program store.
On WeChat & Weibo
& Other Stories launches on Weibo
& Other Stories, part of the H&M Group, launched its official Weibo account in early August. The account attracted over 3,200 followers in the first 20 days. In order to raise brand awareness, ten lucky followers who reposted and commented on the post received a limited edition bag.
Henry Lau for Burberry
In a visit to Burberry’s Qingdao boutique, musician Henry Lauwore a Burberry monogram shirt. Lau’s original post about the visit with the hashtag #ThomasBurberryMonogram# has earned 29,000 comments and 181,000 likes, and has been shared 23,000 times.
Louis Vuitton’s Coming of Age exhibition
To promote its Beijing exhibition ‘Coming of Age’, Louis Vuitton created a related hashtag on Weibo. The hashtag has been included in 1.38 million discussions and viewed 170 million times. To drive engagement, many celebrities, such as Dili Reba, Zhou Zhennan, and Li Junfeng has posted on the micro-blogging site with the hashtag.
Celine launches WeChat Mini-Program
Celine launched a WeChat Mini-Program in July – a mini website aimed at educating the Chinese consumer about their history, design philosophy and latest collections. The Mini-Program also has a ‘Stores Nearby’ feature.
Hermes’ ‘Dreamland’ exhibition
Created by Chinese artist Yan XiaoJing, the ‘Dreamland’ exhibition as well as ‘Into the Dreams’ window display combines traditional Chinese symbols with Western surrealist aesthetics. The announcement post on WeChat has been viewed 32,000 times and earned 119 Wows.
Tory Burch
To celebrate Qixi, Tory Burch asked readers to share their own love story. Ten lucky winners received a Love Notebook. The brand invited actor-singer Jordan Chan and his wife Ying Cai’er to promote the activity. The post received 21,000 views and 64 Wows to date.
On RED and Douyin
Tory Burch’s first RED post
Tory Burch published its first RED post on July 22nd featuring Chinese supermodel Liu Wen to coincide with the Qixi Festival celebrations. The account has over 3,500 followers and has published 20 posts including 3 videos.
Fendi’s RED account launched
Fendi published its first content on RED for the Qixi Festival. The first, and currently only, post by the brand is a video featuring Chinese actors Qiao Xin and Xu Weizhou showcasing a limited edition pink Baguette. The video has 85 likes, 28 saves (or stars) and 46 comments. Fendi’s RED account currently has 6,563 followers.
& Other Stories launches on RED
& Other Stories has opened an official account on RED and published its first post on August 16th. The brand’s account has since published another 12 posts and gained 867 followers.
Swarovski’s Douyin challenge
Swarovski created a Douyin challenge with the help of actress Maggie Jiang. Douyin users were asked to share their feelings of love using the custom stickers and tagging a video with the campaign hashtag for a chance to win a Qixi limited edition brooch. Videos with the hashtag have been viewed 440 million times.
LuxePulse Fashion Q3 also took a look at how ‘Sustainability is now a real issue for China’:
As the household garbage sorting regulations have taken effect in Shanghai in July, the concept of environmental protection is back in the limelight. Various brands are taking pro-active steps around sustainability from helping Chinese consumers check their own environmental impact to tips on living sustainably:
• In 2018, the Kering group launched the Kering Sustainable Innovation Award China in addition to already operating an Environmental Profit & Loss account WeChat Mini-Program and regularly publishing sustainability-related articles on its official WeChat account.
• While JNBY’s sustainable brand REVERB was launched in 2018, American footwear brand Allbrands entered China in early 2019 with two offline stores and a flagship on Tmall, and H&M’s has launched a sustainability-themed WeChat Mini-Program offering textile recycling tips and access to attend workshops.
• Swarovski’s Waterschool environmental stewardship initiative has reached over 100 schools and 350,000 students across China.
• La Mer and Tencent QQ partnered on an oceans clean-up program engaging close to 5 million consumers. As a result, some 1,500kg of plastic waste will be removed from the ocean.
• Ahead of the most recent G7 meeting in France, 32 fashion companies signed the ‘Fashion Pact’ aimed at extra efforts by the industry to restrain global warming. Shandong Ruyi is the only company from Mainland China, while Chinese Hong Kong-based Fung Group also joined the group.
It’s not just the government or brands pushing the green agenda. A recent Kantar report shows that 54% of Chinese consumers care about sustainability and have taken actionsand their actions in life are driven by sustainability. This is evident on social media as well. On RED, the discussion “shopping lasts bag after bag” has been tagged in over 6,000 user posts, while the Scandinavian ‘plogging’ hashtag “running while picking up trash” has been viewed 250,000 times. Alibaba has reported a 50% increase in users opting out of disposable cutlery on its food ordering application Ele.me.
Opportunities for businesses to improve their efforts remain as 93% of consumers believe manufacturers still do not do enough to reduce plastic waste. Interestingly, consumers understand that creating more environmentally-friendly products do not come without cost implications – a 2018 Mintel report found 58% of surveyed consumers were willing to pay more for ethically-produced fashion, while a Kantar survey showed 71% of consumers were willing to “pay more money for products that are better for the environment”, 16% higher than global average.
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