Light luxury concept

Light luxury is a kind of consumer goods with a relatively small number of consumers, and also an entry-level luxury, which does not have the price of international top brands, but mostly belongs to the young extension brands of big brands. It will not become a street brand like fast fashion brands, nor pay too much attention to creating a sense of dignity like luxury brands. Instead, it will adhere to the original design of top designers and high-quality fabric technology as its core competitiveness.

"They yearn for a relatively reasonable price range, are keen on unconventional design methods, advocate high-quality original works, and reject the upgrading of low-quality and high-yield products." This preference of consumers has become a propeller to accelerate the evolution of fashion, and has given birth to the popular word "light luxury" in the industry today. As a fashion category between high-end luxury goods and fashionable fast fashion, light luxury includes many luxury sub line brands with outstanding design, as well as independent designer brands with unique taste, excellent quality and a certain reputation. Although the fashion industry has always believed in the theory of "you can't have it both ways", the emergence of light luxury has just achieved the perfect integration of "design, quality and price". These light luxury goods, which are positioned in the middle and high grades, with prices ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, are becoming a new trend in the fashion circle. With excellent design, unique taste and reasonable prices, Become a new favorite of mature consumer groups.

The concept of light luxury is popular in China

The concept of light luxury was first used as a brand positioning from Florence, Italy Women's Shoes The brand Moonsa was proposed as the opposite of FMCG fashion at that time, and refused to give up the original design and quality assurance of the brand for the sake of updated frequency and dazzling styles. In Mengsha's opinion, real fashion should not be in direct proportion to the speed of updating, but the artistic creation of good designers. From germination to popularity, the concept of light luxury has been brewing in the European market for several years, and now this new consumption concept has begun to spread to the east, and successfully entered the Chinese market where luxury consumption is becoming increasingly mature.

Nowadays, the light luxury goods that are easiest to find in the domestic market are first the sub line brands set up by the first line fashion brands. As the latecomer in the Chinese market, they have the momentum of being the latecomers. Miu Miu of Prada, Emporio Armani of Giorgio Armani, MARC BY MARC JACOBS and DKNY are all representatives of the sub line brands. "The common characteristics of these brands: they have the noble 'blood' of first-line brands, have a sense of design and uniqueness, and take into account the young and changeable mentality of consumers. The most important thing is that their price grades extend downward." Sun Yan, a cutting-edge designer, said, "The average price of the secondary line MCQ of the famous British brand Alexander McQueen is nearly 40% cheaper than the main line."

The other half of the kingdom of light luxury goods is built by a large number of independent designer brands. Although the general survival state of this group is not optimistic, there are many experts who have both popular style and can effectively combine production resources to carry out market-oriented operation. "Chinese designer brands such as Alexander Wang and Phillip Lim are successful cases. The design is in New York and the production is in China, which makes the price of products almost ten percent lower than that of most similar brands. It is conceivable that Alexander Wang will open stores in China, and even the official online stores in China will launch at the same time." said Ye Qizheng, chief editor of Guanchao. com.

Meet market demand

The reason why light luxury becomes the current fashion trend is more due to the market economy. The 2012 China Luxury Report recently released by Roder PR has a new outlook on the new trend of luxury consumption in China: in the next 12 months, China's luxury consumption will tend to be cautious, and the consumption growth will be relatively slow. In this regard, Gao Ming, vice president of Roder PR, said: "Due to the gloomy economic situation that has enveloped the world recently, consumers tend to be cautious about their consumption plans for next year. One of the outstanding performances is that consumers will buy less high-value products, on the contrary, the sales of low-value products will rise." Nevertheless, Consumers will still not relax their requirements on the design and quality of the products they buy. Therefore, the relatively low value luxury brands have well catered to today's market demand.

In China, light luxury products have a wide and relatively mature consumer group. One is the rich class at the middle and high end of the income pyramid. They have certain economic conditions and appreciation ability, have some knowledge of the fashion industry, and their consumption motivation comes from the pursuit of high-quality and high-grade life and the manifestation of social status and identity. The other is the mass consumer group whose number is growing geometrically. Although their purchasing power is limited compared with the former, they are by no means "laymen" in the fashion industry. They have their own unique taste for various products. They do not blindly pursue brand logos, but prefer fashion products with both cost performance, They consume light luxury goods more to reward themselves after busy work.

The prevalence of light luxury consumption also stems from the increasingly diversified store layout. The popularity of light luxury consumption in Japan is earlier than that in China, not only because Japanese consumer groups are more clearly segmented, but also because the scientific setting and layout of Japanese retail stores make the development of new luxury categories more space. For example, See By Chloe, a subsidiary product of Chloe, can easily find an independent counter in the department store in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Comparatively speaking, domestic sub line brands not only have few choices, but also have a much higher price than foreign brands, and independent designer brands are rare.

However, this situation is changing quietly. In the newly opened century old building complex of Yifeng Bund Source, in addition to well-known top luxury brands, there are more fashion spaces belonging to light luxury brands, including the first flagship store of Chinese image of Italian designer brand giuliano fujiwara, and the first flagship store of image of New York jewelry designer brand ANNA HU in China, And the unique store of Tendence, a Swiss watch brand newly founded in 2007. These unique light luxury brands made their debut collectively in China, greatly enriching the purchase options of domestic consumers.

{page_break}

Push experiential marketing

In the past, there was no clear distinction between light luxury goods and high-end luxury goods. Consumers would not only favor light luxury goods worth thousands of yuan, but also chase priceless jewelry and watches. Nowadays, with the increasingly mature and diversified marketing means of light luxury, and the full use of the concept of light luxury to provide consumers with extraordinary experience, the number of consumers of light luxury products is increasing and tends to be subdivided.

Looking at Miao Miao's new designs in recent seasons, the common feeling is that its secondary significance has long been less obvious, and it can compete with the main brand in terms of design and sales. To a large extent, this is due to Miao Miao's exploration of product experience, for example, his efforts in fabric texture, printing, color and other aspects, so that when consumers buy, they can not only feel the lineage of famous brands and the work details of original designers, but also find their own personalized designs. "In his works in the spring and summer of 2011, Miao Miao also boldly demonstrated the magic style of" Alice in Wonderland "again with a sword leaning posture, which completely captured the hearts of young consumers and brought them a kind of luxury experience that is both noble and full of personality." Sun Yan gave an example.

Most of the light luxury brands have less distant historical background and brand tradition than high-end luxury brands, and the direct benefit of this is that in terms of publicity and marketing, light luxury brands have greater freedom. They can not only enter high-end department stores, close to Hermes and Dunhill, but also enter fashion websites with high profile for online trial sales. Brand designers also often come and go to stores in first tier and second tier cities to face consumers. At the same time, small clothing conferences will also be held regularly in stores. On the one hand, these in-depth event experiences have attracted more buyers, and people are becoming more and more loyal to their own light luxury brands.

The market calls for "light luxury"

Relevant reports show that in China, the consumption of light luxury products comes from two aspects: one is the daily consumption of the rich, which reflects their fashion and quality of life. Second, white-collar workers' consumption reflects their own personality. Ordinary white-collar users consume light luxury goods in order to reward themselves occasionally after busy work.

A woman told the reporter that her monthly income with her husband was about 15000 yuan, and she had a son and a car. The pressure of life was not very great. In the past, when buying clothes, they were always confused. Choose international brands. The price is too high to bear; Choose a domestic brand. The sense of design is not strong enough; Choose fast fashion brands such as ZARA, H&M, and although the price and style can be satisfied, they will always hit the shirt. Later, it gradually turned to the deputy cards of the first tier big brands such as BOSS ORANGE.

"Now the quality of some local brands has become better and better in the past two years. They are more sophisticated in fabric and design. Compared with international brands, the price seems to be 'friendly'. I think the price of a suit of several thousand yuan is quite appropriate." She believes that in the world, some "sub brands" of luxury brands are called "light luxury goods" because their prices are more reasonable, Local brands now focus on quality and design cost performance, and are expected to enter the ranks of light luxury.

According to relevant analysis, the main force of "light luxury" consumption is between 27 and 35 years old.

The main consumers of light luxury goods are widely distributed. They have certain economic conditions and appreciation ability, and have a certain understanding of the fashion industry. The core of consumption motivation is the guaranteed quality, the pursuit of high-quality life, and the embodiment of social status and identity.

Of course, there is no shortage of ordinary white-collar citizens like Miss Chen among the "light luxury" consumers. Their consumption of light luxury goods is more to reward themselves occasionally after busy work. However, compared with buyers who specialize in high-end luxury goods, the average age will be lower, about 27, 28 to 35 years old.

Local brands set foot in high-end groups

According to industry insiders, the biggest difference between light luxury and luxury lies in price. Li Jihai, chairman of Guangzhou Fashion Design Association and fashion industry research expert, believes that if the price of light luxury goods is set, 2000 yuan to 5000 yuan is a reasonable range.

Looking at the local clothing brands, there are more than a few single items worth two or three thousand yuan. At the 2012 China International Fashion Week, the local clothing brand "Seven Wolves" launched the "Celebrity High Customization" series for the first time; As early as 2010, Kabin launched a high-end brand named "Cabeen Chic" (Kabin Fashion), with the product price ranging from 1000 yuan to 10000 yuan. According to the person in charge, this brand is going to take the "light luxury" route, focusing on the pioneer's scientific and technological colors and natural elements, emphasizing the sense of design, and creating a new male consumption trend that emphasizes both avant-garde and elegance.

Judging from the popular trend this summer, major brands are also paying more and more attention to the use of fabrics, such as Seven Wolf's "cool cotton shirt", Nine Muwang's "cool mica yarn", and so on.

Industry insiders said that local brands' involvement in the field of "light luxury" is not only the need of market segmentation, but also to meet the specific needs of high-end consumer groups. "Seizing the high-end market, to a certain extent, is more to build brand awareness and attract eyeballs to create selling points, rather than the main development direction of the brand in the future."

Although local brands have competed to integrate high-end fabrics into their products in recent years, strengthen the design elements of products, pay attention to product quality, and obviously promote the value of the brand, not all consumers buy it. Li Bo said that like other industries, the clothing industry also has the phenomenon of "foreign monks like to chant sutras". Chinese people tend to prefer "foreign brands" in their choice of brands, especially luxury goods with high prices.

"Light Luxury" vs "Fast Fashion"

In the past two years, fast fashion has undoubtedly become popular. ZARA and H&M have become popular in all major retail stores. However, after the "crazy pursuit" of style and design, design plagiarism, cost reduction, and poor quality have made consumers and the market's obsession with fast fashion cool and return to rationality.

Pursue the really good Design There are more and more customers with high quality, but when the traditional luxury brands are still extravagant and the existing mainstream fashion brands cannot meet the dual requirements of quality and design, "light luxury" has become the first choice of more and more consumers.

It has been reported in the media that after fast fashion, "luxury" will become the next target of shopping malls, but industry insiders still believe that the concept of light luxury is difficult to replace the "fast fashion" model.

Industry insiders point out that "fast fashion" and "light luxury" meet the consumption needs of two different groups, which have their own business space and market positioning, and there is no contradiction between who replaces whom.

It is also believed that the current positioning of local clothing brands is to seize the second and third tier markets. Most of them can only achieve their goals by taking the "fast fashion" route, and the current brand strength is not enough to be classified into the ranks of light luxury.

It is undeniable that light luxury brands, which are in sharp contrast with high-end luxury brands in terms of price, also have their own markets in China. But on the whole, with the arrival of well-known chain stores, fast fashion has just risen in China.

?