Famous Designer Grace Chen: Design Is Only A Ticket.

In the drizzling afternoon of April, Chen Yehuai Grace Chen, the founder of Grace Chen brand, received a group of students from orange Bay University in Shanghai's Huashan garden. She shared the real secrets of making a highly customized clothing brand.

Chen Yehuai is the first Chinese mainland student in New York Fashion Institute (FIT).

In 1996, she won the best design award of the New York Fashion Institute.

After graduation, she won the recognition of American fashion by virtue of her unique design style and superb craftsmanship. She has been a famous designer in the United States, ZumZum, Halston and Tadashi Shoji.

In 2009, Chen Yehuai, who was at the peak of his career, was acutely aware of the needs of high-end business people in China for "fitting and formal clothes". He chose to return home and set up his own Grace Chen.

This year is the tenth year of brand creation. The customized business of Grace Chen has already had a considerable scale.

A group of highly educated and successful Kochi, independent women, Chinese women's volleyball coach Lang Ping, famous social activist Jin Yuxi, and Angie Chiu, Xu Qing, Lin Chiling and other famous movie stars are loyal customers of Grace Chen brand.

How does a high fashion brand maintain product innovation and customer service capabilities?

How to achieve ten times organic growth in the last five years?

The students in orange Bay listened to Chen Yehuai's self-report and raised the most interesting questions.

Chen Yehuai talks about Grace Chen

My start-up capital was only 500 thousand.

Although it has been customized 00 times, but the scale is not very large, mainly rely on other brands to make money to design the money to support the team.

In 2013, after the opening of Beijing Yintai studio, our custom business was officially on the right track.

The reason why we choose to make customization is first because of our brand positioning.

My ideal is to make a first-line clothing brand that can compete with Chanel and Dior.

Since it is such a positioning, clothing pricing must be thirty thousand or forty thousand yuan (RMB), and only from customization is a more realistic choice.

And the lack of domestic type system is also a decisive factor in my choice to make custom.

People may think that American clothes are not as delicate as they are in Europe, too simple, no design, all the same.

But I didn't see the way inside.

Calvin Klein, Theory, DVF and Ralph Lauren are all typical American brands. Apart from their design styles, their biggest difference is their size.

Each brand will have its own standard fake models and try out models.

The proportion of the false model and the size of the model is the most typical brand size. It is the style of the brand.

In fact, size is style.

Now many designers will get into a deadlock, thinking that the appearance of clothes is the style of the brand, and they will always do the same thing in order to keep the style.

It seems to me that this is a question of cocoon and binding, and too superficial understanding of design.

Now is the Internet age, brand communication is very easy.

But like fast food, it tastes good and eats fast, but consumers soon get tired of it.

I've been doing evening dress for many years in the United States.

Evening dress is very demanding for tailoring. It is very particular about the shape of the body. So the main way is to use the stereotactic technique.

In a very vivid way, it is "to make watermelon skin for watermelon".

Watermelons are round and stereoscopic.

If it is a plane cut, then only the size of the watermelon should be measured, and the cloth should be cut out for the watermelon to make clothes.

The cutting is to take a picture of a piece of cloth directly, and to make a watermelon skin directly from a watermelon like a basketball.

I am used to making clothes in this way, and I am also a good model maker myself.

But when I returned home in 2009, I found that I could not make clothes.

Because I am short of the most important fake model.

Without the "watermelon" as a model, I have studied a lot of data, brand sizes, measured a lot of representative women's body sizes, and developed the core technology of our brand, "small six yards".

The size system of the United States is rich in variety because of its cultural and ethnic diversity. It represents the common ground of different regions and groups.

But in China, a body can basically represent the majority of Chinese people. "Small six yards" specifically represents a Chinese style figure proportion, which is very typical of Chinese women.

When we customize garments, we use small six yards to derive large and small size.

The size of a guest is not necessarily the same as that of a small 6 yards, but we will adjust the golden ratio according to the small 6 yards to find the golden ratio that is closest to their figure.

It doesn't matter if it's a little bigger. Clothes still look good on them.

Small six yards laid the foundation for our brand style.

The most important concern of customized guests is fit and comfort.

So we are making the most difficult things for the most choosy people.

But if you really have the ability to do it, it is also very good, because the difficulty is very big, so the competition will be very few.

Many people think that design is the most important thing of brand, but I think design is actually an admission ticket. It is not a competitive advantage at all.

For a brand, design must have and design is too bad. Otherwise, it doesn't matter much.

But if there is no correct size, the design will look good and the clothes will not be able to wear.

We are very particular about trousers and suits.

Even if it is a loose coat, we will make the structure according to the requirement of evening dress.

So the clothes are nice and can set up the figure.

Structural rigour and perfection are the biggest differences between us and other brands.

I think brand style is one thing, but the exclusive size system of R & D brand is the key point and the only way for every brand.

Our advantages are obvious.

In the whole custom industry, we are efficient, and probably the most efficient.

Because in the selection of styles, customers have tried the clothes, made the first size adjustment, and we have their own fake models, so the clothes made are rarely modified.

We can make more than 100 dresses a month.

Besides efficiency, we also have a good understanding of Chinese customer groups.

Our style, shape, and so on are suitable for them, which is not possible for Western brands at one thirty.

Q: every season, your design will be different from what it was before, whether it's style or feeling.

What is the inspiration for your design?

A: my inspiration is very personal. What I usually do when I think of what I do, the inspiration of "emotional Trilogy" ("adventure", "tide" and "leading edge") comes from the understanding of my friends and myself, and the movie is also my inspiration.

It is very rational to create real clothes, but there is a perceptual process ahead.

The theme of our series is not joking. Clothes will begin to be designed with names.

Where to do shows is also important. Tides are on cruise ships.

When customers are contacted with us for a long time, they will always feel our thoughts and feel their hearts are related to us and have a pleasant surprise.

Q:Grace Chen brand positioning is: the most representative of the brand of modern Chinese women.

So what do you think of Chinese women?

A: our customers are very representative Chinese women: they are well educated and successful in their careers; they love beauty and have independent aesthetics and ideas; they are confident, responsible and have certain social influence.

One of the things I learned most during the process of making brand is how women know themselves.

Because we are custom-made, so we have a very deep communication with customers. They have many things that can not be shared with others, most of which are women's very deep understanding of themselves.

It's especially interesting that fashion can play 42 to three jin.

It is very different to wear custom made clothes. Many people will compare custom to magic.

My education is how beautiful a woman is in full bloom.

The biggest difference between Chinese women and Western women lies in whether they understand themselves or take themselves seriously.

A woman may also spend a lot of money on cosmetic surgery, but that does not mean that she really knows herself.

Q: now many industries have introduced artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other technologies. Do you think these technologies can be applied in the field of customization?

How do we view the value of technology in the field of customization?

A: we are already studying it. This is the trend in the future.

I believe that customization can be popularized and large-scale.

In peacetime, our most time consuming is to make templates.

If 3D print human model can be completed by 80% technology, artificial completion of 20%, it will save us a lot of time.

The clothes made of this quantity can also be worn for a long time, and the side can reduce the waste of resources.

Q: this year is the tenth year of the establishment of Grace Chen brand.

What are the milestones of brand development and what are the plans for the next five years?

A: the milestone of brand, the birth of small six yards.

By the end of 2012, after the establishment of Beijing Yintai studio, our custom business was on the right track.

The red dress fashion show held in December 14, 2013 is also a turning point.

In 2016, the establishment of Shanghai gardening garden played a decisive role in the positioning of Grace Chen brand and the recognition of brands.

Above: Grace Chen Shanghai garden garden.

In the next five years, sales and marketing are the main issues.

The lack of brand in this area may have something to do with myself.

I am a designer, not a boss who plays very well in marketing.

I feel that the connotation and product of the brand itself have reached a level.

I'm not worried about products. That's our strength.

We have enough creativity to do all kinds of things and make innovations.

With the growing understanding of our customers, our team will become more and more powerful in technology.

From 2013 to 2018, our sales increased almost 10 times.

I hope that sales will increase by 5 to 10 times in the next five years.

Although it will become more and more difficult, I think that from the product itself to the market demand, this is definitely possible.