“The material is good, it has a sense of design, and the price is not black.†Li Yunjia, who finished fashion design from London, is an old customer of COS Yuan. He often smashes his shirt with his friends. “Now I will see the shop, but I will buy it. The money has already arrived."
According to the original plan of the Swedish parent company H&M Group, the COS founded in 2007 is an abbreviation of “Collection of Styleâ€. Unlike the sister brand H&M, it only produces new products in spring, summer and autumn and winter, not so much chasing the trend.
In the same way that competitor Zara's parent company Inditex pushed Massimo Dutti in recent years, the fast fashion that opened the global market with its price advantage in the early years tried to fill the gap between its own and luxury goods with design and style.
Karin Gustafsson is the creative director of COS. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2006 and was noted by the H&M Group on the graduation design open day. She then received a call, and the other party did not want to say more, "because the COS was a confidential project at the time." In an interview with Fashionista, a fashion website recently, Gustafsson said that when he joined the company, the company's employees joined 15 people. After ten years of development, the number of teams now reaches 170.
According to her memories, the COS veterans first came together to finalize the brand style. "We hope that the products can be accepted by the public, that is, cheap and good." The design team put their eyes on the basics of the eternal existence of the thunder in the closet: jeans, little black dress, jacket. Through repeated adjustments, COS finally embarked on the road of minimalism.
On the other hand, the minimalist style has achieved COS pricing to some extent. Skirts of different materials are priced between $80 and $150 (about 551.45 yuan - 1034 yuan); autumn jackets are priced from $150 to $250 (about 1034 yuan - 1723.3 yuan); men's pants are basically a 125 US dollar (about 861.6 yuan).
There are good prices and niche styles that are not enough to attract customers' attention. "Good material" - just as Li Yunjia noticed, played a decisive role. This creates a watershed between the H&M and the naked eye. “Our manual details how the fabric is handled.†Karin Gustafsson's words were confirmed by a fashion editor who had bought a COS sweater and washed it several times without signs of deformation or aliasing.
According to his recollections, when COS is emerging as a niche brand, in the fashion week, almost all the peers can be seen in the store. This situation can only be seen in the Paris buyer's store Colette and the London buyer's shop DSM.
In 2012, COS went out of Europe for the first time, and the sales figures followed. From 2009 to 2014, the brand's revenue in the group increased from 1% to 3%, recording 625 million US dollars. To date, COS has 195 stores in 32 countries around the world.
The first COS Chinese store opened in Hong Kong, and then COS began to spread in Beijing Fangcao, Sanlitun and other places. Most of the most frequent COS customers are office white-collar workers. The reasons can be summarized as: safe and without losing details, and the price is affordable. The disadvantage is that the distribution is not exactly the same. This is not uncommon in the retail industry. The loyal customers of niche brands can find the difference between Regent Street and Liverpool Street, Sanlitun and Fangcao.
It is difficult for people to see the shadow of sister brand H&M in COS: fewer shops, slower, and less popular. This winter, the brand also launched its own 19th issue, with the theme of “New Natureâ€, which consists of 11 interrelated chapters with 11 English words beginning with “reâ€. Of course, the big block of the autumn and winter series is indispensable.
However, the current COS seems to have reached the bottleneck - it is getting weaker on our visual and emotional stimuli. As soon as the market is overwhelming with a simple wind, the second COS products will always be around the classic models.
“We are looking for fashion designs that have no life limit.†COS Creative Director Karin Gustafsson has emphasized this for countless times. But those recurring items are hard to arouse the desire to buy twice. You know, whether it's fast fashion or luxury goods, you're trying to find more and more new products, and you'll be able to get out of the way.
Perhaps COS did not undertake the task of expanding sales in a short period of time, or it did not find the best way to break through the bottleneck. In short, for the old customers, the COS that has gone through ten years has been faint.
And H&M has a logic, COS has begun to try to sprinkle pepper in recent years - cross-border joint name to enhance the taste. Most of the objects come from the art and construction industries. This year, the brand invited Japanese architect Fujimoto to introduce an art installation at Milan Design Week. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, COS sponsored the Agnes Martin exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum and launched the COS x Agnes fashion co-branded collection. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned is the COS x HAY series, and people are delighted to find the effect of 1+1>2 after the superposition of two Nordic brands.
But pepper can always be annoying, how can COS escape from the shackles of existing style, customer positioning and pricing?
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