The British Fashion Association Deepens The Layout Of China'S Market Opening Cooperation Is DNA

"When I stepped out of the plane for the first second, I felt different. Everything was fascinating and exciting."

Caroline Rush, chief executive of British Fashion Council, describes Shanghai.

Caroline Rush, once again, has a more ambitious and concrete vision behind the British Fashion Association behind Shanghai.

Since last September announced the cooperation agreement with Jingdong fashion, the British Fashion Association has further accelerated its pace in the Chinese market, with intent to better integrate British designers into the Chinese market through content output, partners and business support.

The British Fashion Association British Fashion Council (hereinafter referred to as BFC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1983. It aims to support and help British designers and fashion brands to develop their businesses and to defend diversity and sustainable development, while promoting the influence of the British fashion industry in the world.

In addition, BFC owns and operates fashion events including the London Fashion Week London Fashion Week, the London men's week London Fashion Week Men's, the London fashion show LONDON show ROOMS, the London Fashion Week Festival and the fashion awards.

Despite the impact of external uncertainties such as Europe, the fashion industry is still one of the pillar industries in the UK.

According to BFC official data, in 2017, the fashion industry contributed 32 billion 300 million pounds to the gross domestic product of the United Kingdom, an increase of 5.4% over 2016, and the growth rate is higher than the overall economic growth rate in the UK.

In addition, the British fashion industry has provided 890 thousand jobs, almost as big as the financial sector.

Such achievements are related to efforts made by BFC CEO Caroline Rush.

Caroline Rush has more than 20 years of experience in corporate communication, marketing and public relations in fashion, music and lifestyle.

Since her appointment as chief executive in April 2009, she has provided a unique perspective for the British Fashion Association to provide strategic communication services and has successfully expanded the organization in 10 years.

During its term of office, British fashion brands such as Burberry, Mulberry, Pringle of Scotland, Victoria Beckham and Vivienne Westwood returned to the London Fashion Week platform show to make London Fashion Week's brand matrix strong again.

In addition, Caroline Rush takes the London Fashion Week as the center, and derives many branch platforms, which fully radiate different fashion brands and designers.

In June 2012, with her promotion, London men's wear week was launched as a showcase for more than 130 designers two times a year.

Also in 2012, she led BFC to launch the The Fashion Awards, awarding the most creative and influential designers in the form of annual awards.

In addition to all kinds of fashion activities, she also extended the channels of communication between designers and buyers LONDON show ROOMS to new markets such as Hongkong, New York, Paris, St Paul and Shanghai.

Since last year, BFC began to lay out the Chinese market.

Caroline Rush has restarted BFC's partnership strategy with China, while conveying British designers to China, and helping Chinese designers develop in the UK.

Unlike some overseas brands who are fighting alone in China, BFC will take advantage of the platform to benefit a number of brands behind it.

The Chinese market has always been a battleground for fashion brands. According to the 2018 China Luxury Market Research Report by Bain, a consultancy, the Chinese luxury market is mainly benefited from the millennial generation and female consumers. It is estimated that by 2025, the consumption of luxury goods outside China will be flat, which means that the brand should focus on the development of the Chinese mainland market.

Another report by Bain shows that about 1/3 of the global personal luxury sales revenue has contributed to Chinese consumers. Their demand for designer brands has been increasing and becoming more and more critical. It has become the backbone of promoting the growth of luxury goods industry.

Compared to the first look at the fashion week in Shanghai in 2015, the British fashion industry's attitude towards the Chinese market is now very determined.

Caroline Rush brings two famous British designer brands, Roksanda and Peter Pilotto, and launches an independent exhibition hall from March 28th to 31 at the clothing exhibition Ontimeshow.

It is worth noting that many brands have chosen to meet consumers and industry in fashion show when entering the Chinese market. For example, this season, the French fashion brand Faith Connexion released its debut in SIFS fashion week in Shanghai, while BFC focused its attention on the clothing trade fair with more business atmosphere.

Ontimeshow was founded in 2014 and synchronized with Shanghai fashion week.

There is a view that tradeshow is the main form of business. This kind of business platform builds a bridge between industry professionals and designers, effectively establishing new brand communication channels with buyers, department stores and media from all over the country.

This shows the pragmatic attitude of the Caroline Rush and two mature British designer brands in China.

It is important to express the creativity of the brand, but more importantly, how to let the market receive the information and realize the value of the brand.

Caroline Rush told fashion headlines that the cooperation with Shanghai fashion week is not only to contact consumers and media, but also to have more contacts with buyers and retailers, so as to further understand the Chinese market.

Overseas brands must be based on the Chinese market steadily and business partners are the key.

In September 2017, the British Fashion Association announced its strategic cooperation with Jingdong for the first time. Jingdong co operated with the British designer Mary Katrantzou and the Chinese travel designer Zhang Shan Shan Huishan Zhang for the 2018 spring summer series fashion show, and co hosted the cocktail party with the BFC/Vogue designer fashion foundation.

In September of next year, the two sides decided to renew this partnership and jointly promote the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund Project in 2019 to promote the close interaction between designers and the market.

In February this year, the two sides signed the three year strategic agreement. Jingdong announced that it became the only retail partner in London Fashion week.

This not only marks the phased victory of the Jingdong fashion industry, but the Jingdong, as an e-commerce platform covering more than 300 million users, is not only a channel for the British brand to show in the Chinese market, but also a precise consumer insight.

Caroline Rush, which is determined to further introduce more British brands into the Chinese market, is clearly prepared.

In the field of marketing and PR, she takes the main idea of communication as the main idea. The cooperation with Jingdong is not only for a strong platform, but also a digital trend Jingdong, which is regarded as a window for British brands to communicate with Chinese consumers.

While considering actual sales, Caroline Rush is also very concerned about how to enhance the image and influence of British brands in foreign markets.

Through the foreshadowing of the past few years, she is aware of the importance of narrowing cultural differences and understanding the importance of local consumers, carefully establishing relationship networks, and making British brands capable of global expansion before entering the market through continuous communication with partners.

As for how to make Chinese consumers accept British brands, Caroline Rush says it is necessary to tell stories in appropriate context.

Business support is the core of talent development.

In order to support and help new designers, besides the NEWGEN project previously established by BFC, Caroline Rush has launched a fund including BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund and BFC fashion art foundation, BFC BFC and so on, to provide guidance and financial support for designers. The former will provide 200 thousand pounds of bonuses to the winners.

She also led the launch of Positive Fashion, a platform designed to award the best practices in the industry and encourage future business decisions, and BFC/GQ Menswear Designer Fund, a BFC/GQ men's wear designer foundation specially designed for men's wear designers.

In 2018, she promoted the establishment of Queen Elizabeth S British design award Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, marking the first time that the queen of England visited London Fashion week.

As early as the hotbed of John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen and other famous designers, BFC continuously supports and incubated talented young designers.

London Fashion Week is gradually becoming unique in the four fashion week with its unique designer brand. Now the more mature designers Christopher Kane, Roksanda, Erdem, J.W.Anderson and Simone Rocha have all been the winners of the NEWGEN project.

Not only is British designer, BFC also supports and accepts more designers born in London to help young fashion majors find career direction.

For this reason, BFC founded BFC College Council, a Council of BFC college, to provide support to students in the form of scholarships, and to establish the relationship between fashion students and the industry through design competitions and graduation shows.

Through multilateral cooperation with governments, sponsors, designers, media and international retailers, BFC has promoted exponential growth in the size and image of the British fashion industry.

Caroline Rush believes that open cooperation is part of BFC DNA, and BFC wants to build a diversified network of relationships, understand the roles of different actors, and develop diversified cooperative relationships based on this.

Specifically to the Shanghai fashion week cooperation, this is also an important part of the British fashion industry layout in the Chinese market.

Through the on-the-spot investigation, Caroline Rush found that "in Shanghai, many independent shops have explode, and they have established a very solid relationship with consumers, selling products in a predetermined way.

I think Chinese buyers understand the consumer very clearly and personalize them, which means they are more willing to accept new ideas.

The British fashion industry has always been famous for its "innovation", but even with the intention of expanding in China, the complex internal environment and strategic expansion of the Chinese market have made many small and medium-sized brands prohibitive.

BFC and Caroline Rush, based on early communication and communication, go straight to the commercial landing. Retailers and buyers who accurately match the right brands in the fashion show may provide new ideas for future Chinese and British fashion industry exchanges.

The following is a fashion headline interview with Caroline Rush:

Reporter: BFC restarted the China cooperation strategy in September last year.

The BFC and the British brand Roksanda and Peter Pilotto come to Shanghai fashion week. What information do they want to help two brands deliver?

Caroline Rush: for these brands, landing Shanghai fashion week and costumes show them a good opportunity to communicate with Chinese retailers. Meanwhile, Shanghai fashion week also provides these brands with platforms for media and consumers, including those Chinese consumers who have purchased two brand products through Farfetch, Net-a-Porter and other e-commerce providers.

In this way, they can understand the real Chinese market and explore ways to find more opportunities for development in this highly potential market.

Reporter: does the two brand choose to appear at the fashion show Ontimeshow instead of the show on the official schedule of Shanghai fashion week? Does this mean that BFC is pushing the cooperation to a more pragmatic level?

Caroline Rush: it's expensive to run a fashion show. Designers often think fashion shows are not an ideal channel to contact retailers.

The fashion show is more important in order to endow the design and product with more content and meaning.

The two designer brands have already held fashion shows in London Fashion Week, so it is not reasonable to repeat the exposure fashion series in Shanghai.

What is more important is to show the new series to the buyers and retailers who do not often go to London and Paris through costumes.

We are often asked why fashion show is held. I think it is for entertainment value and content demand.

For us, the main challenge of coming to China is how to present the creative content of London to the local buyers and retailers in the fashion exhibition.

We hope to help the brand face more practical challenges, such as how to enter the Chinese market, gain greater growth opportunities in the market, consider establishing partnerships with local partners, and how to better convey the connotation and innovation of the brand to consumers.

This allows brand audiences to get close to them, and enable Chinese consumers to better understand their designer brands when they travel abroad.

Reporter: BFC is actively cooperating with Jingdong. What role does the electricity supplier play in you?

Caroline Rush: e-commerce has played an important role in the British fashion industry. For example, Net-a-Porter can be said to be the first platform to combine e-commerce with fashion. It helps the brand extend to the world, and provides big data to the brand, and analyzes consumer's feedback on product preferences.

Similarly, when entering the Chinese market, it is very advantageous to have such a head business platform that controls the consumer data such as Jingdong.

In cooperation with Jingdong, we focused on how to enhance the image and influence of British designers, such as collaborating with Chinese brands on platforms, and helping Chinese brands enter the UK market and even on international platforms.

Reporter: there is a great cultural difference between China and the United Kingdom. Fashion is more of an imported product to China. Consumers are short of many fashionable enlightenment in British history. For example, they may not understand punk and sub culture very well. The Chinese market did not have such an influential local pioneer fashion magazine as i-D and Dazed&Confused.

How do you think brands can better intercultural communication between China and the United Kingdom?

Caroline Rush: first, we need to tell stories, especially through digital channels.

I think that even for British consumers, their understanding of fashion history will be very different because of their growing environment.

Just think of the long history and culture of the English culture and youth subculture, and you will find that British culture is also very diverse.

In Britain, the creative process of designers has also been influenced by different cultural practices.

Fashion is to express the unique ideas of designers with creative ideas.

So when we come to the Chinese market, how to tell different stories becomes very important.

If we introduce a custom tailored brand of Saville street Savile Row, known as "tailor" in London, we will tell about their historical origins.

But at the same time, for young designers, designers can express what they observe very well.

In October this year, we will bring some young designers who are influenced by music and subculture.

Reporter: the industry has been circulating the evaluation of London Fashion Week's challenges.

Indeed, young designers are relatively weak in business, which is also related to the stability of London Fashion week.

How do you face this assessment?

Caroline Rush: this evaluation has been with us for a long time, and we may continue to have similar reviews later.

We keep accepting new brands, which is why London fashion is different from other fashion industries.

If designers want to build their own brand, we can help.

Even if some designers found themselves fit to work in a mature brand after two or three years of brand creation, we could actively guide them to find suitable platforms, channels and fields for their development.

Ten years ago, when I took over the CEO, there was a criticism that these designers were less than 5 years old, but this situation did not appear. Many brands insisted on 12 to 15 years. They had their own physical stores, and also had international sales channels, and also got investment, which laid a solid foundation for future development.

So, for me, it is a very exciting prospect to help brands to understand their path of development and how to achieve growth for a long time.

London Fashion Week can be a luxury brand like Burberry. It is indeed a rare good thing, but it takes a hundred years to accumulate. So we only need to step by step and do every step well.

Reporter: for young designers, is there more support and platform for NEWGEN besides the display platform for them?

Caroline Rush: we have Talent Support Scheme talent support system. This is our guidance for young designers.

In addition to NEWGEN, we also have the Fashion Trust fashion trust fund, and the BFC Fund Vogue and GQ co founded Fashion Fund fashion foundation.

In addition, BFC will also hold seminars for designers, taking this opportunity to design their own networks and learn from other designers, and we will provide them with business guidance.

Reporter: what do you think of foreign brands that want to be developed in the UK, especially the recently rising Chinese designer brands?

Caroline Rush: many of the designer brands developed in the UK come from overseas. For example, today's Roksanda in the UK, designer Roksanda Ilincic is from Serbia, and Christopher Pilotto Vos, one of the designers of Peter Pilotto, is from Belgium.

We have established connections with many Chinese designers.

Many of them graduated from British fashion colleges such as central Saint Martin or London Fashion Institute. They have a good overseas background and a good understanding of Chinese and English culture. Many people also perform in Shanghai fashion week.

If their ideas are well integrated into the London Fashion Week, we will be happy to accept more brands.

If these designers are interested in setting up offices in the UK to do business, we welcome them.

Reporter: the severe employment problem faced by British fashion graduates has become the focus of public attention. How can BFC help?

Caroline Rush: we have the Council of BFC College CouncilBFC college, which includes 32 schools in the UK.

This year, we are trying to make graduates more opportunities to work. Whether through competition or during the employment season, we also have many international brands communicating with their curriculum leaders to help graduates broaden their minds.

At the same time, graduating shows have become a very powerful platform every year.

I think graduation shows are the key platform to help graduates get to the next stage.

The most difficult step to enter the industry is often the first step to climb up, as is the case in other industries.

My advice is to persist in doing what you can to do your best in your position, and you will find many doors open for you.