"Innovation" is not a gimmick! A New Perspective on China Fashion Brands—— China Fashion Enterprises’ Journey to Innovation Series by Luxe.Co

The term, "Innovation" is often used by many industries in the media to demonstrate that they are creative and progressive. However, sometimes it is rather used as a “gimmick” to promote their products and services. In the fashion industry, innovation is never a gimmick, but a core foundation of its business and a key to its success.

No matter how the Internet and AI have changed our lives, new arrivals to shelves each season remain the fundamental routine for fashion brands, and fashion shops remain a key sales platform. Consumers instinctively expect to find new collections when they step into fashion shops. Fashion brands also continue to make relentless creative efforts and non-stop brainstorming to accomplish their branding process.

Luxury brands often feature their classics and legacy collections as part of their core business model, but even these longstanding collections require innovation to evolve and adapt. Although Hermès is considered a prudent luxury brand nowadays, it also embraced innovative design through its development. For example, Hermès was the first label who put a "High-tech” product, zipper, on a leather jacket back in 1918.

Change requires innovation, so does consistency. In order to convey consistent classic-and-timeless spirits in the new social and technological environment, innovative thinking and approaches are required for effective communication and interpretation.

Where does innovation originate from? Is it an exclusive specialty for startups? Or does it only belong to a few talents?

In the book "Creative Intelligence" written by Bruce Nussbaum, a pioneer in the field of innovation and design in the United States, Nussbaum has different opinion. He said that it is not necessary for business leaders to abandon completely the fundamentals of their organization. Instead, they need to rethink whether their interpretation of themselves is too narrow or broad. Time is not an enemy for innovation, but a friend. The deeper you understand the existing pattern of the business, the better you gain insights into the essence and the easier you find the breakthrough to innovation. Liberating creativity to the full extent, requires abandoning preconception, conducting multi-subject studies, connecting multiple dots, reconstructing ourselves and rebuilding our external communication framework.

In the Luxe.Co APP, we have witnessed the innovation efforts and achievements that global brands have made in products, technology and marketing aspects. These international well-known fashion brands often highlight their innovation initiatives, in order to promote continued media awareness and to convey a timeless and inspiring corporate image.

On the contrary in China, many fashion brands have increased their advertising efforts and cooperation with celebrities and KOLs to elevate their brand exposure and awareness among the new generation consumers. However, these companies are used to remaining low-key and rarely talking about their innovative schemes. From this aspect, the public image of most companies remains vague.

In the past several months, Luxe.Co has engaged intensively with a group of accomplished China fashion enterprises. We noticed that almost all of them are undertaking a variety of innovation practices with direct support from their founders and management. These traditional China enterprises’ active and open-minded thinking process, and courageous engagements have rejuvenated their image to adapt to market changes.

In order to showcase the efforts of China fashion enterprises in innovation and reconstruction, Luxe.Co launched a special series of reports on “China Fashion Enterprises’ Journey to Innovation”. The series will be presented to the global audience though our websites in both Chinese and English languages, and will also be available via APP and social media. Our aim of sharing best practices from the fashion industry is to stimulate and inspire existing and new China fashion enterprises to continue innovating for greater success.

When we mention “innovation” in the future, we believe that it will not be an empty and vague word, but one that represents fruitful actions and achievements.