Can Fashion Brand's "Outer Mold Worship" And "Stereotyped Aesthetics" Be Saved?

Li Jingwen was probably the most sought after Chinese model in the recent Paris custom fashion week, and her appearance on Dior, Chanel and Alexandre Vauthier's T stage. And her peers, Tang, He Cong and Li Shuping, have all made their career success, but there is a problem behind them: the number of Chinese models that represent the global fashion brands has not kept pace with China's growing share in the global fashion market.

China occupies more than 1/3 of the global sales of luxury goods, and this share exceeds 15% in the larger fashion industry, so China is now the world's largest market, no matter what. However, in the IFDAQ database of the industry's authoritative fashion information consulting company, Chinese models occupy only 1/3 of the top position, while Chinese models occupy only 1/4 of the head of the list on the Models.com which is more familiar to the public.

IFDAQ's ranking criteria need to be based on brand advertising, fashion show, magazine cover and influence, and none of the top 50 Chinese models. Feifei Sun ranked 51, Liu Wen ranked 56, Xi Mengyao ranked 74. Although Li Jingwen's popularity is on the rise, she is only in the 152nd place.

Models.com uses several different ways to make the charts, but the status of Chinese models can not reflect the full picture of the proportion of sales in China's consumers and industries. None of the 17 supermodels of the so-called Legends is Chinese. Only two of the 17 "New Supers" are Chinese -- Liu Wen and Feifei Sun, and only one of the 42 "Industry Icons" is Chinese - Rhododendron.

Li Jingwen is the Chanel 2019 autumn and winter advanced customization series. The source is Chanel

The size of the Chinese market seems to provide a strong reason for brands to attract more Chinese faces, especially in the context of large-scale and inclusive industries. However, Chinese audiences have observed some different phenomena. Brand executives often go astray from the face of goodwill choice and confuse these consumers.

"Chinese consumers have seen themselves as part of Western brands," said Iva Mirbach, director of IFDAQ research and innovation.

In some cases, Chinese consumers will actually oppose the efforts of some western brands to introduce Chinese faces, because these faces do not conform to local aesthetic, cognitive and brand positioning. Although Angelababy is popular among the public, many netizens think Angela Baby is too cheap to be a luxury brand ambassador. Other Chinese consumers were disappointed by the secret of Vitoria after the wrestling storm, because they thought Xi Mengyao was not strict with himself for supermodels, and Xi Mengyao was just like rowing.

Brands should look at a wider choice outside the fashion industry to understand how to achieve a better balance in China. For example, Disney has asked Liu Yifei to play the live version of Mulan, which is widely praised in mainland China.

Background environment is the key, said Dr. Jaehee Jung, Professor of fashion and clothing research at University of Delaware. "When I interviewed young girls enrolled in Shanghai Univer, many people mentioned that Angelababy is the ideal aesthetic type of a star." However, her research suggests that when some western brands choose their faces, "choosing white models rather than local Chinese models seems to be more attractive to Chinese consumers."

This phenomenon may also be partly due to the fact that Chinese models are not as good as stars. "Net red and stars do divide the cake of the model to some extent," said Xu Yue, executive editor of the famous commercial new media interface, Joyce Xu. "In the age of social networking, brands want people who wear clothes to bring their own traffic. But models are highly specialized jobs. Stars can be used instead of models to create temporary topics or cater for certain activities, but there is no way to do long-term modeling work.

Chen Yu, who was born in Yantai, now signing State Management and Milan Urbn company in New York, said she was pleased to see that international brands were employing more and more Chinese models. "When you see a Chinese face representing the global brand, you will be proud."

In fact, although the Chinese face can be a great success, some Chinese consumers in lower tier cities still regard white models as an important part of the European brand of luxury brands. This is enough to affect the overall situation. According to IFDAQ's data, according to media exposure, influence value and demand value in the 18 months ended July 5, 2019, American model Grace Elizabeth has become the best model in Beijing.

Mirbach said that although European brands usually choose more Asian models to cope with sales growth in the Asia Pacific region, "even if they do not choose Asian models, their incomes will increase."

When foreign brands choose Chinese models, Chinese consumers usually prefer that they remain in the traditional aesthetic range to a certain extent. Last month, Fenty was praised by the English media for displaying the close-up of the South Sultan model Aweng Mayen Chuol scar. Zara has been attacked by many netizens in China just because it showed Li Jingwen's freckles in the February catalogue. Some people in China's social media say that Li Jingwen's face freckles are "misleading" and "discriminatory" through make-up makeup or P maps.

Some well-known Chinese fashion industry leaders say that the public dispute caused by the latter example can be explained by the fact that Zara is a foreign brand. This means that if a popular Chinese brand tries to break through the boundaries of aesthetic standards from within, it may be more popular than a brand that tries to impose aesthetic standards from abroad. The public does not want to see Western brands use their discourse hegemony to guide and suppress the Chinese people's independent aesthetics.

"In the past, for the general public, models close to three courts and five eyes were still more popular, and their" mass base "was very strong," Xu Yue said. Model Chen Yu also said that Chinese people used to have less interest in diversification. "However, when global brands enter China, some brands make a good impression, because they take the time to understand Chinese consumers and understand their ideas," she said. "They are not just projecting their own ideas to what the market should know."

Of course, in China, not everyone knows the definition of beauty so narrowly that even freckles are not enough. "We are a big country and we have a lot of people," said Jenny You, a former Elite modeling agency. Now she has set up her own external broker company Lacoco in Beijing: "some of them just said some stupid things in social media. She refers to those who are extremely dissatisfied with the advertisement of Zara.

However, she also admits that the current business situation in China sometimes forces brands to stop using Chinese models, especially in low-end markets. For example, many domestic brands sold on Taobao still refine to flaunt themselves as European brands. Xu Yue told BoF: "their initial motive for using the external model is to create the tall" exotic ". Besides, in the time when China's fashion industry was deserted, high nose, big eyes and deep five senses were the strong aesthetic output of the west, which is difficult to eliminate in a short time.

Especially in areas such as Guangdong and Zhejiang, where the local garment industry is concentrated, foreign models have become a mature industrial chain because of the huge demand. In 2018, Alibaba's domestic trade platform 1688 released a "survival report in the Chinese ocean model". It shows that about 10 thousand foreign models work in the mainland, 7 of them are foreigners studying abroad, work or residence (meaning illegal work), and only 3 thousand people have professional visas. Most of these models come from Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. The proportion is more than 6. The selling points are mainly blond hair, blue eyed skin, big white legged and long legged legs, so as to meet the psychological needs of general consumers buying clothes.

"In the Chinese model market, the prices of European and American models are lower than that of Asian models, which is indeed a more economic choice for some emerging brands; and in East Asia, there is indeed a phenomenon of" worshipping foreigners. "FashionModels, a fashion blogger who shares and reviews fashion models and fashion phenomena, tells BoF that he has more than 9 million 330 thousand fans in micro-blog. "I have always encouraged Chinese brands to choose local models, whether they are fashion or make-up, and the demonstration of local models is more meaningful. Many domestic brands also have such an idea. EP brand has always insisted on selecting the lineup of all yellow people models in the show and shooting," he said. "Apart from cultural self-confidence, from a business point of view, this change is more meaningful for consumers' actual wear effect, which is reasonable," Xu Yue also supports this view.

But for the high-end market, the bigger problem seems to be that there is a serious disconnect between Chinese consumers and Chinese brands, such as brand executives, photographers and other overseas fashion leaders.

Interestingly, in the case of China's diversity and Western context, people's desire for exotic customs and Western aesthetics began to open doors for Uighurs and Kazakh models, at least in commercial work.

Uighur and Belarus hybrid models Na Di, Uighur model Na Yi, actress Guli Nazha and Dili hot bar are all the breakthrough faces in China. Di Ali Gerba served as spokesperson for brands such as Paris L'OREAL and Mikimoto, and Guli Nazha was appointed spokesperson for Alexander McQueen in May.

Lynn Lin, who started its own business after six years in Esee Model Management, said the girls from Western China: "looks like mixed blood, with beautiful faces and glasses, so people may easily call them business models."

Xinjiang born net red model @ Big BOPA said that in the past, customers often thought she was a mixed race, and this mistaken recognition was sometimes beneficial to her. "I have no strong feelings about this," she said.

Despite some commercial phenomena, the top Chinese models are mostly Han Chinese in the high fashion industry. "There are few high fashion models from Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia," says Lynn Lin.

This creates the difference between foreign brands and Chinese consumers. The former tends to choose Chinese models that look more like their "Oriental" models, while the latter tend to choose Chinese models that are not so similar. In some ways, it is the opposite of western aesthetics. It is a combination of Chinese and Western aesthetics, but it largely retains mild and exotic features.

For example, Chen Yu said he cong "super beautiful", but also "a bit like an alien," she does have an upward, traditional, beautiful eye, but her cheekbones are very prominent. Traditionally, Chinese do not like such a cheek structure. They prefer soft Apple muscles and melon seeds face.

The difference between eastern and Western aesthetic standards is one of the same problems in all parts of the world. People in the fashion circle often do not agree with the consumers they should serve. Therefore, in order to satisfy the complex and sometimes contradictory tastes of Chinese consumers and choose Chinese models, winning the cheers of Chinese fashion industry and Asian immigrants in the West has become a minefield.

"Ordinary consumers have no obligation to understand the brand's business strategy, creative needs and so on. It is more appropriate to observe the trend of public opinion and aesthetic changes from brands, "said Xu Yue.

Zheng Yu said: "overseas brands need to consider not just nationality, but whether the Chinese models I choose can satisfy Chinese consumers, rather than choosing some" stereotypes "to choose faces that are not in line with Chinese aesthetics. Many supermodels, which are popular in high-end fashion circles abroad, are not popular among Chinese commercial fashion brands. Chinese consumers actually like the face of both refined and popular tastes, which conforms to the definition of "high face" in the fashion circle, and can also satisfy the public's perception of beauty, such as cuckoo, Liu Wen and He Cong. These super models in China have outstanding performances in the high-end fashion field, and they also get excellent responses in the mass consumer market.

At the same time, we have reason to believe that the boundaries of the United States are expanding in China. "In recent years, domestic aesthetics has been more and more inclusive and diverse, and the recognition of beauty is becoming wider and wider," Zheng Yu said. In social media, we see that more and more people use the word "advanced face", that is, to appreciate the appearance of breaking the traditional aesthetic appearance is obviously more and more. The impact of diversified values, the increasingly open and inclusive culture, and the reflection of society on what role women can play are changing some young Chinese's aesthetic orientation towards models, "says Xu.

The survival report of the model in China shows that the proportion of Latino and mixed race models with wheat color has increased significantly over the past two years, showing another possibility of aesthetics beyond China's "white and thin". Chen Yu said, "thank goodness, in the past three or four years, I have seen great changes in social media and even on TV."