Shangguan Zhe Shares His Views On Cool, Design, Brand And Chinese Youth Culture.

From Xiamen to abroad, hot.

Shangguan zhe shared his views on cool, design, SANKUANZ brand and Chinese youth culture with reporters.

Xiamen, China, a designer who lived in the corner of Xiamen, never imagined that he would have such a busy international schedule.

In May, he first invited the designer of Finland Match Made in Hel to display the project, and displayed it with the designers of Henrik Vibskov, Heikki Salonen, Hyein Seo, etc. on the runway of Helsinki Airport.

SANKUANZ's 2016 autumn and winter series; in June, he co worked with the auto brand Mini to bring his crossover works and the 2017 spring summer series on Pitti Uomo in Florence. Then, in Paris men's wear week, the series was officially released in a dynamic show plus static display mode.

"None of this is planned," said the designer who had cut her long hair and had her own baseball cap. "The first time I went to London men's week, the more I was (GQ smart" fashion director and chief executive editor of GQ Style) Cui Dan pushed me.

The same is true for Paris.

In fact, looking back, there is no time to really prepare for it. Instead, it is the right time to do it.

His career as a designer began with this unplanned nature.

In 2003, when he graduated from Xiamen University with a double degree in visual communication and advertising, he graduated from the same school in the same year. He built his own brand with three thousand friends and two friends together with his experience of playing with tickets during the student period.

The 32 year old designer, who has not undergone formal fashion education, nor has worked in any of the big fashion brands, is like a messy businessman who has walked into the world of fashion.

In the past interview, he attributed it to himself as a "typical Aries, and directly acting on what he thought."

In the design of Shangguan Zhe, you can see that he directly reflected his observations and Thoughts on the world, and the imprints and effects of the world on his clothes, directly expressed in a direct image language: from early on behalf of Xiamen's triangular plum logo, camouflage uniforms, Jerusalem Jihad, to the following Wu Daopao, Tibetan Buddhist cloak, the Asian Games and Taijae Ji's intermingled blend, and then to the next quarter from the NASA's "universal worship".

His inspiration (or memory) is rich and miscellaneous, rich in conflict and rebellion, and unified in the mix of street and clothing aesthetic design.

This is what he accumulated and achieved through trial and error.

Because of this, he told reporters that in the process of brand growth, he has been constantly learning experience and adjusting his role: "at the beginning, I have not been so relaxed, take every garment seriously, and value every single item. Now, I hope to design more Freestyle, because designing clothes is very important for designers, but for a brand founder, what you want to express can not be simply passed on clothing, because the limitations of clothing itself are too large. We can not force them to give too much stuff. What you want to express is a bigger world behind you."

"In addition, I find that you can't listen to the opinions of buyers completely. They are responsible for their own company and do not necessarily tell you the real reason. In my experience, too much listening can have too much impact on you," he said.

In the process, he also shut down the Ze by SANKUANZ, which was the most popular sub line brand at that time, which helped him gain a lot of loyal customers and popularity through the Taobao online store.

"The sub line is of little value to me, so that I can waste time and maybe do a great deal, which is no different from doing other business," his answer was astonishing. "But the main line is different for me. When the side line is bigger, you can't invest in SANKUANZ."

Today, SANKUANZ already has more than 30 retail partners. Joyce, I.T, Galeries Lafayette, 10 Corso Como, and its pillars have paved the way for China, and through Trading Museum Comme DES, the store has been sold to Japan, Italy and the United States.

"I will not divide the market into domestic and foreign ones, because my products are not very popular but very long tail, very small stuff, so I will focus on every country and use design to serve these small crowds," said Shangguan Zhe.

He said the crowd is China, including other countries in the world love music, street culture of the gang of young people, but he does not think that SANKUANZ and Supreme, Palace and other street brand is the same route.

"They are more like skateboard brands, whose foundation is skateboard culture. For them, clothes are the carriers to promote skateboard culture, and do not require too many changes, but more like a religion.

And SANKUANZ's clothes are going to be innovated and changed every season, "he said, and then smiled and scratched his head." of course, we also want to make a culture that is completely brand oriented.

We want to show the face of young people in China and tell us what the young people are doing in the world.

Therefore, Shangguan zhe likes to absorb nutrition from young culture.

"I will keep on taking the initiative to contact many young people. Young people in China do not like things like Japan, they are more like the United States," he said.

He has finished watching all the variety shows of white background noise as a job. He also focuses on the works and movements of the highly sought after young idols such as Lu Han, Wu Yifan, Huang Zitao and others. But recently, the most exciting and touching things for him are the "little friends" of Chengdu and Chongqing.

{page_break}

"They are very young, 94 or 95 years old, and there are some middle school students," he told BoF. "Some do Trap music, some rap and some producers. From the very beginning, they imitate the black rap of American Atlanta, to the very native Chongqing dialect, Chengdu rap and Flow super!" his tone is obviously excited: "they even have their own clothes, though they are very street, and have a lot of Logo, but they have a complete set of their own system and views on music and the world."

So he came to one of them to help SANKUANZ make the show music, and worked with his stylist Tuomas Laitinen (founder and fashion director of SSAW), musician Zuo Xiao Zu Zhou and artist Xu Zhen to become a member of his cooperation and production team.

"We have quite a lot of students in that era, but now there are more and more cool children." as a 80, he talked about the 90 and 00 after that. He also has a hint of envy: "because the Internet has been brought up since childhood, the self-awareness of this generation has been awakened very early, and it has been known for a long time what it wants, and it is very smart to do it boldly.

I believe that the subculture of young people is not a secondary culture, but a pioneer culture, just like punk culture and the whole world trend led by American black hip-hop music.

Gathering cool young people is also one of the reasons why he has opened "AKP islands" outside his brand.

The designer store in the old house of Xiamen sells the works of Chinese designers such as Yifang Wan, Liu Min (Ms.Min) and Qiu Hao (Qiuhao). It also sells international brands such as Vans, Saint James, Y and S. More importantly, it also provides a wide exhibition space and cafes for "cool kids" to converge.

And helping him run this store is also a group of very young "fast growing kids".

"What I think is cool is that we can finish every aspect of the fashion industry and face the consumers directly in the retail market. Although the Internet is very developed, people and people's meeting is still very important. We hope to gather cool people through more activities, youth culture and contemporary art activities.

I have been thinking lately that the times are changing and the way to make brands is changing. In the past, the brand told you to listen: I am cool, you must be as cool as I am; now, they are looking at what the young people are like, and tell these cool people again.

Because nowadays, young people do not want to be anybody else, they just want to be more cool themselves.

(the designer also says that his AKP will not become her idol Wakubo Rei's Dover Street Market, but will do herself.

)

In addition, the designer is aware of the price separation between some "street" fashion brands and the consumer groups that should be purchased.

"When we opened the shop, we had 30 to 40 brands, and now we are streamlining and becoming younger," Shangguan zhe told BoF: "there are not so many high fashion goods, the price is more acceptable and more street."

Because the display of SANKUANZ pmission is still relatively simple, so the increase of Vans, Puma and other brands, and other brands together to increase the richness of the combination into a small world.

On the main line of SANKUANZ, it has enlarged the basic style of the relatively low price. At the same time, he also collaborated with Vans, Casio and other like-minded brands to make use of the advantages of cluster, and designed some three products with average price in RMB.

In the course of the interview, "young people" and "cool" are the words that Shangguan zhe most talked about. You can hear his excitement and enthusiasm, and it can be said that young culture has become a belief of him.

"To me, the coolest thing is that the future world is not dominated by mature elites, but young people. In the past, they had no chance to make voice and get the right to speak, but now everyone can express it." he said, "though you are very small, you can quickly find people like you in the world and form a force, which is a great impetus to the world."

When asked whether the subculture of young people will become a mainstream culture, will they be swallowed up by business? The young designer and mature brand operator replied, "there must be something cool, which is metabolism.

What else is there to play with the things we played ten years ago?