The Business of Fashion’s China Correspondent, Casey Hall and Yann Bozec, President of Tapestry Asia Pacific and President & Chief Executive Officer at Coach China, examined how global brands can resonate better with Chinese shoppers.
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[Video] LS Keynote Shanghai 2021: Communicating With and Activating Chinese Shoppers
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Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
The Business of Fashion’s China Correspondent, Casey Hall and Yann Bozec, President of Tapestry Asia Pacific and President & Chief Executive Officer at Coach China, examined how global brands can resonate better with Chinese shoppers.
According to a recent study co-published by Bain and Altagamma, the luxury market in mainland China grew by 97 per cent (at constant exchange rates) in 2021 compared to 2019, the year before the COVID outbreak, while the second fastest recovering market – the Americas – grew by only 13 per cent. Without a doubt, the Chinese market has become the cornerstone for global luxury brands seeking consistent growth.
Localisation is required for brands to deepen their relationship with local consumers. However, for the luxury category, striking a balance between localisation and its global brand image can sometimes be a challenge. Yann Bozec, President of Tapestry Asia Pacific and President & Chief Executive Officer at Coach China, told Casey Hall, China Correspondent at The Business of Fashion, that this, however, has never been an issue for Coach. The American luxury label has not only been hosting runway shows more frequently in China in recent years, but has also long collaborated with Chinese creators to better engage local consumers while bringing Chinese culture and lifestyle to the Western stage, allowing the world to better understand this country's charms.
Bozec also discussed how communicating with consumers in today's digital environment has evolved. "When you are customer-centric, you want to be where your customers are," he explained. Coach was one of the first brands to launch a DTC channel on WeChat, as well as establish a presence on third-party marketplaces such as Tmall. It is now also tapping into social commerce on social platforms such as Douyin and RED, in order to meet the emerging needs of different audiences.
Being present across multiple channels can also aid in the development of a brand's digital infrastructure and database. According to Bozec, the traditional luxury industry was previously only capable of segmenting its users based on basic tags such as gender, place of residence, and income, and was far less sophisticated than the beauty and sportswear industries. Tapestry is now consolidating the consumer data it has gathered across various digital channels to refine user profiles across platforms, allowing for more targeted marketing activities.
Also covered in the conversation were topics related to Tapestry’s influencer strategy and its omnichannel approach in the Chinese market. Watch the full interview in the video below:
Editor, Luxury Society
Before joining Luxury Society, Alexander was a business journalist covering M&A, finance, technology and marketing strategy at Women’s Wear Daily. He contributed articles to Financial Times, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, WSJ. Magazine and other media regularly as well. Alexander is also Research Director at DLG China.
