Princess, please get in the car", "Princess, please eat", for a while, "princess" seems to have become the most heard word this winter.
It is said that every girl has a princess dream in her heart, and every princess must have a dress exclusive to her.
However, as early as the last century in Guangdong, there was a clothing brand that relied on marketing "Princess Dream" to open 830 stores across the country, with sales exceeding 100 million, and it isThere was once a lady house of countless girls' "dream clothes".
However, at this time when the "princess dream" is popular again, the lady's house is no longer the scenery of the past.
More than 800 stores have closed down, from a popular fashion brand to an e-commerce brand that only sells on the market, and words such as "ugly" and "ugly" frequently appear in the comment area of the live broadcast room.
What happened to the lady's house that it became what it is today?
The soul of the Lady House is called Kuangzi, and she is also one of the founders of the Lady House.
Kuangzi is a literary girl, she first studied as a teacher, and after graduation, she also became a kindergarten teacher, at this time she had nothing to do with the clothing industry.
Until the end of the 80s of the last century, she went to Shenzhen for a trip, which also made her life embark on a completely different path from the previous ten years.
In 1991, Kuangzi quit her job as a kindergarten teacher and went south to Shenzhen to find her own opportunities, first working as a graphic designer in a clothing company.
But this job didn't last long, she fired her boss Squid, and founded a clothing company with her husband Xu He, called Kuangzi Clothing, which was the predecessor of the Lady's House.
Because Kuangzi and Xu He are both immigrants, it is difficult to open a company in Shenzhen, so they asked their brother-in-law with a Shenzhen hukou to help set up a company and hold shares on their behalf.
The personal design style of the lady's house is very distinctLace, snow yarn, florals, embroideryThere are a lot of clothing elements such as this, and the image looks particularly prominent.
In the choice of color, the clothing design of the lady's house is widely usedVermicelli, white and sky blue, the taste of the ancient court style is very strong.
Even in the '90s, when minimalism was the mainstream, the House of Ladies continued to use cascading and grand accessories to compliment the inner fantasy of its garments, and the style has remained consistent for decades.
The clothes of the ladies' house were very popular among the girls at that time, and for them, this was the dress they dreamed of from the bottom of their hearts.
Girls walk on the street wearing the skirts of the lady's house, although many will look at these colorful and complex little dresses, but they will still attract many passers-by to ask: "Did you buy your skirt?" ”
This was the daily life of the girls who wore the clothes of the lady's house at that timeIt's not so much that they like the lady's house, but that they are immersed in the princess dream that Kuangzi weaves for them.
However, the lady's house is not cheap, at that time, the **brand** of the same type as the lady's house was generally between 100 and 200, while the lady's house was easily priced at four or five hundred shirts, seven or eight hundred skirts, and several thousand pieces.
This pricing is also cautious, it belongs to not most girls can afford it at will, but let them stand on tiptoe and get it**, you will see the skirt outside the window The girls scratched their hearts, desperately saving money to buy one.
Some girls earn 1,500 a month, but they still grit their teeth and take out 800 to buy a dress for a lady's house, and even take the bus for several hours.
In terms of marketing, the lady house is also at the forefront of the times.
In the 90s, he knew how to advertise in the most popular "Girlfriend" magazine at that time, and when the Internet forum was just emerging, Lady House was keenly aware of its future advertising potential and established a forum early.
At the same time, perhaps it is the girl's literary and artistic heart, when Kuangzi designs clothes, he will give each piece of clothing a nice name, and then add a moving story, and even sell a picture album, buy clothes and send a picture album.
Of course, a large part of the success of the lady's house is still standing on the cusp of fashion aesthetics.
During the period around the turn of the millennium, influenced by Japanese and Korean cultures, and the idol dramas of Taiwan Province were so popular in the mainland, the sweet and well-behaved lady style became the mainstream aesthetic of girls at that time.
It even came into beingThe "Lady Triumvirate": Lady House, Aylian and DaphneAt that time, girls bought dresses to buy ladies' houses, clothes to buy Aylian, shoes to buy Daphne.
Aesthetics, marketing, coupled with the excellent quality of clothes, lady's houses soon blossomed all over the country.
As of the time of applying for listing, Lady House had 830 stores across the country, of which 159 were franchised stores, and the remaining 671 were all directly operated stores, covering nearly 150 cities across the country.
In addition, the Lady House has also extended the brand and launchedThe casual brand "Natural Elements", the casual brand "fairyfair", and the children's clothing brand "Little Lady and John".and other brands.
If this trend continues, the lady house may not be able to become a well-known national brand, and truly turn the "princess dream" into reality.
However, things always backfired, and the "princess dream" of the lady's house finally ushered in the day when the dream was shattered.
In 2011, Lady House submitted a listing application to the Shanghai ** Stock Exchange, which attracted the attention of many people in the financial circle and fashion circle, but they also said that it was not good for Lady House to be successfully listed.
At that time, the deputy director of investment in the consumer industry of the venture capital institution Tongchuangweiye once posted on Weibo: "The volume of the lady's house is a bit small, but the hundred-dollar pants industry of the same size as the lady's house has passed, so it's not easy to say." ”
The net profit of the lady house in 2010 was 6,077 yuan, and the requirement for the listing of the small and medium-sized board was more than 50 million yuan, which was more than but not much, so many professionals were not sure.
However, when the prospectus of the Lady House was revealed, both the financial and fashion circles were silent.
There is a ** in the prospectus, which lists the popularity of some brands currently on the market, whileThe popularity of the lady house in ** is higher than that of the international luxury brands LV and Dior.
People in the fashion industry laughed, who is more popular than whom, can they not know.
People in the financial circle also laughed, what they are best at is telling a moving story to make others pay, and now the lady house is bragging in front of them and wants them to pay, isn't it ridiculous and generous.
All of a sudden,"Over-packed".This label is firmly attached to the lady's house and cannot be torn off.
After that, the deeper problems of the lady's house gradually broke in front of ** and consumers"Unprofessional, lack of basic clothing knowledge" and "The professionalism of the prospectus is too low, it is purely for investors to draw cakes".Wait a minute.
Of course, there are two most serious problems, and that is"The shareholding of the founder's family members is too concentrated" and "there is too much inventory".
Lady House is a family-owned business, Kuangzi herself serves as the chief designer, her husband is the chairman, her sister is the general manager, and her sister is the purchasing manager, and later Kuangzi's sister-in-law was also pulled into the company by her.
Although family-owned businesses are not uncommon in the apparel industry, there is a family behind many international fashion brands, such as the Arnault family behind the LVMH group.
However, this is still relatively shy in the domestic investment market, after all, too many shares held by the founder's family members are not too friendly to other external investors.
Another point is the problem of too much inventoryPressing the goods in your hands can be said to be a taboo in the entire clothing industry, especially for companies like Lady House that take the offline store retail route.
Therefore, clothing companies are often cautious when determining production quantities, considering the sales situation of the previous quarter, estimating risks, and even taking into account trend changes.
What's more serious is that after many problems were exposed, the Lady House dreamed of IPO, and since then it has begun to decline, with fewer and fewer store counters and more and more inventory.
In addition to the above problems, the core factor of the decline of the lady's house is because of the liberalization of people's aesthetics.
The increasing development of the Internet and ** has exposed consumers to more diversified fashion styles, which makes the style of "picking customers" like the ladies' house more niche.
Old customers rarely buy a lady's house after they grow up, and the post-90s and post-00s are not very interested in the sweet lady's style like the lady's house, which leads to a user fault and is unsustainable.
After that, the rise of e-commerce has had a great impact on offline fashion stores, and clothing brands such as Lady's House, which mainly focus on offline retail, are the first to bear the brunt.
Gradually, the Lady House stores, whose offline business became more and more bleak, also disappeared one by one, and even closed all offline channels in the end, leaving only online ** stores and live broadcast rooms with goods.
Today's lady house has become an e-commerce brand from the pursuit of thousands of girls, and only when the anchor with goods is telling about that glorious past, people are in a trance Some memories come up in a trance, and they sigh about the past.
It's just that all the people who have bought the lady's house have woken up from that "princess dream", leaving the lady's house alone and still intoxicated.
As a memory of the times, the lady's house is still doing its best even if it is difficult to develop now.
Although it may not be as sought after by thousands of girls as it was at its peak, as long as it follows the direction of the dream and does not give up looking and exploring, it will definitely encounter new development opportunities in the future and take advantage of the momentum.