Jiangnan Buyi’s “Pursuit” Beyond Profit
2024-08-13
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Brand, product, past, future, partners, corporate culture - these wonderful parts come together to form a layered and colorful puzzle, showing the diverse stories about Jiangnan Buyi from different angles.
Founded in 1994, JNBY is China's leading designer fashion company. In August this year, as part of a series of activities to celebrate its 30th anniversary, JNBY held the "How to Make Clothes" exhibition at the Tianmu Li Art Museum in Hangzhou. The exhibition presents JNBY's 30 years of growth, concerns and vision from different perspectives through historical documents, reproduction of labor scenes and contemporary art installations.
In this context, on August 2, Hangzhou Tianmu Li Art Museum held a forum themed "Making the Most of Cloth - Dialogue between Tradition and Innovation". Li Lin, founder and chief creative officer of Jiangnan Buyi, said at the forum: "From Sesame Lab to the "Making the Most of Cloth" project, more and more experience is accumulated and peers are involved in circular fashion. This process is like a puzzle, making sustainability more valuable."
The past three decades have not only witnessed the growth of Jiangnan Buyi itself, but also vividly portrayed the rise of Chinese design power. Facing the global vision and future challenges, more companies and cultural institutions with the same mission are moving forward hand in hand, digging deep into local cultural resources, and striving to create a puzzle effect of "1+1>2", bringing more possibilities to society, culture and the environment. Over the years, Jiangnan Buyi has carried out extensive cooperation with many partners in material collection and sustainable development.
At the age of 30, we are united in our purpose. On the road ahead, "the energy of passion and mutual trust is quite strong." As Li Lin said when talking about the company's team building: "Imagine a group of people who like to do one thing and trust each other, so that things can be done with energy."
Love and trust should not be let down. Facing the 30+, Jiangnan Buyi's new journey has quietly begun.
Find the right balance between business and creativity
According to the latest financial report, in the first half of fiscal year 2024 (July-December 2023), JNBY's gross profit margin rose to 65.5%, and its profit increased by 54.5%. The company has found a point of convergence in the dynamic balance between business and creativity, and has laid out multiple sub-categories through a diversified brand matrix, thus ensuring the resilience of its performance.
It is understood that the design incentive mechanism of Jiangnan Buyi does not rely solely on sales performance, but encourages designers to be bold and innovative in the early stages of creation without having to consider commercialization too much. After a quarter of operation, the company will select outstanding designs for promotion, thereby achieving a dual promotion of creativity and business.
"Of course business is important, but I always tell everyone not to think that only business is important." As the company's chief creative officer, Li Lin believes that truly good design can make the wearer feel confident and improve their temperament. Although consumers may take different lengths of time to accept, they will eventually like these excellent designs.
As the scale of the enterprise expands, its influence is also growing, which brings greater challenges and responsibilities. It is reported that Jiangnan Buyi has set up a creative review team. Now all designs are reviewed by non-designer executives, and the review team members have a veto power. It is believed that scientific management can effectively make up for the unknown blind spots and make the company's operation more reliable and smooth.
In the use of environmentally friendly fabrics and handicrafts, we are committed to innovation
Fashion aesthetics and consumption trends continue to evolve and iterate with the times, but "Jiangnan Buyi" with its unique style always attracts the attention of the market.
From a single brand to the current brand matrix development, how do these brands maintain independence and diversity, and still have the tone of Jiangnan Buyi? Li Lin smiled and revealed that first of all, the material requirements of all brands under its umbrella must meet certain standards; secondly, designers often communicate with each other and have a certain consensus on design, so it is unlikely that completely opposite styles will appear.
Jiangnan Buyi has been using natural materials (cotton, linen, wool and silk) for many years and is fond of traditional handicrafts. In 2023, the JNBY brand launched the Suzhou embroidery series for the 23rd autumn and winter season. This year, JNBY embarked on a journey to explore the Miao customs and clothing culture, bringing the Miao silhouette, materials, skills and spirit back to the city. The Sketch and LESS brands will also carry out their own joint creations on traditional culture. In this process, the "Make the Most of Cloth" project provides more systematic design assistance.
The Internet has accelerated the iteration of trends. Brands, especially mature brands, need to have clear recognition and determination. Jiangnan Buyi is committed to innovation in the use of environmentally friendly fabrics and handicrafts, and has gradually expanded its material selection from natural materials to high-quality environmentally friendly synthetic materials to better meet the needs of modern consumers. Li Lin believes that "good materials not only last longer, but also look better as they get older. Not-so-good materials look particularly bad when they get old. Just like good wood, it can withstand time and becomes more and more durable over time." Properly handled traditional elements are still beautiful and contemporary, and traditional culture shows its unique charm in different time periods.
With similar beliefs and passion, Rong Design Library focuses on combing traditional crafts, such as mortise and tenon structures and ceramic colors, which is of great appeal to designers. However, due to being busy with seasonal designs, it is difficult for designers to delve into these areas. After understanding each other's needs, Jiangnan Buyi and Rong Design Library hit it off and launched the "Make the Most of Cloth" project. In the future, the project expects more brands to organically collide and inspire unlimited creativity.
Achieve sustainable development through long-term investment and R&D
Art and design not only lead the evolution of aesthetics, but also have a profound impact on people's imagination and pursuit of an ideal life. It is reported that at the company's 30th anniversary internal annual meeting, Li Lin mentioned in her sharing that she hopes Jiangnan Buyi will become a company that makes people feel happy, so that employees, partners and the company can achieve sustainable development together.
To achieve this goal, Jiangnan Buyi has been improving year by year in ESG (environment, society and governance) and has gradually improved various standards and measures.
Sustainable development in the apparel industry is not just about choosing environmentally friendly materials, but also about taking into account all aspects of the supply chain, including worker welfare, working environment and carbon footprint. The domestic market is also gradually improving and aligning with international standards. Brands have played a key role in promoting these changes.
Jiangnan Buyi has been considering the application model of circular fashion from different aspects of the product life cycle. Li Lin laughed and said that in 2015 they had the "ambition" to create a brand called REVERB that uses only sustainable materials. However, in 2018, they found that due to the immaturity of the supply chain, many raw materials needed to be transported over long distances, and the actual operation failed to achieve sustainable goals. After these attempts, they decided to gradually integrate sustainable practices into all brand lines.
Every year, clothing companies deal with sample fabrics and scraps that are not used in mass production. It is a huge waste to discard scraps. For this reason, Jiangnan Buyi established the Sesame Lab, which is committed to the recycling of these materials. In order to explore new possibilities, the Sesame Lab uses sample inventory for independent design, which is not bound by product planning and has a relatively pure creative environment. Its goal is not to gain economic benefits in the short term, but to influence the design teams of Jiangnan Buyi's brands and promote their mutual communication and reference.
As a sustainable lifestyle brand founded on the belief of long-termism, RE;RE;RE;LAB’s starting point is also not to make quick profits, but to refine its craftsmanship, feed back to the quality improvement of the main brand, and promote the creation of a sustainable supply chain. Through RE;RE;RE;LAB’s low-cost experimental exploration, it will be promoted and applied to more brands.
Handicrafts are a major component of culture. How can we promote traditional Chinese handicrafts from "traditional" to "modern"? How can we inspire more young people to participate and inject new vitality into the fashion market? These are also the core issues for the sustainable development of the entire industry.
Last year, Jiangnan Buyi sponsored the weaving museum of Rong Design Library in Qingshan Village under the name of the "Make the Most of Cloth" project, and launched three documentaries on the inheritance of craftsmanship. This year, the "Make the Most of Cloth" applet was upgraded and optimized for online archives to more comprehensively share research resources and archives with the industry.
From nourishing its own brand line to working with partners, the "Make the Most of Cloth" project builds a platform. In a sense, this echoes the theme of Jiangnan Buyi's 30th anniversary, "Born from Uniqueness, Stand on Diversity", that is: open resources to strengthen connections, and through the application and promotion of the brand, more groups have the opportunity to participate in it, and multiple subjects jointly build a handicraft ecosystem and create a Chinese design story. I believe that for Li Lin and Jiangnan Buyi, driven by design, the pursuit of sustainable development of ecology and culture will continue.
Mao Wenting
(This article is from The Paper. For more original information, please download the "The Paper" APP)
