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interface news reporter | zhou fangying

interface news editor | xu yue

recently, the japanese fashion brand roarguns officially opened its first store in china in shanghai xingye taikoo hui. roarguns is a street fashion luxury brand founded by japanese designer saburo hamanaka in japan in 2002. it is known for its dark and gorgeous style. it hopes to convey the concept of "love&peace" to maintain peace and eliminate disputes through the brand.

as one of the early representatives of the dark style, roarguns established its iconic logo "crossguns". in the early years, roargungs was sold in mainland china through the trendy buyer store it, but its fame was far less than that of other japanese trendy brands such as a bathing ape.

now, roarguns is preparing to operate independently. tianyancha shows that the brand established an operating entity "roarguns trading (shanghai) co., ltd." in mainland china in early 2024.

the new store in shanghai xingye taikoo hui is just the beginning of the expansion plan. the brand will also open another new store in beijing sanlitun taikoo li.

at the same time, roarguns opened new accounts on social media such as wechat official accounts and xiaohongshu. in mid-august, shortly after roarguns opened its xiaohongshu account, the brand released magazine photos and street photos of two celebrities, fan bingbing and gong jun, wearing roarguns clothing to build momentum for the brand.

however, there is not much news about roarguns on xiaohongshu. the few posts that are available are all about reminiscing about the era when dark designs such as roarguns and chrome hearts were popular. this will also be the problem that roarguns will face in china: how to make the younger generation of consumers recognize the brand? how to make the original brand fans feel the brand’s renewal again?

in fact, while the overall clothing brand consumption is still weak, some small-scale brands with more vertical styles are beginning to emerge.

for example, the minimalist menswear brand nice rice opened five offline stores in 2023; the hot girl clothing brand basement fg opened large stores of several thousand square meters in beijing and shanghai. the good-looking store staff and pink handbags printed with the big "bf" logo made it quickly popular on social media; the korean fashion brand emis entered china to open offline pop-up stores, and also planned to start online live broadcasts; personal fashion brands of celebrities such as bai jingting and wang hedi also opened one after another, causing fans to check in and queue up.

the price range of these emerging fashion brands is basically below 1,000 yuan, focusing on cost-effectiveness and niche. to a certain extent, the gap left by the decline of international and local fast fashion brands is being filled by these "small and beautiful" fashion brands.

roarguns products are still on sale in it online channels, with the main price range being between 1,000 and 2,000 yuan, which is a price range that mass consumers can explore. however, in the context of sluggish clothing consumption, if roarguns cannot exert its strong brand effect, it may be difficult to attract consumers to spend more money to try niche styles.

this also explains why after opening an independent social media account, roarguns began to post promotional content of celebrities wearing the brand's clothing. this is a necessary path to quickly accumulate brand awareness in the chinese market.

it is worth noting that the reason why roarguns was able to enter the two taikoo shopping malls in shanghai and beijing and take the first floor of xingye taikoo hui is also related to the fact that the two shopping malls themselves are undergoing brand adjustments and re-positioning. shanghai xingye taikoo hui began adjustments at the end of 2023, moving the beauty and fragrance business originally formed on the first floor to the lg1 floor. in addition to roarguns, the first floor also has new luxury brands such as high-end watch brand rolex and down jacket brand canada goose.

with nanjing west road already surrounded by luxury shopping malls such as plaza 66 and zhang garden, hkri taikoo hui would naturally hope that niche brands can bring a different retail experience. this is also an important reason why the previous first floor brought together many niche fragrance brands.

however, compared with the aforementioned newly opened niche fashion brands, roarguns' pace in channel and brand building is still slow.

so far, in addition to online sales through it sales channels, roarguns has not yet opened sales channels on various e-commerce platforms such as taobao, wechat mall, and douyin. this may also be related to the capacity limitations of the operation team. the immediacy of online sales tests the brand's inventory management capabilities and the grasp of market trends, which is completely different from the operation of offline stores.

especially in the context of rapid updates and iterations in the fashion market and still sluggish consumer power, even well-known fashion brands with "everything ready" backed by the resources of large groups can hardly escape the fate of becoming outdated and shrinking.

in july 2024, supreme, which had just opened its first store in china in shanghai, was sold again, less than four years after vf corporation acquired supreme. vf corporation sold supreme to optical product manufacturer essilorluxottica for us$1.5 billion (approximately rmb 10.898 billion). considering the investment made in supreme's expansion over the past four years, vf corporation lost more than us$600 million in the difference between the two transactions.

popular and more successful fashion brands like supreme and off-white always want to get closer to the luxury camp, and have collaborated with lv, released limited-edition product series, and other means to promote the emergence of the term "fashion luxury". at a time when luxury consumption is in decline, these fashion brands have all become outdated and fallen on the eve of becoming the closest to luxury brands. this is the case for the top fashion brands, and the impact on small-scale fashion brands is even stronger.

if roarguns wants to gain a foothold in shopping malls in china's first-tier cities, it must create strong enough appeal to chinese consumers.