36 Krypton Future Consumption: What is your role?

Li Mingguang: You can understand that I have more roles as a creative director. In the early days, I will follow the details of each model, and now more is to control the overall direction will not run off, such as enough international, will not be too young, will not be too old and so on.

36 Kr future consumption: How are UR and ZARA different from a product perspective?

Li Mingguang: Compared with ZARA, UR is not the most international, but it is precisely because of this differentiation that we do well in China. UR is more localized in terms of type, size, color, design details, etc. ZARA is a European style, a lot of clothes have to be very high to control the body, the overall slightly mature.

36 KR future consumption: There are dozens of fashion styles in the market at the same time today, it is difficult to say which style dominates the market, how does your team grasp the latest fashion trends?

Li Mingguang: This actually depends on each person's fashion potential, because fashion is a perceptual, personal thing, it can not be standardized, can not be copied. But it has a learning method,

that is, as a designer and buyer, you should not only pay attention to industry information, but also often see art exhibitions, concerts, operas, travel more, stay in some good hotels, which are to improve their own taste.

Recruiting designers and buyers, I also care about whether they are willing to devote enough time to this thing, that is, "crazy love fashion." Often people with potential, will be "crazy love". Grooming and makeup are the first factors to judge "crazy love". Secondly, I will ask some professional questions.

36 Kr future consumption: In addition to the potential of the personal level, "crazy love", is there a set of mechanisms to ensure that UR is always fashionable?

Li Mingguang: The biggest difference between us and traditional clothing brands is that buyers rather than designers lead product design. Designers help buyers to achieve the landing of products,

designers can play freely, but buyers should control well, so that the product has two dimensions at the same time - both leading fashion, but also sell well, to achieve the best balance of aesthetics and business.

The digital thinking of UR designers may be a little stronger, and a clear understanding of why each model sells well or poorly will help TA design the next model in a clearer direction.

However, we will never suppress their creativity, not completely maximize sales. I don't want UR's products to sell well but not be fashionable. Sell well, but not fashionable, which is the reason for the decline of many Chinese brands.

UR women's and men's, brand photo

36 KR future consumption: Speaking of "selling well", what is UR's definition of "explosive"?

Li Mingguang: To achieve a certain sales volume, and the gross profit is within the standards we set, this is the explosion. If you don't make money but sell 10,000 units, it's not a hit.

Li Mingguang: At first, we produced 30 pieces at a time, and many suppliers were unwilling to cooperate, which forced us to build our own factory in 2007. Slowly, for some reason, the workshop workers with his wife or a few fellow villagers opened a 10-person,

20-person factory outside, and then asked me to do goods. As UR grew in size, so did the scale of these plants, and UR remained their core customer. You can understand that these factories were incubated by us and gradually formed a small supply chain cluster around UR to serve UR. Now, bigger suppliers are coming to us.

36 Krypton future consumption: "Fast fashion" is the most criticized quality problem, how do you evaluate the early UR product quality?

Li Mingguang: We have always believed that "quality" is an important factor driving consumers to continue to buy fast fashion brands. Many early suppliers, the pursuit of profit maximization, do not consider quality,

and each version is different, so how to talk about building a brand? So we built our own factories and R&D centers. At present, the trend degree and quality of products are rapidly improving every year, and the supply chain speed is also at the industry-leading level. From design to store shelves, UR can do it in 6 days at the fastest.