How to build a luxury brand in the soil of Chinese aesthetics? This is a topic that many people are groping about.

From July 31 to August 2, 2020, the first round of the sixth Advanced Management Course of Orange Bay University was successfully completed.

In the class, Li Xu (below), the founding partner of Duanmu Liangjin, a new generation of Chinese luxury brand, frankly shared with you the development process of the brand's continuous trial and error in positioning, channels and other aspects along the way.

It is particularly worth mentioning that the founding team behind Duanmu Liangjin is not from a family of craftsmen, but a combination of "high-achieving students" with architectural design and electrical engineering backgrounds from Tsinghua University, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

Duanmu Liangjin, an original Chinese luxury brand, was established in Beijing in 2011, focusing on the design of handbags and fashion accessories with "wood" as the main body, supplemented by brocade and leather. At present, the brand has opened three physical stores in Beijing 798 Art District, International Trade Mall and Wangfu Central.

Antique collection circle started the Chinese traditional aesthetic brand
Born in 1983, Qi Tian is a bachelor of architecture from Tsinghua University and a master of architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been fond of traditional culture since college and is keen on collecting ancient coins.

After returning from the United States in 2011, Qi wanted to make a wooden box to collect his own collection of coins, he began to draw drawings, contact the factory to customize. Because the order volume is small, the goods are single, few factories are willing to accept the order, and finally find a factory willing to help produce, but the final product is far from the ideal degree of refinement.

After several twists and turns, Qi days of architectural origin was determined to learn wooden craft and do it himself, and soon made a finished product.

Qi days made of these wooden boxes beautiful and practical, by the side of the Tibetan friends alike. Qi Day thus found a business opportunity - the common art packaging is a cardboard box, neither beautiful nor practical, antique art storage market there is a gap. Qi days began to specialize in custom packaging for art collections, orders poured in.

In 2011, Qi Tian officially created Duanmu Liangjin brand, the initial positioning is for the traditional Chinese art collection design custom wood packaging, from ancient coins porcelain to Buddha collection can meet the needs.

In 2012, Qi Tian's wife, Li Yuanjun, who graduated from the photoelectric engineering Department of Beijing Institute of Technology and the School of Electronic Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, also joined the team and was responsible for company management and technology research and development.

Until 2015, Duanmu Liangjin has become a small name in the collection circle, and has worked with many top collectors and auction houses.

But at the same time, Qi day also found the problem: in view of the small and private characteristics of the antique circle, many of the brand's design are "one-time" consumption, not energy production, limited scale of development, while there are a lot of friends around do not play collection but very love Qi day design box.

So he started thinking about a transition.

Before a dinner event, Qi day for his wife to create a banquet with a wooden clutch bag, received unanimous praise. Many friends are particularly interested in this wooden handbag, seeking the same product. Qi day also saw a new market demand, thought of wooden bags as a breakthrough attempt to transform.

At the beginning of the transformation, Qi day, who is distressed for brand positioning, accidentally saw the poster of the annual special exhibition of the Japanese Central courtyard, above the Tang Dynasty rosewood painting groove pipa decoration is exquisite, the level of wood insetting technology is unsurpassed, he was deeply shocked, and began to study the mystery of Han and Tang aesthetics.

Hope to pay tribute to the traditional Chinese classics, with the accumulated wood Mosaic technology on the bag to reproduce these classical patterns, glow new luster.

In 2016, Qi Tian's Tsinghua University classmate Li Xu, a master of architecture from Harvard University, joined the team: Qi Tian is responsible for design and production, Li Yuanjun is in charge of finance and research and development, and Li Xu focuses on brand building and market expansion.

The three began to build a new Duanmu Liangjin together: focusing on the design and creation of wood-based handbags and fashion accessories.

Duanmu Liangjin means: "correct wood, excellent brocade" - wood and brocade are the classic elements that constitute a package, and are also the two materials that traditional Chinese people are most good at using. Duanmu Liangjin has always focused on the "correct" and "excellent" of classical China to pass on to the world. The slogan of the brand is "A View, A China".

All the series of the brand point to the same theme of aesthetic thinking: spanning the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, tracing the Qin, Han, Jin and Tang dynasties, writing classics at the peak of Chinese civilization, and striving to translate the beauty of China into a worldwide fashion expression.