True Valentino Valentino Says Goodbye to Valentino

"General customers who buy our stuff do not say 'Valentino' and call 'Valentino' neither," said Hebe, a clerk at Valentino's Chinese flagship store, Shin Kong Place. It has been nearly one year since she was here to work. During the year, there will be consumer sighs from time to time: “The previous Valentino has now done this?”

Indeed, in the hearts of most Chinese consumers, Valentino is not a decent brand. For the past ten years, Valentino and Pierre Cardin have been ridiculous representatives of fake brands.

In fact, Valentino, which has been translated as Valentino, is a high-end luxury clothing custom brand with a higher average unit price than Dior, Chanle and other first-tier luxury brands. Some of the most important people in the fashion industry are proud to have worked for the Valentino family. Karl Lagerfeld, director of Chanle, is one of them.

When people ignore this brand that sounds like a comedy, it is quietly returning. In 2010, Valentino was able to make a turn for the better and make profits after several consecutive losses. Valentino achieved sales of 400 million euros in 2012, a year-on-year increase of 21%; operating profit increased by 43.3% year-on-year. The growth of the most popular brands in China are as follows: LVMH Group's 2012 growth rate was 9%; PPR Group's Gucci growth rate was 7.6%; Salvatore Ferragamo posted a net increase of 13.4%.

In China, this data is more prominent. Take the Beijing Shin Kong Place Mall as an example. Valentino's store is located on the second floor, with an average monthly rate of approximately 27,700 yuan. The Gucci (No. 3 in Shin Kong Place sales ranking third in 2012), located on the first floor, is approximately 1.92. Ten thousand yuan.

When the cottage brothers grew up

In the late 90s of last century, "True Warren" and "Fake Slaves" grew up in China.

In 1993, the Valentino brand founder Valentino Garavani personally took Valentino high fashion and ready-to-wear to hold a large-scale exhibition in Beijing, but did not enter China. In 2004, Valentino's global CEO, Mr. Michele Norsa, announced Valentino's "China Development Strategy", which opened the curtain for Valentino's official landing in the Chinese market.

However, the story did not develop as Michele Norsa preferred. Valentino, which has been translated as "Valentino", has not yet entered the hearts of the people. The Chinese market has already seen countless Valentino.XX. "Valentino" is no longer a luxury brand with a truly noble lineage, but for a universal root, just add any suffix to jump off the floor.

In fact, these cottage brothers are not really from the Valentino family. Among them, they got the sales right from the general distributors in Taiwan and Hong Kong; they informally registered “Valentino” as the name of the company and then returned to the domestic market. The chaotic market has forced Valentino to choose to gradually withdraw from China before and after 2007, and stores are gradually withdrawing from Beijing and Shenzhen. This is also the only two stores Valentino has in China at the time.

Valentino has experienced a complex change in ownership structure across the globe while retreating from China. From 1990s to 2000s, there were several different branches within the Valentino family due to the issue of inheritance rights. This is one of the reasons why Valentino has no time to consider the legitimate rights of its brand in China.

In 1998, due to business difficulties, the Valentino family had to sell the company to an investment company for $233 million. However, the company's operating conditions have not improved and are heavily in debt. In 2002, the Marzotto family bought Valentino for $210 million when the company’s liabilities reached $180 million. Since then, the Marzotto family has not made Valentino safe. In 2009, Valentino's sales amounted to approximately 238 million euros and a loss of 4.4 million euros before tax.

Rivets overturned

Younger became one of Valentino's strategies.

The Marzotto family has been trying to turn things around after acquiring Valentino. In 2009, Stefano Sassi was appointed Valentino’s CEO and Fashion Brand Director. Soon after, Stefano Sassi announced that the Asian market and emerging markets will become new goals for Valentino's development. In November of that year, Valentino announced the establishment of a new store in Shanghai’s Hang Lung Plaza and returned to China.

At the same time, Valentino actively sought out new custom-built evening wear customers, focusing on targeting the consumer markets in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Although custom-made evening wear only accounted for 2% to 5% of Valentino's sales, Stefano Sassi believes that custom eveningwear is a great tool for communicating with customers. One of his clients is Qatar's Wang Shu Shika Moza. He usually wears only haute couture and is known for his Valentino clothing. Of course, this may also be one of the reasons why Poka Moza looks forward to Valentino's acquisition in the future.

After Stefano Sassi took office, he increased the promotion of emerging markets and on the other hand launched the second-hand red Valentino. In the luxury goods industry, it is no longer fresh to seize luxury markets through sub-licensing, such as Miu Miu for Prada, Marc by Marc Jacobs for Marc Jacobs, DKNY for Donna Karan and so on.

There are too many unpredictable factors in running a luxury brand, and it is true that designers can find success. In Valentino, since the retirement of chief designer and founder Valentino Garavani in 2008, although the brand is still a popular choice for stars to take the red carpet, it is also limited to red carpet and advanced customization. Since then, Alessandra Facchinetti, the creative director of the Marzotto family who had been invited from Gucci, had been expelled only in the first quarter of the year and followed Valentino's 10-year Chiuri and Piccioli succession.

Unlike his predecessor, in terms of products, Chiuri and Piccioli's designs retain the classic elements of the essence of the Valentino brand, and inject more youthful spirit. At the Paris Fashion Week 2010, Britain's “It Girl” Alexa Chung's pair of riveted flats entered the major show fields. Its playful and cute style attracted the attention of major fashion media. Today, the Valentino rivet series has become a dark horse in the fashion industry. For Valentino, the significance of the rivet series is that the brand has finally won the favor of young consumers.

Under the Stefano Sassi series of initiatives, the Valentino market slowly recovered in early 2010. As of June 30, 2011, Valentino's revenue rose by 24% year-on-year to EUR 152 million. In the first half of 2011, Valentino boutiques opened in Beijing and Shanghai. Sassi said that Valentino’s sales in the Chinese market have maintained a 35% to 40% growth for the third consecutive year, both in accessories and in ready-to-wear clothing. Today, in Mainland China, Valentino has 14 outlets in 11 cities.