Alcantara opens Italian fabrics in Shanghai

According to the world clothing and footwear network, on the eve of May 1st, a new store appeared in the shopping village of Shanghai Ou Lai Resort. Unlike the surrounding shops, the store's doorway is lined with two tall doorposts – a touch of fruit that will be found wrapped in a fabric that is touched by a fur. Similarly, all the products that are in the store and that can be touched are made of this fabric, or at least contain such fabric elements.

“You can touch it. We are a material brand in Italy. All the goods in the store are made of this Italian material.” The clerk will introduce this to every customer who enters the store.

The Italian material brand in the clerk's mouth refers to Alcantara. Founded in 1972, it is well known in the industry for its exclusive production of fabrics of the same name. Although it has a fur-like feel, it is actually made of polyester and polyurethane. It is durable, wear-resistant and easy to maintain. It is often used as a substitute for leather in many fields.

Among them, high-end automotive interior is one of the most concentrated uses of this fabric - if you enter "Alcantara" on the search engine and perform image retrieval, you will find that the result is almost all the details of the car interior.

Alcantara material

However, this store in Ou Lai is not used to display the interior of the car. What customers can buy at this store are fashion products such as clothes, shoes, bags and accessories. According to the clerk, there are many “orphans” in these products. They are from the hands of world-renowned artists and designers. Each one is only one in the world, and the price is more than 10,000 yuan.

“We hope to communicate and contact with consumers to better communicate that our materials can be used in many fields, just like even the extreme scenes of artists' artistic creations, our materials can be used. Andrea Oragno, Chairman and CEO of Alcantara, explained the origins of the products in the store to the interface news.

In addition to the goods, Oragno's intentions exist in another form in the store – a large area in Alcantara's Ou Lai store that is used to place artwork made of Alcantara material. These works of art have been group exhibitions in Milan and Shanghai, with the theme of “King and Me”.

Now, part of them are left in Alcantara's first store in Milan during the Milan Design Week 2017, and the other part is in Shanghai. As the second brand concept store in the world after the Milan store, Shanghai store has inherited the style and functional design features of the Milan store.

“Our collaboration with artists and designers has a long history. We now want to have a longer-lasting place to conduct exhibitions like Kings and Me to present our brand philosophy,” Oragno added.

Exhibits of "King and Me" in Alcantara Shanghai Concept Store

Whether it's fabrics for automotive interiors, or a luxury brand like CHANEL and a consumer electronics brand like Microsoft on the brand's Weibo, Alcantara gives the impression that it's a supplier. The customer is an enterprise customer.

The only change may be that it has been known as a car interior supplier in the past, and now it can be supplied in a wider range of fields. Orango also acknowledges that, as of now, even for a long time to come, "the core business and revenue source of the brand will be the B2B business for the enterprise."

But from Milan to Shanghai, Alcantara has set up an exhibition, and now it has opened a store to display art and carry out retail business for a long time. It is inevitable that Alcantara hopes to gradually shift the development focus to the consumer retail business.

“We value consumers very much now because we feel that this is a method and an aspect of our global business.” Oragno affirmed this conjecture, “We believe in B2B business (supplying materials for corporate brands) and B2C business (opening Shops sell products directly) complement each other and complement each other."

From the income level, the opening of such a concept store in Milan and Shanghai can indeed bring direct income to the brand. However, the income generated by the two stores in Milan and Shanghai is very limited. It is not related to the “complementary” with the order income generated by the brand and the corporate customers such as automobiles, ships and electronic brands.

Ordinary customers will know, know, and like Alcantara. This is not only a branding at the retail level, it will also help Alcantara attract more corporate customers.

Microsoft provides an example of an ad for a special version of the professional keyboard set Signature Type Cover. In this commercial film shot by Microsoft, the Alcantara material used by the protagonist Signature Type Cover keyboard cover was used as a promotional focus, with detailed details and brand name annotations. This is like a lot of times, we often listen. How many Swarovski crystals are used in some dress brands or crafts brands to promote their products.

Alcantara's goal is also to be used by corporate customers as a standard material that symbolizes advanced standards. But Alcantara is not the first brand to adopt this strategy. The color agency Pantone has also become a universal "color standard" by a similar approach.

When it was founded in 1963, Pantone had only one color matching system developed for the specific population of the designer. In the following decades of development, it has continued to open its own industry influence through brand cooperation in the fields of fashion and home decoration design.

After entering 2000, Pantone began to focus on "outside the industry." It has increased its investment in more consumer-oriented marketing campaigns and has launched products and events including the "Color Report of the Year", the Pantone Inn, the Pantone Restaurant, and the Pantone Cup. Even recently, when it began to try to launch the electronic professional color service app, it also launched a free version of the APP that is more suitable for the needs and habits of the mass consumers.

“It’s always an important strategy for Pantone to stay close to the public,” said Pantone’s vice president Ron Potesky, who accepted the design news site Fast Co. Design. “This brand (Pantone) has become a sought-after consumer of design. It now stands for excellence in design."

However, compared to Pantone, Alcantara is more targeted when approaching the consumer.

On the one hand, although as the main brand of “Made in Italy”, Alcantara's exhibition and opening of the store in Milan is a matter of course, but look at the location of the exhibition and the time of opening the store, you can also see the brand's “extra” intention.

The "King and Me" exhibition venue was selected in the local historical building of the Royal Palace of Milan, this place emphasizes the birthplace of the brand, but also meets the brand's desire to build a high-end image. The announcement of the brand concept store during the Milan Design Week is to identify opportunities to introduce and promote the brand to the global industry and consumers who care about the design – there should be no occasion to attract global design than Milan Design Week. The attention of lovers.

On the other hand, Alcantara chose both the exhibition and the second location to open the store in China, and it has also been well thought out – because the return on investment in China's stores and exhibitions may be the highest.

“If our sales are geographically divided, the Chinese market can now account for 20% of the market, and the Italian domestic market only accounts for 10%. Because China’s business is producing very well, we will invest 300 million euros to expand us. Machine equipment increases production." Orango said a part of the reason. From a performance perspective, the Chinese market is growing rapidly and has the potential to continue to grow. It is indeed worthwhile for Alcantara to invest in marketing.

At the same time, the Chinese market has given Alcantara the opportunity to expand its customer base. In fact, Alcantara also needs to explore more customers in different fields in the Chinese market. According to Orango, Alcantara currently only works with companies such as Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, General Motors, and Shanghai Automotive Group. Just as brands have customers in the world such as fashion, consumer electronics, home improvement, etc., there are plenty of opportunities in the Chinese market.

Alcantara Shanghai Concept Store

It is worth mentioning that the vigorous development of China's design industry has also laid the foundation for Alcantara to expand its influence in China.

“We are thinking about working with Chinese artists and designers,” Orango said. “Chinese designers are now developing very well. Most of the Chinese designers have focused on Western society a few years ago. But until last year, we found that many Chinese designers have their own unique and distinct personal style, which is a very good thing."

The prosperity of the design industry is also reflected in the fact that Chinese society is giving unprecedented attention to this industry. As we have repeatedly mentioned in past reports, with the wave of consumption upgrades, more and more Chinese customers are paying attention to and pursuing personalized design brands outside international brands, including the continuous expansion of Chinese independent designer brands. Therefore, this time is a perfect time for Alcantara who wants to open brand awareness in China through art and design.

Alcantara also saw this opportunity. Orango said in a media group interview with the opening of the Shanghai store that Alcantara has plans to open a second store in Shanghai, but there is no more specific information to disclose.

For more exciting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing and footwear network.

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