Fashion Information | Gucci's revenue rose 30% last year, and insufficient production capacity affected Hermes' financial report
Two Chinese designers shortlisted for LVMH Prize preliminaries
On February 16, the preliminaries of the 9th LVMH Prize for Young Designers were announced, and Chinese designers Chen Peng and Yueqi Qi were shortlisted.
CHENPENG, the eponymous brand of post-90s designer Chen Peng, focuses on down jackets with exaggerated outlines and bright colors, and gradually extends to jackets, trench coats, knitting, accessories and other categories.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chen Peng produced a total of 1,880 sets of performance costumes for the 5 programs (links) of the opening ceremony, including the opening program "Li Chun" pole lifter performance clothes, the five rings showing the future ice hockey clothes, the Peace Dove children's clothes, Pay tribute to the people's roller skating performance clothes and athletes from all over the world.
Another shortlisted Chinese designer, Qi Yueqi, was invited to participate in the Gucci Fest online fashion film festival (Gucci Fest). Its eponymous brand Yueqi Qi has been settled in Gucci's online concept store Vault. Glass beads and traditional weaving are the brand's signature. core element.
Hosted by the world's largest luxury goods group LVMH, the LVMH Prize Young Designers Competition is mainly for young designers under the age of 40 around the world, requiring applicants to have launched and sold at least two seasons of women's or men's ready-to-wear collections.
More than 1,900 designers submitted applications for this competition, and 20 brands from 13 countries were shortlisted. The finalists will be announced during Paris Fashion Week in March.
Last year, Chinese designer Zhou Rui won the special Karl Lagerfeld Prize (a prize shared by three designers).
She is the first Chinese designer to be a finalist in the past eight Grand Prix competitions, and the first Chinese contestant to win an award.
With the prosperity of the Chinese market, the voice of Chinese designer brands is gradually increasing.
Gucci's revenue rose 30% last year
On February 17, the French luxury goods giant Kering announced key financial data for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021.
As of December 31, 2021, the group's annual sales increased by 34.7% year-on-year to 17.645 billion euros, an increase of 13% compared with 2019, and fully recovered to the pre-epidemic level.
In the 2021 fiscal year, the revenue of the core brand Gucci increased by 30.8% year-on-year to 9.731 billion euros, of which sales in the fourth fiscal quarter increased by 31.6% year-on-year, nearly double the market consensus.
In addition, Saint Laurent increased by 44.5%, Baodiejia increased by 24.2%, other brands including Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen increased by 43.1%, and jewelry brands such as Boucheron, Pomelladot, and Kirin also performed strongly.
It is worth mentioning that last year, Kering Group increased its investment in marketing.
Gucci posted strong growth in the fourth quarter, benefiting from the launch of its "The Hacker Project" collection with Balenciaga and its 100th anniversary collection.
The film "House Of Gucci" released last November further boosted its popularity.
François-Henri Pinault, Kering's chief executive and chairman, expects Gucci's momentum to continue into 2022 and into the next few years.
Although Kering Group did not give a specific performance forecast for 2022 in its financial report, it expressed confidence in its medium and long-term growth potential.
On the 16th of this month, Louis Vuitton completed its first price adjustment this year. The price of classic handbags such as Neverfull increased by as much as 20%. Now the price of some Gucci products will also increase by about 10%.
Jean-Marc Duplaix, chief financial officer of Kering Group, said that this year Gucci will again raise prices in a "targeted way", and other brands in the group will also adopt similar price increases.
Insufficient production capacity affects Hermès financial report
The recent financial reports of Kering Group and LVMH Group exceeded analyst expectations, but Hermes failed to fully benefit from the recovery of luxury consumption due to tight production capacity.
Last week, Hermès released its 2021 full-year performance report. The annual revenue rose 42% year-on-year to 8.982 billion euros, and the recurring operating profit margin reached a record 39%.
Leather goods such as handbags are still the main source of income for Hermès, but due to the insufficiency of production capacity, the sales of the leather goods department in the fourth quarter fell by 5.4%, while analysts expected a decline of 2.3%.
The main reason for the poor performance of the leather goods division is a shortage of important products such as Birkin bags and Kelly bags, which usually account for half of Hermès' total revenue.
Axel Dumas, executive chairman of Hermès, said in a conference call: Hermès faces high demand, but because a Hermès leather bag usually takes 15 hours to process, production capacity is always limited.
Last month, the average selling price of Hermès products worldwide increased by 3.5%, compared with a 1.5% increase in the same period last year.
Fast fashion is on the rise
As global raw material, labor and transportation costs rise, fast fashion giants have also begun to raise product prices.
According to data from consulting firm Lectra, the average selling price of Zara products increased by 23% in the fourth quarter of last year, and the average selling price of H&M products also increased by 13%.
On the whole, Zara is more aggressive than H&M in terms of high-end.
In the past year, the average price of Zara's high-end products rose by 19% to 60 euros, while the average price of H&M's high-end products recorded a 3.2% increase to 66 euros.
In contrast, H&M seems to be more inclined to choose sustainable development as a breakthrough.
Lectra analysts concluded in the report that with the change of consumer concepts and market trends, the game rules of traditional fast fashion have already changed, but in order to get rid of the "negative image" that fast fashion has long planted in consumers' minds, Continuing to sit firmly on the head in the fast fashion industry, both Zara and H&M need to make bigger changes.
The fast fashion industry itself is also facing certain pressures.
According to a report from Research and Markets, a market analysis report service provider, although the global fast fashion market continued to increase to US$6.86 billion last year, it will grow to US$163.4 billion in the next five years, and the global fast fashion industry market size will exceed 200 billion in 2030. dollar, but the industry's annual growth rate has fallen by 3% since 2015.
On the other hand, Shein, whose annual revenue is approaching Zara's parent company, has taken another step forward.
According to foreign media reports, Shein is actively expanding the Singapore office, and LinkedIn's introduction page also shows its headquarters in Singapore.
Earlier, Shein founder Xu Yangtian had become a permanent resident of Singapore.
In January of this year, Shein was rumored to restart the listing plan and hired Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to participate, but did not disclose the specific amount of funds raised.
Swiss watch exports to mainland China fall
According to data released by the Swiss Watch Industry Federation, in January this year, the monthly export value of the Swiss watch industry was 1.7 billion Swiss francs, an increase of 6.8% over the same period, but the export value of Swiss watches in mainland China fell by 12.2% year-on-year, the first time since the outbreak of the epidemic. fell.
In addition, several major Asian luxury watch consumption markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have declined.
In fact, in the last two months of 2021, Swiss watch exports to mainland China began to show a slowdown in year-on-year growth.
In December last year, the year-on-year growth of Swiss watch exports to the mainland fell from double digits to 9.1%, which the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said at the time was mainly due to a negative base effect.
According to the "Swiss Watch Industry 2021" report released by Deloitte Consulting, more than 61% of Swiss watch brands have adapted to the needs of Chinese consumers to buy watches in the local market, and more than 39% of the respondents are investing heavily in or expanding the Chinese mainland market. .
Meanwhile, among Chinese consumers, one-fifth of respondents are willing to spend between 2,500 and 5,000 Swiss francs on a watch, and a quarter are willing to spend more than 5,000 Swiss francs.
Therefore, about 96% of Swiss watch brands and industry executives expect the watch market in mainland China to continue to grow after 2021, and 57% say it will still maintain strong growth.