Actively getting older 20 years old "grandmother" model "breaks the circle"
The middle-aged and elderly clothing industry does not compete for appearance and sales, and the future development faces the challenge of bringing goods anchors
Recently, a group of post-90s models who specially photographed clothing posters for middle-aged and elderly people for e-commerce platforms have "broken the circle" on the Internet.
Everyone found out that it was a group of young girls who shot these "mother outfit" and "grandma outfit" posters.
In China's growing clothing market for middle-aged and elderly people, the job of these young people is to make themselves more than 20 years old through makeup, and then put on mother's clothes and grandma's clothes to show the most beautiful posture in front of the camera.
They also witnessed the changing trend of clothing for middle-aged and elderly people while they were working.
However, this "grandma outfit" model industry, which has been developing secretly for more than 10 years, is also facing the challenges and iterations of video delivery anchors.
story
Just 30 years old, has taken 12 years of middle-aged and elderly clothing photos
"Click, click, click..." Accompanied by a shutter sound, "Aunt Xiaoliang" in front of the camera skillfully switches the shooting posture: or the orchid finger is slightly raised, lightly touching the forehead, or sideways with one hand on the hip, accompanied by kindness and beauty The smile looks elegant and dignified.
And when she takes off her makeup and hair and puts on her own clothes, you will be surprised to find that the "Elegant Aunt" in the camera is actually a young and beautiful Beijing girl.
"After 12 years of shooting middle-aged and elderly clothes, I'm finally 30 years old." In mid-June, post-90s model Liang Xiaoqing posted a message on Weibo to celebrate her 30th birthday.
When the iconic pan head and orchid finger appeared, many people exclaimed that it was her who "emptied my mother's wallet" over the years.
Once, with nearly 100 poses in one minute, every frame without waste, Liang Xiaoqing quickly became popular on the Internet.
In March 2022, Liang Xiaoqing was invited by a famous international brand to shoot a new product display video. She also proudly wrote on her social account: "Aunt Xiaoliang has gone international."
Liang Xiaoqing, who was born in 1992, entered the middle-aged and elderly clothing market as early as the beginning of e-commerce. Later, An Tiantian, a post-1985 model who also entered the market, was also praised by netizens for taking photos at the speed of light. : "I thought it was artificial intelligence!"
In fact, in the huge middle-aged and elderly clothing market, the job of young people like Xiaoqing and Tiantian is to make themselves more than 20 years old through makeup, and then put on mother's clothes and grandma's clothes to show the most beautiful posture in front of the camera.
They also witnessed the changing trend of clothing for middle-aged and elderly people while they were working.
Nowadays, there are not a few young people working as "middle-aged and elderly clothing models" like Liang Xiaoqing and An Tiantian.
They also continued to set off a discussion boom on social media platforms.
Accidentally selected by customers as "top stream" and refused to enter the industry
Talking about her experience in the industry, Liang Xiaoqing said that she was "more or less" a little surprised.
Liang Xiaoqing, who originally majored in communication technology, planned to find a stable office job after graduation.
By chance, she took up a part-time job of etiquette after being introduced by a friend.
Gradually, there have been more photo shoots such as group buying activities.
In just half a year, she has accumulated a lot of beautiful model samples.
At that time, Liang Xiaoqing just turned 18 years old, and she began to deliver samples and resumes to various e-commerce merchants and wedding photography shops.
After a long wait, a studio in Beijing offered her an olive branch to shoot middle-aged and elderly clothes.
"At the time, I was a little shocked. I was so young and asked me to wear middle-aged and elderly clothes." Liang Xiaoqing was a little surprised when she first received an invitation from a client, but she didn't hesitate too much: "The client chose me because I have broad shoulders and a fleshy face. Yes, it is more suitable to wear middle-aged and elderly clothes, I think it’s okay to try more styles while you are young, and you can earn pocket money.”
Life's major turning points always seem to come unexpectedly.
An Tian Tian, who is also a "top-notch" in the middle-aged and elderly fashion model industry, has also explicitly refused many times to customers who suddenly came to his door.
Ten years ago, An Tian Tian had already photographed almost all types of clothing.
When a client of a senior clothing supply chain invited her to shoot in Hangzhou with sky-high advertising fees, Antian didn't take it seriously at all, "It must be a liar." Until one day, the client told her that Hangzhou was the most popular before. My mother quit pretending to be a model, so there is a lack of a new model to take the lead.
If she were in the past now would be the best time.
An Tian felt that this was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
So, she decided to enter the Hangzhou market and challenged mother and grandma clothes.
Facts have proved that Antian's choice was right.
Only two or three months after arriving in Hangzhou, she became a "fixed model" of the top ten online stores "selling the most powerful mother clothes" on an e-commerce platform at that time, and the average daily shooting volume was stable at three or four hundred pieces. .
investigation
The secret of working
According to An Tiantian, there are two main sources of customers for models: one is clothing suppliers, and the other is online stores.
Clothing suppliers will provide pictures of models and integrate all sources.
For many small sellers, clothing suppliers are extremely important.
Small sellers have limited clothing styles and too few orders, and clothing factories may not take orders.
In addition, many small sellers can only be discouraged in the face of high model costs.
At this time, in order to let these small sellers sell more goods, people from clothing suppliers will prepare a set of model pictures for them.
Another major source of customers is the online store.
The products in the online store will be continuously updated, so we have to shoot every week.
Although the amount of each shot is not much, it is very stable.
If a model can sign up to five online stores, then the economy will be relatively stable.
The number of customers depends on the model's previous record, that is, the amount of explosive orders.
Suzhou Nishang Hanxiang Clothing is a family business with a history of more than 20 years. Before the e-commerce industry emerged, Mr. Bao's parents had already entered the middle-aged and elderly clothing market.
At present, the company owns a number of middle-aged and elderly clothing brands.
"Because they have all shot popular models, Xiaoqing and Tiantian's information is in the first few pages of the model album." Mr. Bao remembers that when he first selected models, he deliberately tried almost all models for the sake of "hosting fairness". all over.
He later admitted that the models on the first few pages of the album were indeed more likely to hit the list.
Exploding orders means that the click rate, collection rate, and conversion rate are all excellent.
"Normal and excellent models have more than 5 points, good models have seven or eight points, and our best models have reached 12 points. That is to say, 12 people collect when 100 people come in." Mr. Bao explained.
"E-commerce models pay more attention to sales. Even if they are beautiful, the clothes they shoot don't sell well. On the contrary, even if they don't look outstanding, but the clothes they shoot sell well, they are popular models." Liang Xiaoqing said frankly, this kind of The competition is cruel and very convincing. "Sales speak for everything. Exploding orders is king. This is the reality that e-commerce models have to admit."
Liang Xiaoqing still remembers that the model fee for her first entry was 10 yuan per dress, and she once photographed 400 pieces a day at most.
Among them, one of the clothes happened to become a hit, and she was lucky to become the "king of goods". "The black mother's dress with a floral collar sold more than 90,000 pieces at once."
In order to maximize the use of model films to attract page views to the products, many customers will also adopt the method of “measurement action”, and these models will be hung on the main shopping map of the platform in turn to monitor the traffic. The second model shoot must have the action of that picture.
As for which movements can carry high traffic, Mr. Bao gave this answer: "It depends on the style, each style has a specific selling point, such as the design on the waist, the side action is the most suitable; the sleeves are embroidered, just You need to raise your hand." An Tian Tian believes that sometimes customers follow the trend. For example, if a customer sells a picture with a picture, there will be countless imitators, or even steal pictures. When the whole network tends to be consistent, they will Come out with a new style, "In the end, fashion is a circle, back and forth."
Working 15 hours a day in the face of competition "will unconsciously show aunt smile"
"I'm always worried that clients will compare me with other models." In Antian's impression, at that time, there were not many young models who specialized in shooting middle-aged and elderly clothes.
There are only four or five young models in Hangzhou who can shoot mother clothes, but only two of her peers can "compete" with her.
In order to gain a firm foothold in this new field, Antian started working 15 hours a day, "The entire shooting base, photographers and assistants can take turns to rest, only the model must stand there all the time. If the model can hurry up and finish the shooting smoothly, Everyone can finish work earlier." Later, she even felt that even driving was a waste of time, so she took the initiative to move to live near the studio.
Since he has to keep smiling for a long time during the day, when he sleeps at night, An Tian can feel the beating of his facial muscles.
She said with a smile that this job kept her usual manners and behaviors elegant, "unconsciously showing aunty smiles to those around her."
"At that time, some people thought that Taobao was relatively low-end. I wasn't that beautiful, and being a model was a blessing to God." Liang Xiaoqing positioned herself in this way, but she never gave up hard work and hard work.
Many outsiders will mistakenly think that the work of models is extremely free. In fact, they have to catch up with the season and seize the opportunity.
"No matter when a client finds you, you must try your best to take over the job. Whether it is a big client or a small client, if you reject an invitation, it is very likely that the next cooperation opportunity will also run away." Liang Xiaoqing said.
An Tiantian and Liang Xiaoqing are in similar situations.
During the shooting period, I started putting on makeup at 5 pm, and I went home at 5 or 6 am the next morning. To save time, I did not take off my makeup and hair, so I carefully slept for two or three hours, then got up and continued to shoot.
On the busiest days, life is to rush to another studio non-stop after the show.
Why do middle-aged and elderly clothing use young models in the industry?
In 2009, the first Tmall Double 11 sales exceeded 50 million yuan, which means that the online market has huge potential.
The day after Double 11 that year, Mr. Bao applied to settle in Taobao and moved quickly.
Since then, in terms of sales contribution, online models have shown the strength of crushing plastic dummy models in physical stores.
Through understanding, the reporter of Beijing Youth Daily found that there are three main reasons for the phenomenon of young people becoming middle-aged and elderly clothing models.
First of all, older models can't bear the high-intensity work.
"For winter clothes in summer and short sleeves in winter, standing for hours at a time is unbearable for most elderly people. Today's outdoor temperature in Hangzhou is 38°C, but we are shooting down jackets. Which one? Models are not sweaty.” According to Zhang Qiang, an e-commerce model photographer in the theme song photography studio, this is the main reason why older models are gradually fading out of the clothing market.
The second is that young people are in better shape and can wear the version of clothes.
In contrast, some elderly models are not tall enough, and some have short arms and arms. Wearing winter coats will cover the wrists, which will affect the effect of the clothes.
Thirdly, dressing the elderly clothes young can expand the buying crowd.
"People of any age group like to wear younger clothes. These little girls just happen to be able to dress their clothes in a foreign style and shoot their clothes young, and the age level of the buying crowd can also be expanded, as young as twenty or so. It can be worn by anyone as young as 40 or 50 years old." Zhang Qiang believes, "It's like I'm 30 now, but when I buy clothes, I usually look at what trendy brands are worn by young people in their 20s."
Outlook
From show action to eloquence
The transition from model to anchor is not easy
According to QuestMobile's "2021 Silver Hair Economic Insight Report", among the nearly 1 billion annual active consumers on Alibaba's platform, "silver hair" has also become one of the groups with the fastest growth in consumption scale.
More than 140 million silver-haired people placed orders on Taobao in October 2021.
However, with the rise of the form of anchors bringing goods, the "grandma outfit" models have been challenged by the anchors carrying goods.
"The times are changing, if the live broadcast platform has not yet emerged, I believe there will be more and more young models pouring into the middle-aged and elderly clothing market..." Mr. Bao said, "If there is a girl now, she has a very good figure and appearance. Perfect, I recommend her to be an anchor rather than a model."
Before being interviewed by a reporter from Beiqing Daily, Mr. Bao just finished a live broadcast and review of the online store.
Like him, many businesses have shifted their main energy to the short video live broadcast platform.
"Models are not indispensable. When short video platforms sell goods, anchors are an important part." Mr. Bao found that commodity transactions on short video platforms are mainly conducted in live broadcast rooms, and the real-time interaction in live broadcast rooms is targeted The key point is to explain the details and materials of the clothes in a natural way. "At this time, the pose of the model is superfluous."
Mr. Bao said frankly that models and anchors are completely different, and now is the bonus period for anchors.
"The requirements for recruiting mother outfit anchors are generally as follows: flat broadcasts can interact, understand language skills, and have affinity; height: 156cm-165cm; weight: 110-135 catties; Relying on models, live broadcasts depend on eloquent aunts. It is absolutely fine for models to transform into anchors and show their actions in the live broadcast room, but eloquence is the main thing. In addition, we are recruiting mother outfit anchors who are older. , especially middle-aged mothers who are a little fat, that is more real." Mr. Bao said that due to the different sensory experiences brought to people by different media, it may be a bit inconsistent to force young models to show middle-aged and elderly clothes in the live broadcast room.
He also revealed that there are currently very few people who meet the above conditions at the same time.
Antian can also feel the continuous decline of the fashion model industry, "The rise of live broadcast platforms and other e-commerce platforms has had a considerable impact on us. The shooting volume of our old batch of models has been greatly reduced, and the overall shooting of the supply chain has been greatly reduced. The quantity is even discounted in half, and new models are constantly being added, and now, the busiest models are only photographed once every two days.”
When it comes to transformation, An Tiantian believes that "it is not an easy task".
"Modeling is actually high-paying physical work. The longer you are a model, the more single the product category you shoot, and it will gradually become a mindless shooting, which will be consumed by inertia. When you really want to change careers, you will find yourself in the twenties. There are not many things accumulated over the years." But An Tiantian also said, "People who can be models have good conditions, and they can calmly face everyone's attention and attention. Therefore, all the work under the spotlight is The direction of my transformation. No matter how the general environment changes in the future, I will continue to be a model. In addition to e-commerce, I will also try to shoot other planes, and I will always stay in front of the camera.”
Text/Reporter Wang Jingyi
Coordinator/Zhang Bin