IN ONE MINUTE FROM NEW YORK: Grace Chen’s present go to to New York has offered a flashback to her tutorial days.
Chen returned to New York partially for an look on the Style Institute of Know-how, the place he had studied in 1995-1996. Along with having a trend present and doing a Q&A at FIT on Tuesday evening, Chen has been doing trunk exhibits throughout his keep this week in New York on the Park Avenue Hyatt.
“I really feel like I by no means left. FIT actually was a milestone in my life and never simply from knowledgeable perspective. Since I used to be little or no, I at all times wished to come back to america as a result of I preferred Hollywood motion pictures,” Chen mentioned.
In the long run, she made that occur. After FIT, her incarnation as Tadashi Shoji’s design director gave her the chance to design night robes for quite a few Hollywood stars together with Sarah Jessica Parker, Catherine Zeta Jones and Oprah Winfrey.
Primarily based in Shanghai, she based her firm in 2009 specializing in high fashion beneath the path of Home of Grace Chen. With practically 100 staff, Chen’s enterprise is at the moment pushed solely by couture, with annual gross sales starting from $5 million to $6 million.
Essentially the most difficult side of enterprise is that many purchasers in China are prepared to spend amount of cash on “the manufacturers that folks already know, like Chanel.” Chen mentioned his essential shoppers respect his designs and the way effectively reduce they’re. Discovering a buyer base “that appreciates your imaginative and prescient and never simply the garments, however the philosophy behind the model,” is important for any firm, Chen mentioned.
Though film stars and different extremely seen influencers are driving designer gross sales and main trend tendencies, that quick and livid system would not apply to excessive trend. Of their line of labor, influencers are CEOs, entrepreneurs, financiers just like the well-known economist Jing Keyu, and different professionals, in addition to artists. “Our shoppers are the house owners of the movie firms, so they do not actually care how the film stars costume,” Chen defined. “These individuals are very assured and have their very own concepts about themselves. For them, trend is about self-reflection. “It’s not about chasing the newest trend development.”
Chen additionally works with diplomats such because the vice international minister, ambassadors and distinguished athletes. Olympic freestyle skier Eileen Gu was once a shopper, till she signed a contract with Louis Vuitton. A lot of her shoppers are “skilled elites who graduated from nice faculties like Columbia.” [University]UPenn and Princeton [University.] Most of them work in finance or are businessmen or legal professionals.” she mentioned. “They’re very refined ladies, however they do not identical to trend. “They’re much extra refined than that.”
The consolation stage, number of types and high-end materials in Chen’s assortment attraction to skilled ladies, she mentioned. Most couture sells for between $2,000 and $6,000, with some night clothes round $10,000.
“Because it’s couture, it matches very effectively and shapes your physique,” Chen mentioned, including that every shopper has their very own model and draping. “We perceive how the true enterprise girl desires to look good.”
Having held exhibits periodically in Paris and London, the plan is to introduce ready-to-wear in the course of the September version of New York Style Week, at about half the costs of high fashion types.
“To determine a brand new model, it’s important to begin from [having experience in] high fashion Your authentic designs ought to appeal to individuals who wish to attempt new concepts as a substitute of following tendencies. That’s the essence of high fashion,” he mentioned. “In case you do ready-to-wear, you might be merely placing your self on tendencies. Now that we have now our personal design philosophy, it is time to do ready-to-wear.”
With a daughter enrolled within the Berklee College of Music, the designer hopes to be in america extra typically this 12 months.