Phoebe Philo did not disappoint those who loved her.
Within the past day, 80% of the new products in Phoebe Philo’s personal brand’s first collection have been sold out. Everything is as fast as a tornado. This new series, which was launched globally on Monday this week, does not allow Chinese enthusiasts to hesitate late at night. After one night, there is almost no choice. This also proves that Phoebe Philo’s persistence in excellent quality and unique style are still sought after by consumers.
The expensive tote bag equivalent to 50000 yuan and the sequined skirt equivalent to 100000 yuan became the focus of social media discussions the next day. Although the two exceeded the psychological expectations of the vast majority of people, almost all products related to wearability were sold out.
It can be seen that this independent brand is not immature in business at all. After Phoebe Philo received minority equity investment support from LVMH, the commodity team gained solid support. We have a complete range of topic, commercial, and styling styles, with the most precise proportions. As she named the publishing mechanism, it’s not Collection, but Edits.
A high sell out rate does not necessarily mean best-selling, but also due to the scarcity of goods. Against the backdrop of luxury brands launching 6 to 8 series annually, Phoebe Philo has decided to launch two series a year, releasing approximately 150 items at a time.
Buy and see, eliminating the need for public self certification in fashion shows and the secondary production of transitioning from fashion shows to commercial products. With just one click, select top followers and initiate a supply-demand tug of war. As long as demand is accurately judged and maintained far above supply, this business model is sustainable.
Many people have pointed out that the pricing and style of Phoebe Philo’s personal brand are similar to today’s Bottega Veneta, but as the new brand is fully launched, we should clearly see that Phoebe Philo is engaged in another game. There, Bottega Veneta, who claimed to be a “super luxury brand,” even begged for an entry ticket.
Only Chanel, who is aggressively raising prices, and Herm è s, who is determined to supply goods, have a deep understanding of this demand frenzy. From the former Supreme to the current Chrome Hearts, Phoebe Philo should be classified as a religious brand. Pricing is not directly related to costs, nor is it compared to peers. All pricing logic is based on the only sacredness in the ecosystem.
Its logic is that people who purchase branded fashion are solely motivated by one reason, not practicality or rampant minimalism, but Phoebe Philo. Non replicability is Phoebe Philo’s mental method.
When discussing Phoebe Philo, few people set aside design to talk about business first.
In theory, Phoebe Philo should be averse to business and has long been tired of the accelerating pace of the luxury goods industry. However, we must see that she is one of the few creative directors among the golden age celebrities to establish a personal brand. This means that she must collaborate with business peers to develop precise business mechanisms that match her uniqueness, making business the armor to maintain herself.
People still underestimate Phoebe Philo’s courage in many ways. Counting the creative directors of the same era, there are still very few who can express themselves freely and persist in operating their personal brands.
Hedi Slimane, who has the most religious fans, labels all the brands he has controlled as personal. Nowadays, his stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise in Celine’s large business machine have become somewhat outdated.
More people are forced to be restricted and hide their authorship behind their professionalism. After Raf Simons worked for Prada, he no longer cared about personal branding. John Galliano opened a new era for Maison Margiela, hiding himself behind another even greater name.
Nicolas Ghesqui è re, who is responsible for LV’s creative storefront, has been striving for LVMH to establish a personal brand for him for many years. His long-standing regret may be that the real buyers of LV women’s clothing may not be admiring this excellent creative director, but he will never have those believers who came solely for him, and “owning” them must be through personal branding. Being too submissive and excellent in the system often lacks independent motivation.
At the same time, Marc Jacobs, who was fortunate enough to establish a personal brand, is now a marginalized presence in LVMH. A designer brand that operates in a group manner seems to lack spiritual independence. Karl Lagerfeld passed away, Alessandro Michele left disappointed, Demna gave up her personal brand to create a future in the system, but encountered a professional Waterloo in Balenciaga. Kim Jones and Maria Grazia Chiuri, who excel in professional and stable output, were unable to conceal their fatigue. Today’s star designer landscape is generally like this.
When the creative director of a celebrity decides to launch a brand with the same name, there is a fundamental difference between them and those novice independent designer brands. Fresh graduates who name their brands with their own names can easily make mistakes, as their names are still interchangeable trademarks. The name Phoebe Philo is derived from the stacking of works and had substantive meaning before it was written on the label.
It is extremely difficult to operate a personal brand with the standards of a luxury brand, but when a creator is extremely loyal to themselves, they only have to risk their own way.
Therefore, for the creative director community, Phoebe Philo has truly taken a historic step in the dark of designer brand business.
Nearly a hundred images have been released in one go, and Phoebe Philo’s aesthetic world and emotional atmosphere have risen from the ground.
Perhaps a few months ago, people were still worried about how Phoebe Philo would stand in the market dominated by minimalist brands, but the result was that the brand proved with indescribable appeal that even among many names, it is still the most unique and irreplaceable.
Even critics who once questioned Phoebe Philo had to admit that the new series, which was unveiled two days ago, was outstanding. StyleZeitgest founder Eugene Rabkin admitted that although the previous market demand had lowered his expectations, the avant-garde and avant-garde of the final series brought surprises.
Phoebe Philo is indeed very strong, and the substantial gap between the creative director of a golden age celebrity and most designers today is truly evident.
The reason may be that in the golden age, the creative director of celebrities is more prominent in their self, formed in the pre social media era, less affected by external information, and shaped by a unique personal growth path.
Phoebe Philo’s beloved supermodel Daria Werbowy, which has been in use since the Celine era for many years, is considered to be very similar to herself and to some extent reflects the creative director’s portrayal of her personal image. Not long ago, supermodel Iman publicly criticized Phoebe Philo for not wanting to use African American models, which also led to criticism that Phoebe Philo only likes to use thin and tall white models like himself.
This may contradict the mainstream belief in racial diversity in the industry today, but it must be acknowledged that when she projects her personal label onto nude models and every visual detail that resembles herself with an almost crazy desire for control, her brand rises to deadly attraction. Just like Hedi Slimane’s obsession with skinny white models, he seems to have never considered making clothes for people outside of his ideal image, but his followers have become increasingly loyal
People who are not solid enough in themselves cannot create personal brands. Only by overflowing with self can they have derivatives. Phoebe Philo once bluntly said, “What’s the point of all this if I can’t wear it myself?”
However, despite Phoebe Philo’s consistent style, it continues to evolve.
This woman was born into a wealthy family in the art industry, graduated from Central St. Martin’s College, and before becoming a calm and independent woman, she had a rebellious youth like many young people in London. She also caught up with the wave of luxury brands welcoming the new blood of youth, went through two luxury brands, Chlo é and C é line, had three children, and experienced a broken marriage. She has her own coherent growth history.
People believe that from the lively Chlo é to the C é line, Phoebe Philo has completed the growth from a girl to a mature woman. Before writing this article, I revisited C é line’s fashion shows from 2008 to 2018, and it seems that I can better feel the ups and downs of her level during the C é line period.
Over the past decade, C é line has gone from pure color minimalism to print stitching, and then returned to simple color blocks, hinting at the subtle opening and closing of her personal state. From initially confident and determined to a high fighting spirit in the middle, and then to the excellent and precise but emotionally lacking works before leaving C é line, the creative director hidden behind the scenes has a clear view of his mood.
People say that she rarely appeared in the office during the last period of C é line due to poor condition, and was mainly designed by the team. These team members became famous after leaving C é line, from Peter Do to Daniel Lee. They may be able to create high-end and minimalist fashion, but in terms of emotional expression and vision building, they are far behind Phoebe Philo. This is the fundamental difference between creative directors and fashion designers.
Unlike most creative directors who set specific themes for the series, Phoebe Philo candidly stated in a rare interview that she relied on her own “gut” – instinctual intuition and courage.
Her irreproducibility lies in the fact that instincts are both intangible and variable. Two days ago, in the latest collection, a fresh sense of sexiness and primitive aesthetics rushed in, which is very rare in the world of Phoebe Philo. Under the bright red Phoebe Philo brand name, the camera focuses on zippered pants with slits to the buttocks, riveted shorts, exposed bodies, and wrinkled bellies, all of which showcase the visual expression of female strength beyond the stereotypical form expressed through stiff silhouettes in the past.
Fashion critic Tim Blanks believes that the new collection brings an unexpected wildness, which may be her resistance to this increasingly uneasy world. From punk torn fringe skirts to 1970s style sunglasses, Phoebe Philo is digging into the roots of her youth. The new collection reminds people of her youth in West London and reminds them that she was also active on the streets before becoming fashionable.
Therefore, although he has never appeared on social media for many years and refuses media interviews, it does not prevent the audience from seeing Phoebe Philo as a vivid and layered person through his works.
When she returned to the fashion industry and entered Celine after three years in 2008, she bluntly stated that there had been no change in the fashion industry. In the era before the expansion of social media and luxury brands, this statement may not be false. But in the past five years since she left Celine, the fashion industry has undergone earth shattering changes, with new names such as The Row and Matthieu Blazy rising, and luxury brands expanding to unprecedented levels in the middle market and young people.
Nevertheless, Phoebe Philo may still say that there has been no change in the fashion industry. Because she persisted in her original self, the final presentation can only be accurately described.
To be honest, there aren’t many surprises in this series. The modeling editing ability and visual rendering ability it embodies can be foreseen. The pricing is expensive and foreseeable. The perfectionism of procrastination can be foreseen. Even the disappointment in the public’s mouth can be foreseen, after all, people have placed expectations beyond reasonable limits for a fashion series.
A loyal fan of Phoebe Philo said that she tries to reduce unnecessary language in any detail of the new brand, and it seems that she doesn’t have anything particularly to say now. Behind everything in silence, there is a hint of fatigue and clarity.
The people who paid for her were also similar, they had already clicked on payment before discussing. The elite audience of Phoebe Philo should be opponents of hunger marketing and anonymous gimmicks. They project their attention to other areas of human society, viewing style as part of self-expression rather than the whole. They can unconditionally and completely trust Phoebe Philo as a noble existence of brand religion.
The absence of a live fashion show display is certainly a deficiency. But currently, Phoebe Philo, which operates independently, can only operate in such a streamlined commercial form, and its resource scheduling ability cannot match that of Celine, which had a scale of 700 million euros at the time.
Industry renowned journalists such as Tim Blanks and Cathy Horyn were invited to the studio for a secret preview in early October. They still struggled to depict the clothes with skilled writing, which clearly could not replicate the direct impact of visual, tactile, and tactile sensations. For most people, the response of this series of physical objects still needs to wait for the first batch of customers to receive them, which also reaffirms the privileges that a few believers can enjoy.
This is certainly just the first step for Phoebe Philo. From a more macro perspective, as a brand, Phoebe Philo is not just a trophy exclusively enjoyed by a few people, but also brings hope to those self driven designers.
Round after round, talented celebrity designers should not continue to be candidates for high-end fashion houses such as Dior and Chanel. To break free from the fate of being chosen, they need to write their own history.
To remain true to oneself and learn to use commercial leverage to establish a long-term breeding ground for pure self is the greatest luxury for celebrity designers.
