Since contemporary business operational vocabulary is translated, it implies that these terms are often misused, substituted, or even mistranslated in the Chinese context. Among them, the terms most relevant to refined culture include "luxury," "boutique" (sometimes "premium" in Chinese), "fashion," "trend," and "fast fashion," which are too numerous to list comprehensively.
These terms not only abound in the media but are also frequently confused in corporate marketing slogans or even in social discussions. Over time, due to such misuse, the understanding and definition of these terms among the Chinese community have lost their foundation for discussion, thus failing to apply positioning strategies effectively to find a balance between operation and pricing.
The main purpose of this article is to, through examples, retrace these terms to their Western origins and introduce the application of positioning in existing business strategy theories. At the same time, it discusses how contemporary European and American industries apply these business strategies, hoping to provide clearer directions for more Taiwanese cultural enterprises and value marketing.
First, let's take a look at the current Chinese context. We will use the article "The Glorious Collapse of the Fashion Industry? From Europe and the United States to China, the Global Clothing Industry Strangled by the Virus" from Turnaround International as an example to understand why there is a gap in understanding in Chinese reports.
When it comes to "clothing brands," what immediately comes to mind in business is the clothing manufacturing industry. Without specific elaboration, many clothing manufacturing businesses primarily engage in commercial activities centered around mass production. The term "clothing mass production" is mainly used to describe "clothing production methods." Therefore, based on the complexity of design and production methods, it can be divided into different levels, such as Mass production, Ready-to-wear (Prêt-a-porter), Made-to-measure, and Bespoke.
This dimension will have more detailed distinctions based on regions, craftsmanship complexity, and categories such as men's and women's wear. Due to the costs involved in the design and production process, there are usually price differences, but overall, it does not involve the proposition of "whether the product is fashionable or not." Because when the term "fashion" is involved, it usually refers to the aesthetic trends of the season or year. However, not all ready-to-wear factories or high-end boutiques intend to design and produce works that meet contemporary short-term trends. Therefore, although clothing production and fashion trends are related, they do not necessarily have a causal relationship.
For example, according to the introduction on its official website, the well-known American clothing brand J.Crew positions itself as "timeless clothes" and emphasizes in its J.Crew Factory introduction its "affordable operation essence." From this, it can be understood that J.Crew in the American market should belong to the category of affordable mass production or ready-to-wear positioning.
Therefore, revisiting the introduction of Turnaround International, it can be clearly understood that the cognitive problem in reading: if J.Crew lacks a strong fashion element, what this article should truly explore is the production-oriented mass production and ready-to-wear, the cash flow problems caused by the disruption of retail channels, and the true comparison objects should be other mass production and ready-to-wear brands, not other fashion brands oriented towards trends, let alone luxury boutique brands with completely different pricing strategies.
Finding the right benchmark for comparison is also the most critical thinking node in business operations and logic. After sorting out the "clothing production methods" and whether the clothing "participates in trends," the next step is to cross-combine these with the brand image dimension to discuss its image positioning in customers and markets.
When prices and images start to rise: What is Premium? What is Luxury?
As I defined in a previous article, "Luxury, as a category of products, the most important elements lie in its conspicuousness and exclusivity." One of the measurement criteria that can make the market feel these two elements most is "high price" and "limited quantity": even if the market has many desires for these products, boutique businesses cannot drastically lower prices or increase production substantially for the market. The more unattainable, the more cherished and noble, the hierarchical effect of boutique posturing will deeply penetrate the market under the impetus of the market, ultimately becoming a symbol in social culture.
Because the definition of Luxury is so narrow, shaping such a challenging brand image is not easy for both producers and consumers. Its design inspiration, operational quality, service experience, and customer recognition usually accumulate into a high-end image after a long process.
Even for luxury businesses classified as traditional, there are distinctions, whether it is the leading haute couture fashion federation in France or the designer system, there are still different levels. That's why readers who have some contact with the boutique industry may have heard of the absolute positions of brands like Hermès and Chanel in terms of pricing and image, which have the capital to create a high-end corporate image compared to other brands. This was detailed more in Vogue Taiwan's 2019 interview, which I won't elaborate on here.
From the above description, compared with the "clothing production methods" mentioned earlier, it can be known that the basic positioning of most luxury businesses generally falls into the categories of ready-to-wear, made-to-measure, and bespoke (the latter two, depending on the enterprise definition, are usually also called broad high-end custom Haute Couture). As for "participation in trends," it depends on the company's philosophy of product operation.
For example, Gachoucha Kretz, another HEC Paris professor specializing in boutique marketing strategy, believes that Hermès, as a leader in the boutique industry, also claims to have its own fashion week events, but its various clothing products still maintain a classic Hermès design, making it purely a Luxury business rather than a Luxury-fashion business.
So since Luxury is so difficult to achieve, what is Premium? According to Jean-Noël Kapferer, a professor at HEC Paris, in his book "The Luxury Strategy," Premium refers to "the top group in the price range of that product" but still adheres to the logic of general commodity economics. That is to say, even if the price of this product is raised, the business model behind it is still based on the traditional relationship between price and cost, relying on "functionality," "performance," and "cost-effectiveness" as selling points, without the social significance of price and cost disconnect in Luxury products—because even if the functionality of this Luxury product is not necessarily the best, it has the meaning of display and exclusivity, and customers will still pay for it.
To borrow Professor Kapferer's words: Compared with Luxury products being a dreamlike existence in life, Premium, although different from mass consumption in price, is still very realistic in consumption projection. The fundamental cognitive difference between consumers and corporate image can be seen.
As mentioned earlier in the case of Luxury businesses, if a company wants to focus its products or image on Premium perception, it also has options such as "production methods" and "participation in trends." That is to say, companies can still have different internal operating spectra from mass production to customization, and they can choose whether or not to launch trend-setting works.
Currently, brands positioned as Premium in the market, with outstanding performance, are usually not oriented towards the mass market clothing
