Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 240 - 237: Alternative Marketing Strategies

With two hundred regular customers, Chanel could reign supreme in the kingdom of Haute Couture.

This number sounds a bit scant.

Every year, there are more female stars walking the red carpets around the world than that number.

Aren’t these glitz-and-glam female stars all regular customers of Haute Couture?

The answer is actually no.

A large portion of the dresses worn by female stars belong to Ready-to-Wear, the ones that are released during the Four Fashion Weeks.

Even Mrs. Jiao Baby, who is not short of money, wore a Dior dress to the Cannes Film Festival that belonged to Ready-to-Wear, not Haute Couture.

Of course, Baby has worn Haute Couture; the Dior wedding dress she wore took five months and nearly a thousand hours of hand sewing. It was definitely standard Haute Couture.

Even someone of Mrs. Jiao’s level and status rarely wears Haute Couture.

So, what about female stars of a higher level who really wear Haute Couture on the red carpet? Are they considered regular Haute Couture customers?

The answer is a resounding No.

Big-name female stars generally "borrow" the dresses they wear from brands.

Chanel, which sells Haute Couture especially well, rarely lends its Haute Couture dresses for stars to wear on the red carpet.

Apart from Chanel, other Haute Couture houses are very keen on lending their dresses to big-name stars for the red carpet.

Haute Couture has production requirements. Each season requires so many "original designs." It’s time-consuming, costly, and material-intensive, and after the Haute Couture shows, there are quite a few unsold outfits.

Lending dresses to big-name stars to wear brings a lot of attention to both the brand and the stars, making it a mutually beneficially arrangement.

Doing so may not attract "regular customers," but it can attract female stars who cannot fetch any brand invitations and are unable to borrow from big-name designers.

To increase their exposure, these people are willing to "break the bank" to walk the red carpet.

These individuals are mostly of the "temporary" variety.

But temporary customers are still customers!

Since it is quite difficult to increase the number of regular customers, other than Chanel, which possesses a strong group of Haute Couture regulars, other brands placing importance on temporary customers is unquestionably justifiable.

Moreover, these "temporary customers," if they marry into wealth, could possibly become regular customers.

Overall, globally, the true number of Haute Couture customers does not exceed 1500, and within this rare group, fewer than a third place orders each year.

Aside from designers and leading fashion media heads, those who can sit at the forefront of Haute Couture shows are the even more mysterious members of the Haute Couture Club, not exceeding 200 people.

Female stars occasionally sit at the front row of Haute Couture shows due to their fame; Haute Couture Club clients get those seats through spending real money.

The fashion circle is exclusive, and the Haute Couture circle is even more so.

If Haute Couture struggle to break even, why do so many designers and brands dream of entering this hall of dreams?

At that point, Yan Yan began to wonder.

Isn’t it boring to ponder this alone?

Yan Yan decided to find someone to think it over with.

Yan Yan called her cousin to discuss the issue.

She had barely clarified the question when Yan Ling criticized her, saying she wasn’t as smart as she had been when she was younger.

When Yan Yan was very young, she told Yan Ling that if she ever wanted to start a brand, she would open a store on the busiest Wuma Street in Wenzhou.

Yan Yan was only six years old at the time, hadn’t even started elementary school, and had never left Wenzhou. Back then, Yan Yan thought the busiest place in the world was Wuma Street.

"New York’s Fifth Avenue, Paris’s Avenue des Champs Elysees, London’s Oxford Street, Tokyo’s Shinjuku Street, Shanghai’s Nanjing Road—how many flagship stores on these famous shopping streets make enough profit to cover their rent? They don’t even earn enough to pay the rent, so why open a store?" Yan Ling challenged Yan Yan to think using the intelligence she had as a child.