Liu Qingyang: Fabric Is Full Of Soul.

In the current designer store, it is easy to see which works are Liu Qingyang's, and fabric design and color are the style and inspiration she has been insisting on. She is also known as the "stamp Queen".

Designer profile: Liu Qingyang

Graduated from the Department of fabric design, University of the Arts, central London, Saint Martin, and founded the women's clothing brand Chictopia in 2009.

Most of them use the profile design to modify the elegant lady's temperament. Because of the background of fabric design, the texture and color of the fabrics, original fabric design is the most unique feature of Chictopia, and is printed by the designer in person, which is called the "stamp Queen".

It will soon become the first domestic designer brand to enter the new world.

The most striking image of Liu Qingyang's Chictopia is unique printing and embroidery, and a sense of design that combines the retro elements with modern minimalist design.

Because of the background of fabric design, Liu Qingyang is very interested in the texture and color of fabrics. She always thinks that the fabric is the outer skin of clothing, which will directly affect the design of clothing. Therefore, the original fabric design is the most unique feature of Chictopia.

Every time she develops the right fabric, she uses the colors and patterns of her fabrics to express her thoughts.

More sophisticated silk, silk, silk and linen are used in the process of embroidery and bead setting. The final result is a very precise retro Shu Yuan, art and elegant accent.

Liu Qingyang's design has a strong personal color. In the first few series of brands, Liu Qingyang himself became a brand model. Every photo is the beauty of Shanghai and Hongkong's old women.

Her character is mild and indifferent, just like 5 years of sex design.

At first, Liu Qingyang did not make a big brand ambition. She said she was a person who had no plans for long sex, and everything was done step by step.

It is her greatest wish to run a small shop and sell all kinds of clothes she designed herself.

But in five years, Ch

The first Chinese independent designer brand to enter Lafayette, now the old Buddha, the pillars, the three China World Trade Center Arrtco Collection, and the designer brand shops of the second tier cities have become the channel of Chiatopia. In Beijing, Jiayu SOHO and Shanghai Jiali center already have their own outlets, or even become the first domestic designer brand to enter the Xinguang world.

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Design: start with fabric.

Liu Qingyang was born in Beijing. She loved drawing from an early age. She went to Hongkong at the age of 9, and at the age of 18, the teacher of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design went to school to interview students and studied English very smoothly in Hongkong.

Although her major is

Design, but at the age of 18, after studying in England, he was fascinated by fashion and design, took many courses in clothing history, and formed his own design concept in England.

In 2009, Liu Qingyang, who was ready to return to business during his college years, registered Chictopia brand in Beijing.

Liu Qingyang did not name his brand like other designers. The combination of "Chic" and "Topia" represented elegance and Utopia, and hoped that the brand could be more inclusive.

Chictopia's design inspiration is derived from Retro culture.

During her study in England, Liu Qingyang's revival culture was very popular. She used the retro elements in modern costumes, trying out the outline design of European style, highlighting the modern and practical style.

Liu Qingyang said, "every quarter of the design is from a series of overall considerations, beauty is the first, but personality and practicality must have, meet the needs of different people".

Compared with other designers, Liu Qingyang usually has more than one step to design clothes. When other designers are ordering fabrics, she needs to design fabrics first.

Now Liu Qingyang has developed more than 95% pieces of fabric in her every season's work, and fabric printing has to go through the process of hand drawing, scanning, repairing and printing, and then communicate with fabric manufacturers.

In fact, in the first year of entrepreneurship, Liu Qingyang also directly used the fabric provided by the supplier, but later found that the variety and printing of the fabric could not satisfy his own design and decided to make his own fabric.

In the first series, she took her hand-painted design to buy white cloth in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and then printed in Shanghai. Liu Qingyang herself studied fabric design. In her view, "everything can be printed without fixed rules and regulations."

In Liu Qingyang's clothes, there are insect series, Baroque series and circus series. There are many fairy tale designs and European Impressionist elements. From Beijing and Hongkong to Britain, the diversified growth environment makes her design appear in eastern and Western ways.

The early setback period of the brand

Although the fabric design and clothing design concepts are interlinked, but after graduating from the University of fabric design, Liu Qingyang did not know how to make clothes. After returning home, he found an old tailor in Beijing. He systematically studied plate making, three-dimensional cutting and other techniques.

And the most difficult part of brand creation is how to find suitable positioning and style, and how to open up the market.

Liu Qingyang's original brand positioning and positioning are quite different now. Because there was no clothing company's work experience before, plus parents' investment advice, we didn't understand the fashion market, so at first, they took a conservative route and made a more popular brand.

The style of the series is very comfortable and very cheap, but after Liu Qingyang made his first series, he found this direction wrong, "this is not what I am good at".

Liu Qingyang is good at clothes with more design sense, and the popular style is not her advantage. The parity price positioning can only be price war in the competition with the chain brand, which is the biggest weakness of the designer brand of the small order, so the first year of the brand is very awkward.

In 2011, Liu Qingyang began to do what he really wanted to do, adding elements of printing, and also targeting many neutral style designers, choosing a very feminine style.

"It's a small niche series, but it's very successful. Many people like it. It's the series that determines the style and direction of Chictopia."

When the brand was founded in 2009, Liu Qingyang also encountered the same channel problem. There were almost no buyer shops in China, and no shops were willing to sell Chinese designers' works. But compared with other designers, Liu Qingyang took a road that needed more capital support in sales channels.

In April 2009, Yau Tang Life Plaza just opened, and Liu Qingyang opened his own direct store on the three floor.

"At that time, I simply felt that looking for a sales platform, the simplest and direct idea was to open a shop" without taking into account the positioning problem.

"At that time, clothes were not sold for a couple of days, and sales were not enough for a month." until 2010, Hong Huang's original design concept store, BNC, opened.

Liu Qingyang took the initiative to contact the peppermint glutinous rice onion, so that they could come to see their works, and then closed the shop of Yau Tang Life Plaza, in the form of seasonal selling with mint glutinous rice and scallion.

Peppermint glutinous rice scallion has also become an early publicity platform for Liu Qingyang. Liu Qingyang's products sell very well in the store, and many people who go to the store are fashion media people, and more people know Chictopia brand.

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Just like the design.

Liu Qingyang's design has a strong sense of self. She never custom-made a dress for anyone. "I like to do my series. I like to express myself, people who like it and people who don't like it don't buy it."

Now, Liu Qing Yang's studio has been regarded as the collective operation of family businesses. This also allows her to choose what she likes, do not cater for, and do not deliberately. After having the channels of a buyer's shop, this is a way to go through.

In fact, when designing, Liu Qingyang often thought from the guest's point of view, "can I wear this dress myself, what occasions will I wear and so on?"

And she is the inspiration for Chictopia. She often guides her through her own demonstration.

Liu Qingyang is usually very light about brand promotion. In 2011, Liu Qingyang met Fan Bingbing in an event. Fan Bingbing said she liked her clothes very much. Then Fan Bingbing's assistant wanted to meet Liu Qingyang after the end of the event.

But then Liu Qingyang had to leave early, and the other party contacted Liu Qingyang again after six months.

In the first three or four years of building the brand, Liu Qingyang did not take the initiative to do it.

They were all passive. "At that time, I didn't consciously say that she could wear my clothes." other artists wore Liu Qingyang's clothes.

In October 2014, Liu Qingyang started his first show, the Chictopia 2015 spring summer series fashion conference. The initiative to do brand promotion started in 2014.

Now, in the designer's store, it's easy to see which works are Liu Qingyang's, and fabric design and color are what she has always insisted on. She hopes to do this brand after decades, and still do the girl's style.