What is Dior's Belief

by Min Leung Saller

Outside the Dior 2023 autumn and winter ready-to-wear show that just passed, there was unprecedented excitement. This is not only the first time domestic editors, buyers, bloggers and even the Dior China team have returned to watch the show after three years of absence from the epidemic, but also the first answer sheet handed in by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of Dior handbags, for the brand's new CEO.

In January of this year, Delphine Arnault succeeded Pietro Beccari and officially became the CEO of Dior. As the first female leader since Dior was founded nearly 80 years ago, and also the eldest daughter of Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, how Delphine Arnault will lead Dior to achieve a breakthrough is undoubtedly imaginative, which has raised people's expectations for the big show. Yet, contrary to what many might have expected, the show wasn't a dramatic turnaround.

Even on the contrary, the new 2023 autumn and winter ready-to-wear show is immersed in the hazy mist, in which hangs the colorful giant cocoon-like device "Valkyrie Miss Dior" created by Portuguese female artist Joanna Vasconcelos, giving people a little sense of oppression. The art installation is inspired by the favorite flowers of Catherine Dior, Mr. Christian Dior's sister, and she is also one of the inspirational muses of the Dior 2023 autumn and winter series.

Including Catherine Dior, singer and actress Juliette Gréco and Edith Piaf, who are active on the left bank of Paris, three independent and resolute post-war female images have become the source of inspiration for Maria Grazia Chiuri, and are also regarded as the reaffirmation of the feminist theme of the creative director . In sharp contrast to the optimism when the New Look silhouette was born, the 1950s they lived in was not sunny. At that time, Paris had just emerged from the smoke of World War II and was still shrouded in gloom. A reflection of the predicament of today's global situation. Therefore, the entire 2023 autumn and winter series is based on black and white. Except for some printed works, most of the shapes are outlined in black and white. On this basis, classic Dior silhouettes such as New Look plaid suits and Corolle skirts are integrated. shape. Under the simple color, the texture of the fabric becomes prominent. Airy pleated skirts and blouses, with their messy pleats and glossy surfaces, exude elegant weariness, like cherished treasures from troubled times. Interestingly, the seemingly vicissitudes of life actually come from a technical fabric, which has memory properties because of the metal embroidery thread mixed in, allowing the wearer to adjust the shape. The series of accessories has also become a highlight. This season, Maria Grazia Chiuri created a series of retro items based on women's handbags in the 1950s, combined with Dior's classic cannage pattern elements, which sparked heated discussions on social media.

The models in Dior, handed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, are Parisian but not neat. "This is probably the first time I have presented a series so closely to Paris and brand tradition," Maria Grazia Chiuri said in an interview after the show, and she did not want to express this theme too rigidly. The stacked gloves and the casually opened shirt collar reveal the free and easy Italian woman Maria Grazia Chiuri everywhere, which is her indelible personal trace. Since joining Dior in 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri has been obsessed with gaining inspiration from global feminism, and has steadily promoted this issue through the implementation of design. Now it has become one of the core propositions of Dior, a contemporary high-end fashion house. She has worked with Israeli feminist choreographer Sharon Eyal to discuss women's control over the body, and has also worked with American feminist artist Judy Chicago to question and question women's power. In the recent 2023 spring and summer haute couture show, Maria Grazia Chiuri paid tribute to several African-American female artists. This season, Maria Grazia Chiuri returned to Paris to extend her feminism in the birthplace of the brand, and continued her consistent creative approach to create a series of contemporary women's wear that is extremely wearable. At that time, Catherine Dior chose to plant and sell flowers to convey hope, while Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco brought comfort to the world with their moving voice and excellent stage performance. As the first female creative director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri is good at creating designs with humanistic care from the perspective of women. The designs are delicate, ironed, with distinctly feminine features, not always flamboyant. After all, for the world's largest and oldest fashion house, its consideration is more far-reaching.

But the stability of the style does not mean that the brand is still, and more profound changes are always taking place. Just as the aforementioned women built their reputations in their respective fields, Maria Grazia Chiuri also built up her positions and roles. Among the many controversies, people often overlook the brand equity accumulated by the first female creative director in the history of the fashion house every season. Initially, feminism existed as a value proposition for Maria Grazia Chiuri. With the passage of time, Maria Grazia Chiuri's word-of-mouth has been established in several seasons of pragmatic measures, and her contribution to the brand has also been confirmed in the market, and her feminist advocacy has finally settled into brand belief. ‍‍ From claim to belief is a variable of time. In this process, Dior's clear brand image has brought a certain business path. Even though people expected Dior's performance to be superior, they still did not expect such a fast growth rate. Although LVMH has never announced the specific performance data of Dior, according to HSBC estimates, since Pietro Beccari took over Dior in 2018, brand revenue has doubled every two years, and it has quadrupled to 9 billion euros so far, surpassing Hermes in 2021. 8.982 billion euros in revenue. In fact, similar to the group's Louis Vuitton, Dior's long-term stable performance makes the suspense of LVMH's quarterly earnings report not too great. The stability of Louis Vuitton and Dior comes from their benchmarking industry status. The role of the former is similar to the dividing line between luxury goods and non-luxury goods, while the latter is the spokesperson of high fashion houses. The exclusivity of the role is concretized into classic products such as presbyopia, which provides a steady stream of growth momentum for the two brands. Compared with most head brands that rely on the growth of leather handbags, Dior's advantages in the field of ready-to-wear and advanced customization are undoubtedly rare. Dior not only has a mature clothing team, but also has a fairly complete fashion archive and rich brand heritage. This is a valuable asset for the brand, and it is also a sufficiently deep moat, which ensures that the brand has a place in the top ranks of fierce competition, and can even continue to monetize effortlessly. In the increasingly impetuous fashion industry, changes and speculation often occur, but stability and belief do not often exist.

While the rhetoric of long-termism is gradually spreading, there are only a few real practitioners. As the world's largest luxury goods group, LVMH knows how to make a brand bigger, and how to last longer. What LVMH, who is well versed in management, needs most is to consolidate Dior's advantage again in the face of change. In other words, if Dior wants to achieve greater breakthroughs, the most important thing for Dior is not subversive innovation, but continuous cultivation. From this point of view, Maria Grazia Chiuri actually handed over a qualified answer sheet through the new season's show, clearly showing Dior's long-term position and reaching agreement with the brand's strategy.

As Dior ushers in a new leader, under a certain thinking inertia, people unconsciously expect changes and subversion. As everyone knows, Dior is Bernard Arnault's favorite brand, and he himself is a staunch supporter of long-termism. Now it is not an outsider who takes over Dior, but the daughter of LVMH owner Bernard Arnault, his second in command. A careful review of Dior's marketing strategy reveals that the brand's belief in long-termism is almost consistent. On the one hand, Dior maintains a very high frequency and intensity in marketing activities, and has been holding shows and exhibitions in emerging markets including China, the United States, and the Middle East to consolidate consumers' minds. At the same time, Dior, which has already achieved a dominant position online, continues to deepen, consolidate and disassemble resolutely, widen the gap with its opponents through generous investment and action density, insist on omni-channel online live broadcast of fashion shows, and launch virtual image enhancement and consumer interaction, etc. In order to further enhance the brand's visibility in the Chinese market, Dior broadcast the 2023 autumn and winter ready-to-wear show simultaneously through its official WeChat video account, Weibo, Douyin, Tencent Video and Xiaomi Video. Up to now, the live broadcast of Daxiu has exceeded 100 million views on several mainstream video platforms.

Before and after the release of the big show, Dior even invited Liu Yuxin, the Chinese brand ambassador who returned to Paris to watch the show, to take over the official Weibo. The four posts posted by her received more than 2 million reposts and nearly 670,000 likes. The sensory impact of physical activities cannot be replaced. In the first two years affected by the epidemic, Dior not only quickly adapted to the form of digital fashion shows, but also tried to give digital fashion shows a sense of reality in physical forms. In the Chinese market, Dior created the live broadcast mode of "watching the show together on the cloud". In addition to live broadcasting on Weibo, WeChat and other major local channels, guests are also invited to watch the show and communicate with each other in the studio to strengthen local consumers' awareness of fashion shows. understanding. Continuing the unique method practiced from the Chinese market, this year, Dior moved its "studio" to Paris, arranged a pre-show interview outside the show , and invited the stars and KOL present to share their joy and expectations.

Even in the difficult period of repeated epidemics, Dior has not shaken its confidence in investing in the Chinese market. Taking art as the starting point, Dior actively launched a dialogue with consumers. In November last year, it held the "Dior and Art" exhibition at Shanghai West Bund Art Center and Nanjing Deji Art Museum, which aroused widespread attention in the two major fields of luxury goods and art. Prior to this, Dior also took the lead in bringing the brands of LVMH LVMH Group to the China International Import Expo, showing the brand's feelings for Chinese culture and its concern and support for Chinese artists, and exhibited "DIOR LADY ART #7" in advance Artist collaboration series. In order to deepen the connection with China's fashion industry, in 2021, Dior chose to exhibit the 2021 early autumn women's ready-to-wear collection at the West Bund Pavilion of Shanghai Long Museum during Shanghai Fashion Week on April 12, becoming the first special invitation to participate in China Fashion Week that year. Luxury brand. ‍‍‍‍ As the official partner of the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival and the designated cosmetics and perfume brand, Dior also presented the first fragrance creation documentary "Journey to Find Fragrance" that year, using poetic lens language to truly show Dior's chief fragrance. Fragrance master François Demachy's journey to find fragrance around the world. On the other hand, Dior has formed a set of brand communication methodology, especially in the Chinese market, Dior has used the power of social media to explore a set of "explosive formula" for the brand in China, that is, recognizable products + celebrities Matrix image output + strengthen digital construction.

Some people in the industry have questioned Dior's bold localization and digitalization initiatives. However, in the past few years, when the formula that Dior explored is now widely accepted and implemented by luxury brands, it turns out that the future of the industry has inevitably turned. A new direction, it's just that Dior saw this earlier. In order to continue the boost of classic handbags to brand sales, Dior officially launched the new LADY 95.22 handbag designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri in January this year. As the "evolutionary version" of LADY DIOR, this handbag is the first time that the creative director has explored and interpreted the classic LADY DIOR handbag from a new perspective. To this end, Dior released a blockbuster advertising campaign featuring the new brand ambassador Di Lieba, and the two videos have been played nearly 60 million times. On January 18, Dior announced that Di Lieba, who has more than 78 million Weibo fans, has become a new brand ambassador. In just one month, she released a number of promotional materials featuring her, covering jewelry, handbags and ready-to-wear series. Such dense communication is formed from dots into lines and quickly forms a matrix, showing the brand's mature and coherent marketing ideas and strong resource scheduling capabilities. Thanks to the continuous investment in digitalization, social media and marketing, the continuous launch of new series, fashion shows and limited-time pop-up activities, Dior was named the best performer in the 2022 Brand Finance Top 50 Ranking List released by Brand Finance Luxury brands soared from No. 12 to No. 1 with a score of 88.4. Now, with the relaxation of restrictions on outbound travel, more and more fashion practitioners and celebrity ambassadors are returning to Fashion Week. They wore new styles, stepped on the red carpet, gave interviews, and were broadcast live, and people didn't seem to feel strange. Just because invisibly, the brand's continuous and unremitting investment has filled the communication gaps one after another. In March last year, Dior's flagship store at No. 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, France, finally opened its doors after a 30-month renovation project was completed. The refurbished flagship store covers an area of 2,000 square meters, becoming a very iconic brand window and city landmark. For those Chinese consumers who are late, they will finally experience it in person and feel the brand universe full of stories of Dior. With the return of Chinese consumers, it is only a matter of time for Dior to cross the threshold of 10 billion, and it will steadily move towards further goals.