How "Guo Chao", the combination of classic cultural elements and current fashion trends, has taken over China.
The rising quality of domestic brands and the combined efforts of the social media and new generation of consumers, making "Guo Chao" an inevitable trend in mainland China.
“Guo Chao” literally means "national fashion," which means the Chinese-style new fashion. The so-called "Guo Chao" contains two meanings: first, there are factors of traditional Chinese culture in product design; second, the traditional culture can be integrated with the current trend and make the product more fashionable. Combining the two is the mutual symbiosis between old and new, niche and mass market, heritage and creation.
Li-Ning and the viral beginnings of Guo Chao
2018 is known as "the first year of the Guochao". Li-Ning, the sportswear company founded in 1990, presented at New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2018. This old-styled sportswear was transformed into the most popular trendy product. The new design perfectly combined Chinese vintage and current fashion trends, making Li-Ning the representation of Chinese new fashion design.
The concept instantly got viral on the Chinese Internet; more and more Chinese local sports brands are catching up with the Guochao trend to reach a new peak.
During last year's "Double Eleven" (the Chinese "Black-Friday," on November 11th), a 220% year-on-year increase was presented in the pre-sale orders. Young people's pursuit of Chinese-style fashion directly transforms into solid purchasing power and becomes a new profit point for brands.
Apart from Li-Ning, many other major Chinese domestic brands flocked to the trend, such as Want Want, Haili, Heicha, etc. No brand can resist the "super feast" of the Chinese new fashion trend, changing their packaging and product design to participate in the "Guochao" trending design.
Ne Zha and the maturity of the trend
This consumer trend gradually spread from the field of sportswear into other consumer products. New oriental tea beverages and retro-style cosmetics are gaining popularity in the crowd.
The "Guochao" contains not only actual consumer products but also cartoons, dramas, and cultural performances. Ancient Chinese mythology gets a new interpretation.
Cartoons such as "Ne Zha," "Monkey King: Hero is Back," "White Snake," and "Jiang Zi Ya" and a series of animation movies have achieved remarkable results. The cartoon "Ne Zha" has grossed 5.034 billion yuan, ranking third in the Chinese box office and with a Douban rating of 8.7. It is the representation of the rising work of national comics. These films are based on classical Chinese stories; those works are both artistic and with commercial innovations based on the classics, conveying Chinese cultural connotations to the world through commercial products.
With the emergence of the "Guochao" trend, the customers today show a particular preference for domestic brands and a desire for cultural protection. People are happy to see the rise of domestic products. Still, product sustainability should be more based on the quality of the product and aesthetic rather than a bundle of marketing tactics.
In particular, many products provide mostly similar designs under the "Guo Chao" hype. For most consumers, it isn't easy to make a brand bigger and stronger moat only by the sentiment and advertising. Guochao is a fashion trend today, and it is more important how to turn the temporary trend of a product into long-term sustainable demand.
