2021 JULY
CHINA’S
MARKET ATTITUDE TOWARDS
LINGERIE
Written by Andrew Sia
Introduction
The market was once dominated by international brands but the shift to the domestic brands are because they have products that are more suitable to Chinese women’s bodies. Today, top five brands in term of social media coverage in China for 2020, only one, Victoria’s Secret was in number five.
2020 was an exceptional year for lingerie startups and digital bra labels have been well received by China’s Millennials and Gen Zers.
It was made possible in 2018, as over $30.5 millions of growth capital was poured into China’s digital bra startups. And for 2019 and 2020, more than a dozen emerging lingerie brands succeed in raising hundreds of millions of dollars and entered into the market.
Those disruptor brands are mostly founded by women who want to revolutionize the industry. They were frustrated and disappointed with the ill-fitting, curve-enhancing bra that they grew up. They have prioritized—comfort and simplicity, and no more push-up bras.
They even went further and shifted the paradigms by promoting comfortable, gender-neutral, and versatile styles. They are represented by brands as the following:
- Ubras
- Bananain
- Toffee
The Market Revolution
We came to know that the domestic lingerie giant Dushi Liren (Urban Lady), specialized in push-up bras, knockoff of Victoria’s Secret, saw their sales declined. The company’s sexy styles failed to attract the young customers.
Successful cases for emerging brands overnight success implied that there is still a lot of untapped potential in lingerie that touts modern, aspirational values.
Ubras, a digital-native brand specializing in one-size lingerie, surpassed Uniqlo in just two years and took the No. 1 selling bra during the 2020 Single’s Day.
Bananain was founded in 2016 by a Shenzhen tech company, became Tmall’s top-five performing brands by featuring gender-neutral underwear.
Livary Mio, a modern and feminine label founded by Miche Huang, who raised millions of dollars from the venture capital company Artesian INVESTS to grow its online business.
Tmall openly admitted that Chinese consumers are very receptive to new brands and especially new labels.
In the former days, brands would promote curve-flattering elects as lingerie’s selling point as the mainstream beauty standards were also encouraging women to strive for a sexy and ultra-feminine look. But since 2016, the wireless lingerie sales have grown 50% each year, mostly preferred by the post-90s customers. And by 2020, up to 76.6% of Chinese lingerie consumers preferred the wireless bras to the traditional push-up styles.
Neiwai is promoting broader movement towards body diversity and fight the stigmas of ageism and sizeism and try to connect them. It is not true that Chinese women are all slim, it is not just about sizes but there are a large variety of body shapes. The distance between the two breasts, shapes of the breasts, etc. It is more of the business opportunity for the domestic entrepreneurs.
Neiwai was founded in 2012 and the company has a compound annual growth rate of between 70 and 100% over the past three years and a network of more than 100 direct-to-consumers stores in 26 cities.
In 2020 its founder Liu Xiaolu released a short film ahead of the international Women’s Day called “No Body Is Nobody”. The founder continued to say that the brand has been growing along with the rising consciousness of Chinese women about their own bodies. The wireless bra is becoming the brand’s ethos.
It is a similar trajectory that the Western brand took toward inclusivity and empowerment as cornerstone of the lingerie sector. China, in this respect, has been swift.
For many decades the Chinese lingerie market was dominated by local giants, such as Gujin, Aimer and even Dushi Liren (Urban Lady) and the market was fest with push-ups and wired bras.
In the earlier days there were Triumph, Maniform, Wacoal, Embryform and Aimer. Then came H&M, Inditex’s Oysho, Uniqlo, which were not the conventional brands for the bras.
Victoria’s Secret, with a four-story, 25,850 square-foot flagship store in Shanghai in 2017. But that time the women were not ready to spend money on premium lingerie but rather spent on fashion and that they could be displayed.
Xilelu by Wu Yilei, a multi-brand fashion in Shanghai started stocking lingerie brands with those niche brands in China like Her Senses, Crème, and Atelier Intimo. Women began to spend money more on lingerie than they do on their outerwear.
The post-90s generation of women most were brought up by only child, given every opportunity for advancement academically and professionally by their parents. They are disconnected with traditional ideas as what a demure and respectable woman should react in a Chinese world—sexuality, romantic relationships and marriage.
The millennials and Gen Z think more about themselves for comfort than to wear the bras to please the men. It has a lot to do with the feminism and this has becoming a cultural sensitivity. We have also to add that messaging and marketing around sexiness in China is taboo there.
For brand like Victoria’s Secret, who has been trying to shake off its hyper-sexualized image and scandals associated with its founder. In its response to Neiwai’s blockbuster “No Body is Nobody” short film, Victoria’s Secret released a “Sexy Like This” campaign using popular actresses Zhou Dongyu and Tang Mi as brand ambassadors. It was largely received positively but whether Victoria’s Secret can keep pace with the local players is yet to be seen.
Local brands know better to embrace tactics that engage consumers at all levels, but the international brands apply a top-down approach which may not be a winning tactic. And most important that the Chinese understand the China’s unique social commerce environment
For instance, Ubras included a card in its packaging with every product sold and encourage the purchaser to scan a QR code to connect with a customer service rep on WeChat that can add the customers to all their activities, or livestream sales, and through this to build a closer relationship with its customers.
Toffee marked as a specialty brand selling to big-breasted Chinese women. Through Tmall it was able to generate a sale of $15.5 million. Through Douban, a social media platform in China the brand made a research to find the pain-points for women when they wear bras. Its success was based on its findings—comfortable, natural, wireless garment with overt embellishments, and at an affordable price. Currently these are what the market wants but in a year or two the market may change. No question, the international players will find it a difficult task to follow the market, especially it has also its culture and social need, but it is not an impossible one as nothing is impossible. You will have to put your ears on the ground, so to speak.