SHANGHAI, Oct. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- During Paris Fashion Week, Denmark up-and-coming designer brand Cecilie Bahnsen unveiled her first collaboration with outdoor specialist The North Face. Romantic elements such as florals and tulle unfold on sporty silhouettes and functional fabrics, and the interweaving of neatness and hazy beauty became a bright sight on the runway.
As soon as this cooperation was released, it sparked heated discussions, and "fairy outdoor wind" became a key word on social media at home and abroad. Although the collaboration has not yet been officially released, "fairy outdoor style" has begun to become popular on the Internet, and the show style has become a new inspiration for the outdoor fashion industry. Beimian's ability to build momentum as a weather vane in the professional outdoor field, as well as its sensitivity to emerging outdoor fashion design styles, are vividly demonstrated in this cooperation.
With so many collaborations between professional outdoor and fashion brands nowadays, why is North Face's collaboration with Cecilie Bahnsen a phenomenal one-of-a-kind? Cecilie Bahnsen is known for her fairy design and "ghostly style", and she is also innovative in materials and craftsmanship. For the professional outdoor field, the "heterogeneity" and "niche temperament" of the North Face are significant enough, and the hedging of the two styles not only brings surprises in design, but also reveals the ambition of the North Face not to stick to the established crossover model.
Unlike the earlier collaborations in the North that were more Unisex-oriented in the fashion field, this collaboration is more towards haute couture and femininity. Cecilie Bahnsen has been decorated with poetic details such as florals and embroidery on classic jackets, cliff shoes and panniers, and the combination of rigidity and softness also visualizes the delicate and flexible outdoor style, which also breaks through the original application scenario - behind the extreme contrast between "super outdoor functionality" and "super femininity" is a new wave of style, and it is also an attempt to bring professional outdoor into fashion.
Since the outdoor began to enter the pan-trend fashion field, the industry has undergone many style evolutions and concept changes. In the past year, the layout of high-end luxury and fashion brands in the professional outdoor field has become more prominent, from the earlier cross-border cooperation to the current professional department expansion, from passive integration to active development, more mature "household luxury style" has begun to appear in high-end luxury and fashion brands, and has also formed a trend of fashion brands "feeding" the outdoor industry. At the same time, they can also combine the popular micro-trends such as "old money style" and "quiet luxury style" to grasp the needs and aesthetic preferences of different consumer groups, and gradually become a force to be reckoned with in the outdoor field.
Professional outdoor brands are also looking to take the initiative in this trend. However, how to achieve each other with haute couture instead of blindly "absorbing" and "borrowing" requires more balance, which is not only the style integration or resource flow between brands, but also the brand's consideration for the next stage of development.
As an influential brand in both the professional outdoor field and the fashion industry, North Face has also rethought the strategic significance of partnering with a high-end fashion brand. The collaboration with Cecilie Bahnsen is not the first time that North Face has ventured into haute couture, from earlier collaborations with Sacai and GUCCI to more recent Comme des Garcons (CDG) and MM6, North Face has collaborated with avant-garde fashion houses to try to integrate the spirit of haute couture with an outdoor sports perspective. In the early years of cooperation, the brand pursued more of a harmonious blend of "fit" and style, and at that time, the north side was also at the forefront of the intersection of outdoor and fashion. It's also relatively obvious what North has in common with these brands, as well as their appeal in the pan-trend community and among their overlapping audiences.
The brand's two collaborations with Undercover to bring the SOUKUU collection can also be seen, the two parties try to "deconstruct" outdoor sports products with a more fashionable design language, and rarely combine pioneering thinking with high-performance mainline products and the technical specifications of the SUMMIT series, which symbolize the brand's hardcore spirit, breaking the previous tradition of cross-border and lifestyle-oriented categories, and exploring niche sports such as trail running and hiking for the first time in a cross-border way. The high quality, ground-breaking co-creation and excellent market feedback have made the public even more excited about the upcoming collaboration.
For cross-border fashion, the north has also undergone a transformation of "recognize before you know". From a business point of view, co-branding is essentially a cooperation model between brands to "share the audience", transcending styles, breaking through aesthetics, and even breaking through industry restrictions and potential consumer classes. With Cecilie Bahnsen and the CDG collaboration released in September, Beimian has accurately grasped the essence and essence of the "Audience Sharing" collaboration – the stylistic leap and audience difference are significant enough, and the positioning of the two brands is very different. The two seemingly incompatible brands can amplify and reshape the aesthetic "conflict" and "contradiction" of the two sides, and at the same time, they can retain the characteristics of professional outdoor brands and the design language of fashion brands in cooperation. The integration of outdoor brands and haute couture "does not play the safety card" also truly realizes the original intention of co-branding to broaden the audience.
The cooperation with a number of fashion brands in the past few years also reflects the growth and scrutiny of the north itself, including a more mature and confident understanding of haute couture, and a more proactive and forward-looking vision of the brand when combining trends and cooperating with fashion brands. Today's North has a harmonious and different mind, and also has a vision that jumps out of the professional outdoor industry, and for the deepening layout of "fashion outdoor" in the future, North has the confidence and strength to continue to explore.
Diversified cross-border integration, the comprehensive upgrade of the north is more worth looking forward toFrom the pan-trend radiation to the current set foot in the fashion outdoor, the north has not only found a new direction of exploration, but also quietly brought the future trend of the industry - the integration of fashion design language and professional outdoor spirit. With the deepening of the brand's layout and comprehensive understanding, as well as the help of industry trends, Beimian took the lead in entering the market, breaking through traditional thinking on the basis of functionality and outdoor value, not only allowing the market to see the different styles, but also leading the breakthrough in the professional outdoor field.
In the past, Kitamian has collaborated with creators from different fields, from fashion brands such as Supreme, KAWS, and CLOT, to avant-garde designers such as GUCCI, CDG, Cecilie Bahnsen, and haute couture houses. Through multi-directional cooperation, the north side presents the diversity of fashion outdoor styles, but also shows a strong brand vitality, gathering deep creative thickness and cultural heritage. For more people, Beimian is no longer just a professional outdoor brand in the traditional sense, but also a "creative center" based on outdoor attributes and cultural "malleability". Uniting different forces to create and diverge emerging trends, the north has a pattern that breaks the mold and has unlimited potential.
In addition to diversified cooperation, the series of branch lines also guide the pace of brand integration. In the north, there are many spots in professional outdoor and urban outdoor, including the Summit series, which symbolizes the height and precision of professional outdoor, and the Urban Exploration (UE) branch line, which is deeply influenced by urban trends and is sought after by young people.
Through multi-dimensional integration, Beimian can make different groups such as outdoor sports enthusiasts and non-outdoor consumers feel the spirit and charm of the brand. Whether it's the classic short Nuptse down jacket that follows the trend of women's retro hot girls, or the design of Cliff hiking shoes that combines outdoor function and urban fashion design language, it shows the ability of North Face to reinterpret classic outdoor items in a more fashionable language, subtly echoing the aesthetic trends and multi-scene matching needs. In addition, UE has become an opinion leader in the pan-trend field for many years, gathering audiences from different cultural circles for the brand and helping the brand to integrate the process. It can be seen that the "outdoors" portrayed in the north is no longer conformist, and the "outdoor spirit" is not only limited to self-breakthrough in the field of professional sports and the exploration of the natural world, but also a pioneering attitude about design and aesthetics and daring to express it.
Perhaps the brand upgrade is not only about the richness of products and the diversity of creativity, but also about the brand's attention and tolerance for different consumer groups and different aesthetics. The professional outdoor spirit of the north has not become a shackle to the development of the brand, because there can be many ways to explore, and it can also be in different fields, to trial and error and detours, or there are puzzles and confusions, but the process of exploration is a kind of answer. It is foreseeable that the "integrated" upgrade of the North Face is a development trajectory that is difficult to replicate, in which cross-border co-branding cooperation is the source of continuous innovation, but whether it is "professional outdoor" or "fashion outdoor", the true and original intention of the North Face for "never stop exploring" has not changed, and this is the support for the brand to maintain its vitality in the changing trend.