III. The Importance of Brand Identity and Community IV. Predecessors: Brands, Concept Stores, and the Beginnings of Chinese Brand Community………………………………………………………………………35

of media, characterized by the unprecedented presence of images, signs, and bodies, has created ‘communities with no ‘sense of place.’”91 No longer tied to a physical space,

communities can exist virtually and hold the same presence and importance in the digital

space. YanYan and Bobblehaus both exist within a time period that allows them to

communicate with their customers directly and formulate a community not bound by

space.

National communities are only a few of the examples of communities that exist in

today’s globalized world. For the context of this thesis it is important to understand the

core communal values within Chinese communities and those with Chinese heritage to

evaluate how it translates to the conception and ethos of their brands. Regarded as a

collectivist culture, Chinese culture emphasizes group relationships, valuing both what is best for personal relationships and for the wellbeing of the overall community.92 Yet this

is only the surface of the value of community within Chinese culture, as what is truly

foundational to community are familial relationships and kinship, which has its ties to the century old ideas of filial piety and social harmony.93 It is impossible to separate modern

Chinese culture from Confucianism, as it is deeply integrated into Chinese societal values, forming the understructure of many East Asian societies.94 Though filial piety

points specifically to obedience and care towards one’s parents and elder family

members, the “emphasis on the close affinity of the clan, the neighborhood, tutorship,

91 Clark, Hazel and Alla Eisenberg, Rethinking Fashion Globalization, 241. 92 Gao, Mobo. “Collectivism.” Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi. ANU Press, 2019. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvk3gng9.8. 93 Zhang, Lihua. “China’s Traditional Cultural Values and National Identity.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. November 13th, 2013. 94 Lai, Chen. “Historical and Cultural Features of Confucianism in East Asia.” 102.

friendship, and other blood relationships also has its roots in filial piety.”95 Harmony,

compassion and love all begin with the foundation of filial piety, and it is from there that

one can begin to practice loving others.

Harmony refers to the “proper and balanced coordination between things,” and

modern Chinese society seeks to maintain harmony between many moving parts of the world–between human beings and nature, individual and society, and mind and body.96

With valued Confucian sayings such as “Benevolence means to love and wisdom means

to understand others,” compassion to others extends from familial ties to social relationships.97 Relying on one another for the overall community to thrive calls back to

the cores of Chinese society, with harmony and compassion forming the foundation of

both ethical and social principles of Chinese society. Mutual prosperity happens when

one seeks to help and support both oneself and others.

It is no surprise, then, that Chinese designers continue to seek these familial

networks and relationships within their businesses, building relationships that function “like a family.”98 With YanYan Knits and Bobblehaus, the core values of caring for the

environment and their people are embedded as foundations of their brand. Diasporic

networks in particular seek out those with similar values to re-establish their community,

pursuing similar cultural values they may have left. Seen in cities like Los Angeles or

New York, diasporic Chinese networks within the fashion industry formulate bonds

beyond that of designers and producers based on their shared identity, creating a

95 Hsieh Yu-Wei. “Filial Piety and Chinese Society.” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 9, No ½. 1959, University of Hawai’i Press. 57. 96 Zhang, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013. 97 Lai, 103. Zhang, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013. 98 Tu, The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion, 65.

relationship of kin far more intimate than a purely professional one.99 Immigrant workers

supporting the works of second generation designers contribute to the values of harmony

and community, where they are willing to further assist designers in various ways such as giving discounted prices or accelerating production schedules.100 Even in cities like Hong

Kong, kin networks continue to function within business ventures, where owners would

build factories where relatives were located to continually establish familial and professional relationships.101 No matter where the Chinese immigrants went, whether it

was within China or abroad, they effectively utilized their guanxi. 102 Retaining these

relationships and togetherness showcases the centrality of community and family in these

Chinese designer’s brands and lives, in which they can continue to build upon their

community in their professional lives, should they want to. This work model has led to

“remarkable economic success in Confucian based Asian societies,” “pointing to the

inter-relationship among harmonious human relationships, social structure and work ethics, and their intriguing link to economic growth.”103 Whether intentionally or

inadvertently, Chinese designers extend Chinese cultural and social values into their

brands by exercising a sense of community through their habitus. Chinese designers are

thus able to create unique brand identities and communities tied to their own cultural

heritage. However, the desire to create a community may not purely be culturally

generated, but also a part of a shift within the larger fashion system in relation to social

media and consumption habits.

99 Ibid. 100 Tu, The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion, 80. 101 Moon, Fashion Cities, 525. 102 Krause, Tight Knit: Global Families and the Social Life of Fast Fashion, 79. 103Ling, Wessie. “Beneath the co-created chinese fashion: translocal and transcultural exchange between China and Hong Kong.” Fashion in Multiple Chinas: Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape. New York: 2018, 127

The Importance of Brand Identity and Community

With the rise of e-commerce, the importance of brand identities and communities

are not happening through a vacuum but in relationship to the greater fashion sphere and

society at large. Consumption has moved heavily towards the digital sphere, with ecommerce growing 30 times more quickly than the wider online ad market.104 The

change in consumer behavior is crucially noted as having more than doubled during the

COVID pandemic of 2020, though it was already on a rise prior to that as a result of increasing technological advancement.105 This shift in consumer behavior has led brands

to increasingly cater to digital platforms as one of the main ways for consumption.

Due to the emphasis on e-commerce, branding is crucial in the modern age. With

multitudes of products on the market today, the distinguishing factor relies on the

messaging and branding of a company to be identifiable. Through the process of creating

a strong and distinctive perception of a company, its messages and products are more

effectively conveyed to its desired consumers, imbuing ideas and thoughts into objects. A

distinctive brand identity, then, is key to creating a memorable and distinguishable

product that appeals to one’s intended audience. Moving beyond physical products, in

today’s market it is increasingly the messages or feelings of a product that persuade

consumers to purchase a product–buying into a brand as a form of a lifestyle, seemingly

as an approval of its messaging or even a desire to join its community. It is also important

to emphasize that the fashion system too is shifting towards brands as a lifestyle as part of

104 Clapp, Rob. “COVID-19 causes digital consumption to rise by over 30%, forming new and lasting consumer habits.” WARC. April 30th, 2021. https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/covid-19causes-digital-consumption-to-rise-by-over-30-forming-new-and-lasting-consumer-habits/en-gb/4209 105 Ibid.

a new branding and marketing strategy. This means that while emerging designers utilize

communities as a foundation to their brands, the desire to be a part of a community is the

general market desire. People want to feel like they can support a brand that is in line

with their values, which is why community values of a brand and their brand identities

are so important. Though Chinese emerging designers do begin with a foundation of

community as part of their brands, it also is functioning in tandem with the greater

fashion system at large. As Tseelon notes, “Brands derive their appeal from the story of origin, purpose, and character of the consumer products they create.”106 Connecting this

to Anderson’s imagined communities, the relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are thus

made clear through a distinctive identity, further formulating a brand community in this case.107 In the cases of Bobblehaus and YanYan Knits, their emphasis on their Chinese

heritage is imbued within the products they design and strategies they implement.

Though physical products remain important, more convincing are the emotional ties that

one can feel towards a product or company. Branding thus conveys who the brand is and

who they want to be, translating this to their audience in a myriad of ways.

Social media becomes a key way for brands to directly interact with their

customers and build a relationship between the two, allowing the formulation of brand

communities. Prior to social media, brands working in the market have not had a direct

communication channel with their consumers–social media offers this opportunity for them to listen and talk to their consumers.108 YanYan Knits and Bobblehaus are both

106 Tseelon Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty 9, 3. 107 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7. 108 Coelho, Pedro Simões, Paulo Rita, Zélia Raposo Santos. “On the relationship between consumer-brand identification, brand community, and brand loyalty.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 43. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.03.011.

brands that began with an online, direct-to-customer shop, lending their overall social

media presence and store a very digital feel. As a result of this ability, brands are able to

create stronger brand communities by engaging directly with their users, and brands

beyond fashion such as Glossier, Apple, and Soulcycle have all created brand communities strongly tied to their brand identities.109 By appealing to their targeted

customers and emphasizing their brand as a lifestyle, they successfully curate brand

communities of like-minded people. Digital communication allows them to engage

directly with their consumers and operate based on a community model. With the use of

social media in particular, they are able to directly reach their target audiences without a

need for a physical location.

Importantly, this thesis makes a distinction between brand community and brand

loyalty, as brand loyalty more heavily emphasizes sales and numbers, whereas brand

community points to a deeper connection beyond transactional values. Coelho notes that

researchers previously have focused on “community dynamics in predicting customer loyalty,”110 creating a distinction between brand loyalty and community and thereby

highlighting the importance for examination into how the two differ. A brand community,

according to Muniz and O’Guinn, can be described as a “specialized, non-geographically

bound community based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand.”111 Reiterating the importance of social media, the way that a brand communicates

and interacts with its members highlights brand ethos and identity, and therefore

community. The visual nature of social media platforms such as Instagram makes their

109 Prater, Meg. “19 Brands with a Cult Following (And What You Can Learn From Them.” Hubspot. January 11th, 2022. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/brands-with-cult-following 110 Coelho, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 111 Muniz, Journal of Consumer Research 27, 412.

identity immediately recognizable to their customers. Customers are thus also able to

interact with the brand, creating content for them or highlighting them on their personal

pages. Social media allows relationships to further develop between consumers, inviting

them to respond and connect with each other. Together, the value of community in

Chinese culture and social media work to strengthen brand communities as well as brand

identities.

Consumption is a social act, and therefore social identity relationships persist

between company and customers within brand communities. According to social identity

theory, people define their social identities based on their categorization of members in

different social groups, and brands thus become a key component in an individual’s social identity.112 Social identities can be loosely tied to that of cultural identities and

heritage, and customers thus choose brands they see themselves represented in, and by

highlighting one’s identity or heritage, brands are able to better communicate their brand

identities to formulate their communities. Sharing key values, for example, becomes a

way for shared consciousness to form within a brand community that extends from

personal to social. When highlighting shared cultural heritage as a foundation, shared

consciousness and key values naturally formulate within brand communities. Shared

consciousness of kind transcends geographic boundaries, formulating imagined communities that can be established digitally.113 Not only do people see objects and

clothes as “shorthand summaries of the self,” but they are also aspirational props of what one hopes to be.114 Clear brand identity helps one find where they belong, which is

112 Coelho, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 113 Muniz and O’Guinn, Journal of Consumer Research 27, 419. 114 Tseelon, Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty 9, 4.

pivotal to diasporic communities. It also is important to Chinese communities within the

Western fashion system for customers to see themselves in a form of recognizable

representation, as Hall argues As a result, brand differentiation, identity, and community

are all crucial to allow diverse customers to satisfy their social and personal identification

needs.

A consumer’s relationship with the brand can further generate emotional

connections with the brand network, which helps establish social bonds between the brand and its consumers, furthering allowing for a basis of trust between the two.115

Community can be more than a place–it can be the “common understanding of a shared identity.”116 For emerging Chinese designers, they may wish to draw upon their heritage

or utilize a community-based model to create their stores. Regardless of which approach

they take, they emphasize generating emotional connections with their customers as a

form of inviting them into the community. YanYan Knits and Bobblehaus both do so

with their branding, and within their brand communities, consumers are able to become

an active part of creating the community they wish to be a part of. However, as

mentioned previously, this is not an isolated occurrence within the fashion industry nor is

it unique to these two emerging brands. Strategic brand directions are increasingly

realizing that community-based models are effective and efficient in selling, and

therefore many, apart from those with Chinese heritage, have been increasingly utilizing

community-based models in their branding. Fashion is only one outlet for companies and

branding based within communities, and there were many predecessors to Bobblehaus

and YanYan Knits within the fashion sphere alone.

115 Coelho, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 116 Muniz and O’Guinn, Journal of Consumer Research 27, 413.

Predecessors: Brands, Concept Stores, and the Beginnings of Chinese Brand

Community

Prior to digital direct-to-consumer platforms and pop-up stores, there were brick

and mortar stores and concept stores. What these stores did is similar to that of the

community building that Bobblehaus and YanYan Knits are trying to achieve, namely by

utilizing specific brand strategies and marketing in order to appeal to customers. From

concept stores to strategic marketing, the movement towards a more exclusive and

community based approach was already setting its roots within the early 2000s.

Within the decade of the 2000s, Chinese designers had already begun to compete

on creating a highly distinguishable brand image due to the accessibility of industrialized manufacturing.117 Efforts in product development, retail store design, and promotion all

became coordinated to construct a memorable and cohesive brand image, yet a new shift on multichannel retailing was also progressing.118 As a result of this, Chinese brands and

designers began to focus on how to appeal to their customers while retaining a unique

brand image. Merchandising, service in store, the promotion of their goods and their

retail store were all key within a brand’s conception, creating merchandising strategies

that guided decisions on the development of a brand image.

Chinese designers at this point all had varied areas of visual interest for their

brands, and the visual creation in addition with a unique brand philosophy “constituted

the dual core of a designer label’s identity,” though many chose collaboration with the

117 Wu, Juanjuan, Yue Hu, Lei Xu, and Marilyn R. DeLong, Fashion in Multiple Chinas, 70. 118 Ibid.

applied arts.119 In Shanghai, these designer boutiques congregated around Chang Le

Road–which later became a landmark for original Chinese fashion. “Its unique culture,

grown out of an entirely new retail format” drew media attention, highlighting the power of a collective in transforming a non-fashion street into a distinctly fashionable one.120

Opening Ceremony and Dover Street Market had similar effects on the locations they

opened, creating a fashion community in a space that previously had not been classified

as such.

Dover Street Market, created by Rei Kawakubo of Comme de Garçons and her

husband Adrian Joffe, opened in 2004 at Dover Street in Mayfair, London, where they

began experimenting with placing high fashion pieces next to multi-sensory art installations.121 Similarly, Opening Ceremony, created in 2002 by Carol Lim and

Humberto Leon in New York, is a multi-brand retail store that stocked up-and-coming

brands such as Dries van Noten to small designers from all over the globe, consolidating them in a way none other before them has done.122 Since then, Leon has also opened

restaurant Chifa in Los Angeles with his family members, further extending the value of community beyond that of the fashion sphere.123 Lim and Leon noted that the store was a place for “the community to come together, not only to shop, but to discover.”124 Dover

119 Wu, Juanjuan, Yue Hu, Lei Xu, and Marilyn R. DeLong, Fashion in Multiple Chinas, 76. 120 Ibid. 121 Sisley, Dominique. ““A Fantastical Family”: The Inimitable Magic of Dover Street Market.” AnOther Magazine. August 17th, 2021. https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/13505/london-the-inimitablemagic-of-dover-street-market 122 Witte, Rae. “Opening Ceremony’s Store Closure is More than Just Another Retail Casualty.” Fashionista. January 17th, 2020. https://fashionista.com/2020/01/opening-ceremony-closing-storesindustry-reactions 123 Mohney, Chris, and Humberto Leon. “LA’s Chifa: An Intercontinental Launch By Humberto Leon and Family.” Zagat. https://stories.zagat.com/posts/las-chifa-an-intercontinental-launch-by-humberto-leonand-family 124 Abad, Mario. “Opening Ceremony to Close All Stores.” Paper Magazine. January 14th, 2020.

Street Market operated under a similar ideology, describing their staff as kin while

highlighting a space that exposed its customers to a variety of brands and to create their

own identities.

Both of these stores emphasized the key idea of family and community. At Dover

Street Market, “a sense of camaraderie is felt most strongly among the current staff as well as the alumni, who often lovingly refer to DSM as a family.”125 Connie Wang,

executive editor of Refinery29, notes that Opening Ceremony is “much more [of] a

community, incubator or, as they called themselves, a family,” adding, “It really was just

a physical space where [you could] support people who are just starting out, whether that

was designers or photographers or young people who just got to the city and needed a job.”126 Despite being a physical retail store, these spaces accepted those who wanted to

be a part of the fashion system and their community. Fashion is only one outlet for

community gathering, as seen by Leon and Lim’s further explorations within the restaurant, virtual reality, and music world.127 Stores such as Colette in Paris or 10 Corso

Como in Italy too imbued the essence of a greater community within their stores, with

Colette blending an exhibition space, bookshop, and cafe in addition to its concept store

and 10 Corso Como beginning with an art gallery and bookshop before establishing a design and fashion store, cafe, and small hotel.128 Connecting to various disciplines, these

stores sought to build a wider community to reach a greater audience beyond fashion.

125 Sisley, AnOther Magazine. 126 Ibid. 127 Testa, Jessica. “ Where Fashion and Food Mingle and the Chopsticks Are for Sale.” The New York Times. February 10th, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/style/humberto-leon-chifamerch.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap 128 10 Corso Como. https://www.10corsocomo.com/ Cochrane, Lauren. “Paris’s Colette - ‘the trendiest store in the world’ - set to close.” The Guardian. July 12th, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/jul/12/pariss-colette-the-trendiest-store-in-theworld-set-to-close

While this seems like a natural progression for economic growth, it also highlights that

these brands are no longer just brands but indeed blending lifestyle into their identities.

These concept stores also highlight the importance of getting customers interested and

into their stores–many of whom were visitors and not shoppers. With heavy tourist

traffic, Colette, 10 Corso Como, and even Opening Ceremony and Dover Street Market

base their stores around the community to create tendencies that are more comfortable to

the shopper before staging the next development. There is not necessarily pressure to

purchase, but more so to enter and interact with the store. Brand community here is not

necessarily about selling clothing, but rather about sharing the brand and its identity.

Entering an exclusive, beautiful and unique space is a way of spreading their community,

wherein brand promotion naturally occurs.

For Opening Ceremony, it is crucial to note that both Lim and Leon, as children

of immigrants, opened up a space that allowed those from various backgrounds and cultures to feel like they belonged.129 Despite it being a physical retail store, it

nonetheless was a space that accepted those who wanted to be a part of the fashion

system and their community, and “were pioneers of inclusivity during a time when

advertisements believed having a redhead in a fashion campaign was considered ‘diverse.’”130 Previous to Opening Ceremony, there was not yet a retail store that

embodied and extended community in this way, expanding the concept from its physical

location to its brands, collaborations, and social events, which continually aided them in

creating a community that was more than just a label. However, the closure of the

129 Ibid. 130 Wang, Connie. “RIP to Opening Ceremony, A Store That Taught Us How to Find Ourselves.” Refinery29. January 15th, 2020. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/01/9209631/opening-ceremonystore-closing