La Chapelle, a clothing brand, spent 2.1 billion in two years and suffered lo...

The design that combines East and West is full of elegant and free French style. La Chapelle's new product posters from ten years ago still look classy today. After establishing its brand foundation, La Chapelle took another big gamble. During the SARS epidemic in 2003, while major brands were cutting production and canceling orders, La Chapelle did the opposite: ramping up production to ensure inventory. In fact, the gamble paid off. After SARS, everyone resorted to revenge shopping, leaving many major brands short on inventory. La Chapelle capitalized on this opportunity, offering aggressive promotions with discounts ranging from 10% to 70% off, generating significant profits and ultimately gaining widespread recognition.

But what really made La Chapelle famous was that its speed was too fast.

1. Fast new product launch

La Chapelle is always new, and it can launch thousands of new designs every day. It almost copied the ZARA fast fashion mannequin, so it was once called the "Chinese version of Zara."

2. Rapid Expansion

Opening thousands of retail stores each year, whether in first-tier cities or third- and fourth-tier cities, its retail stores can be found everywhere.

It has surpassed all its competitors at lightning speed.

In 2011, there were 1,841 retail stores;

In 2014, it was listed on the main board of Hong Kong;

In addition, tens of thousands of retail stores are also a big problem. The daily shop rent, water, electricity, and labor costs are all money.

So last year alone, La Chapelle closed a total of 4,400 retail stores, an average of 13 retail stores per day. And this crazy retail store closing situation is still happening today. Many La Chapelle retail stores that can be found on maps have actually closed or withdrawn their shelves. They haven't kept up with market changes, and their design and quality are questionable. Our disapproval of La Chapelle really began when its designs deteriorated. Back then, it was on par with brands like Erdos and Zhihe. Now, more than a decade later, let's take a look at its competitors.

Erdos has transformed from the warm love of a mother to the low-key and elegant tenderness of a cousin.

Zhihe has also transformed into a high-end women's clothing brand with a strong artistic atmosphere and strong sense of design.

You see, everyone has changed and become more adaptable to the market. But La Chapelle remains unchanged. Floral dresses, pink vests, and the requisite bows... this is what La Chapelle considers "French style," but we've long since moved on from that. The designs aren't up to date, and the quality is even worse. Even with sales in nearly every retail store right now, a coat that cost a thousand yuan might be reduced to just a few hundred. But poor quality is always a drawback:

"Do you think it's worth it?"

"I feel the workmanship isn't very good, and the selection isn't complete."

Even if there are crazy discounts, who would buy La Chapelle if the design is ugly and the quality is poor?

Taking on debt to buy multiple brands is not enough to cover expenses. There are a total of 12 brands under La Chapelle. When she was at her peak, in addition to opening retail stores crazily, she also expanded into multiple brands.

These sub-brands cover a wide range of age and gender categories, encompassing women's wear, men's wear, children's wear, and even parent-child wear.

This multi-brand strategy did indeed bring La Chapelle considerable success initially.

In 2013 in particular, the rapid development of the sub-brands generated substantial profits.

La Chapelle Sport, its women's sportswear brand alone, generated 2 billion in revenue. But problems soon arose: she, who excelled only in women's clothing, simply couldn't absorb so many different brands. So at the beginning of 2018, the three major men's clothing brands had a combined retail store count of over 700, but their profit growth was only in the single digits. Although it is already struggling, La Chapelle has no intention of stopping - for example, it spent 160 million to acquire the French brand Naf Naf mentioned at the beginning.

La Chapelle had already been plagued by overstocked inventory and retail store expansion. The debt-ridden insistence on operating multiple brands was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Thus, every once in a while, there's bad news for La Chapelle.

But looking back, La Chapelle wasn't the only one struggling—Gap closed retail stores, Esprit withdrew from China, and Daphne suffered a six-month loss of 348 million yuan... This may be an industry issue, but it's more of a problem with the brand itself. This is an era where you're too slow to wake up, or perhaps you don't even need to. While you're still scratching your head, others may have already risen against the tide. It's truly a shame that La Chapelle, once the brand with the highest revenue in China, has fallen to this state.