In 3 Years He Launched a Fashion Label, Opened a Training School, and Made His Name on a Reality Show | 100 People With Ideas

For Wen Haotian, design is only one part of the business — commercial success takes a lot of other pieces.

Xie Fei, a 25-year-old from Sichuan, had not been in Beijing long when she joined the studio of Wen Haotian, a fashion designer born in the 1990s. Here is how it happened: before that she had spent three months studying makeup at Mao Geping's makeup school in Gaobeidian, Beijing. Near the end of the course she saw a show on TV: Goddess's New Clothes (《女神的新衣》).

It is a reality show that pairs designers with female celebrities to make clothes for the "goddesses," with segments in between where buyers shop the results. For Wen Haotian, the benefits of going on it were obvious. It was a good chance to raise his profile and to meet more people in the industry.

Wen Haotian

Once filming wrapped, Wen Haotian naturally got to know the Tmall staff who worked on Goddess's New Clothes, and that opened up a new possibility for his secondary line.

His main identity right now, of course, is designer. His studio runs two production lines: Haotian wen, high-end and narrowly focused, and Chez Haotian, a secondary line created specifically for the partnership with the Tmall e-commerce platform.

He is also trying to become a writer — he has a book in the works called I Want to Give You a Home (《我想给你一个家》) — and another identity he may take on is Teacher Wen: his studio is preparing a fashion school called the "Total Fashion Institute."

It is a bit like the online course Teen Vogue and New York's Parsons School launched this month. Except Wen Haotian may be a little greedier — Parsons only wants students to work out "what the fashion industry is," while Wen Haotian wants more. He plans for students to be able to make at least one dress after a month of study, and wherever those students end up, they will become his "data."

Wen Haotian used the word "mutual help" to describe his relationship with these students. By his own account, he has helped at least two Total Fashion Institute students find work. One went to a factory to sew clothes, the other went to Uber.

That is how he works: lots of ideas, all the bases covered, and quick on his feet. In three years he has touched design, reality TV, writing a book, and running a school.

He sums up his brand and everything he does with a word that is something of a cliché: cake. "I've always been someone who plans. I want what I make to be a cake — it can be cut into many slices, it's an integration of everything, a way to fold this whole system of thinking into the cake," Wen Haotian told QDaily.

Wen Haotian's Haotianwen main-line designs

For Wen Haotian, design is only part of the business; commerce is the goal. Over the two hours we talked, he used the word "commerce" about 16 times, to underline where his attention sits right now.

In 2012, still a sophomore in college, Wen Haotian showed his first collection, Haotian.wen, in Paris. For a beginner who had studied design for only two years, putting a fashion collection together was not easy.

What is a fashion collection? Think of buying a set of jewelry: earrings alone won't do, you also need the ring, the necklace, the headband. The first Haotian.wen collection had 20 outfits. On top of that, he had to buy the fabric, write the press releases, find professional models, and fly back to Beijing to find a professional photographer for the shoot. He even made a brochure setting out his design philosophy and the brand's story in Chinese, English, and French.

That was the start of Wen Haotian's career as a designer; from then on he had, in effect, released his designs. Any formal write-up of him in the Chinese media begins with that 2012 Haotian.wen collection.

Most important, on the strength of the first and second Haotian.wen collections he posted on Weibo, Huang Wei, the styling director of Tiny Times 4, sought Wen Haotian out and asked him to make clothes for the film. That is how Gu Li's sharp armor and Nan Xiang's strapless look ended up on the Tiny Times 4 posters.

Wen Haotian calls himself a "tech idiot." Apart from WeChat, he does not really use social media. No Instagram; a Facebook account he rarely opens; no Twitter, not even abroad. He does not even have a Taobao account — "I know Taobao well, but I'm not a loyal user."

He still ended up working with e-commerce. The secondary line, Chez Haotian, was set up tailor-made for Tmall.

"Other e-commerce platforms had come to me before, like YOKA, and Trends Group and Trends Group's ELLEshop. But I chose Tmall. You work with a very commercial e-commerce platform, I bring some sentiment and some design, put the two together, and the product actually sells," Wen Haotian said. "I'm not ruling out other e-commerce platforms in the future either. A big part of why I went with Tmall is that I'd already been in touch with them through Goddess's New Clothes."

Wen Haotian keeps saying that he supplies the sentiment and Tmall supplies the data. Tmall hands him the categories it plans to push on the platform the following year, and Wen Haotian designs the secondary line around his own design instincts within that. The gap in style between the secondary line and the main line is what happens when Tmall's big data "interferes" with the designer — one Chez Haotian piece, a black base layer cut like a T-shirt with a deep fringe along the hem, came straight from Tmall telling Wen Haotian what was trending.

The secondary line, Chez Haotian

Unlike the main line, Haotianwen, which releases new pieces at the slow spring/summer, fall/winter rhythm, the secondary line, Chez Haotian, follows fast fashion and puts new products on Tmall every month. The main line's order of work is brand story and sentiment first, then the product, and product demands last. The secondary line reverses that: making the product comes first, above everything else.

"In the internet business, you have to know what the people who like your brand like. You analyze them, then put that together with your own brand's tone — match what they need to your tone, and the clothes sell well and get noticed." Because the secondary line has to update faster on Tmall, more of Wen Haotian's team now works on it than on the main line: seven people on the secondary line, only three on the main line.

Q: QDaily

W: Wen Haotian

Q: Where do you usually look for design inspiration?

W: I've always been a fairly rational person, but every time I have to design something, I have to travel alone. Last year, after a show, I went to Koh Samui and rented a villa by myself, 500 yuan a night. You walked down a long slope to get to it — trees on every side, and a stretch of beach and the sea in front. At night, a white cat kept following me. I couldn't make out what it looked like, and knowing this was Thailand, where the yin energy is said to run heavy, it was frightening. Later I went into my room, and it made no sound, just stayed outside watching me. I suddenly felt that cat trusted me. Back in the room I turned emotional, and I wanted to settle down and work.

Q: Is there a question you most want to ask yourself?

W: When are you getting married? (I'm not obsessed with marriage.)

Q: Any brands or designers you like?

W: No. That might be a little awkward to admit, because I don't know them — I rarely buy luxury goods, and right now I'm even carrying a backpack.

I do admire Zhou Xiangyu. But my admiration comes from knowing him in real life, not from his work or his image. However good your work is, I won't necessarily admire you for it — I want to understand you from the heart.

Q: What do you hope to express through your design?

W: Independence, self-reliance, design, strength, gentleness, practicality. Put the clothes on and they should feel comfortable, and you won't look out of place in any setting (unless you really wear it to a wet market, and someone tells you the hem is a bit long).

Q: What fabrics do you like to use in your designs?

W: Wool, cashmere. Chiffon in summer. Wool and cashmere — I'm good at fall/winter. Fall and winter give me the most inspiration; there's a lot of texture. Spring and summer still have to stay cool; fall and winter leave more room to work.

Q: What have you been reading lately?

W: We Three (《我们仨》). I like the cover, so I bought several different editions.

Q: Is everything in your closet your own design?

W: No. I like to hunt for finds — see this jacket I'm wearing today? I bought it in Korea for 200 yuan.

Q: Recommend your favorite restaurant in Beijing?

W: Dujinhu, Sichuan food. Also malatang and chuanchuan (skewer hot pot).

Q: What cosmetics or skincare products do you like to use?

W: SK-II and Avène.