Category Archives: sponsorship

Review: Dior Homme x Hurts, Beijing, April 25, 2013

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Hurts came to town as part of the Dior Homme presentation in Beijing on April 25. A re-creation of the line’s Autumn/Winter 2013 show staged at Paris Fashion Week in January, this is creative director Kriss van Assche and the storied French fashion house’s first full presentation in Beijing. The line previously reproduced the Haute Couture show at Shanghai’s House of Roosevelt in January 2013.

Taking place at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), the same location as Prada’s Beijing event in 2011, the show also included three tuxedo ensembles manufactured especially for the Chinese market. This, along with actress Fan Bingbing’s China-only appearance in the upcoming Marvel action film Iron Man 3, highlights the attempts by international luxury and entertainment entities to target Chinese consumers. After the models had left the runway, Hurts took the stage, attired in head-to-toe Dior Homme, of course. An informal poll of the guests present concluded that most were also fans of the band in addition to being part of the fashion world.

The performance, which lasted a respectable 40 minutes or so, featured a good mix of tunes from their first and second albums, including hit singles “Wonderful Life” and “Better Than Love.” Near the end of the set, a live bat that had flown through the venue earlier returned, a fitting coda to both the show’s somber tones and Hurts’ gothic sensibilities.  Continue reading →

Preview: Dior Homme x Hurts

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Calling all fashionistas – this Thursday sees the arrival of the Dior Homme (that’s menswear) Autumn/Winter 2013 collection. The brand, which has been making considerable forays into the Chinese luxury-goods market, will present the collection at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Museum (a popular venue for high-fashion shows in Beijing). The brand has also tapped British synthpop Hurts to perform at the fashion show’s afterparty. Similar to the brand’s Haute Couture presentation in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago, the event is meant to be quite exclusive in it’s guestlist and without the usual media scrum common to other fashion shows in China and around the world. Check back here next week for a more detailed report of this latest collaboration between music and luxury goods.

In the meantime, check out our earlier coverage of Keane x Burberry and Prada x Pet Shop Boys. At this point, we are seeing the luxury brands still relying on Western musical acts for collaboration. Even though many mainstream Chinese celebrities have already secured lucrative brand ambassadorships with the major fashion and accessory brands, the same brands have been more reluctant to tap into the Chinese music world for those same deals (and calling Angelababy a “singer” just isn’t something we are willing to do).

Chinese Festival Consumers are Smart, Don’t Ya Know?

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Editor’s note: a bit delayed, but this piece is as much about the general state of branding and commercial presence at large outdoor music festivals as it is about any specific event. It was written after attending Midi 2012 in Shanghai.

China’s Midi Festival is a crazy beast. The first time we attended was in May 2006; it was our first sighting of the paradox that was modern China: a park full of rock and metal fans stomping and moshing to mohawked and dreadlocked bands who in turn were singing about those issues close to their hearts and sensitive to the country surrounding this little enclave in time and space.  It took our collective breaths away.

Midi is the Glastonbury of China in so many ways: the fans who attend Midi are a coalescence of the disaffected 90’s generation of punks and rockers who worked in the margins of the margins because of a heartfelt desire to change things.  The people that come really contribute to the vibe of the festival rather than expecting to be passively entertained.  The merchandise is better, the people are crazier, there are more smiles, more impromptu jam sessions, more hugging and general random acts of kindness than anywhere else in China.

The other thing that Glastonbury and Midi share is a generous and powerful gesture to give up the massively lucrative “billboards” that are their respective mainstages, and instead give them to good causes.  In Glastonbury’s case, the charities Wateraid and Greenpeace have pride of place on the Pyramid Stage. In Midi’s case the Tang Stages in 2011 and 2012 plus the overall festival VI (programmes, flyers, posters) were devoted to causes that the organizers consider important: in 2011 the eradication of the Chinese trade in bear bile in, and in 2012, drawing attention to urban China’s dangerous pollution levels: PM2.5.

[this was true at the time of writing: in fact, in 2012 Midi did succumb and sold main stage branding to Vans for the Beijing festival].

We’d like to put it out there that WE THINK THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME.  We don’t know of any other examples of powerful social movements in China using their influence to stand up to some of the systemic problems that exist here.  (We would love some comments to share what inevitable others are out there)

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Brad Ferguson over at S24/7

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There is a great (and very long) interview over at Shanghai 24/7 with Brad Ferguson. Brad has been in and around Shanghai’s nascent music community since 2002 and has variously managed venues, bands and gear production. You can discover more by going and reading the interview. There is also healthy debate in the comments section.

If we were to pick out one part of the interview that hasn’t been a focus of the commentary, it was Brad’s healthy dislike of the way music is being used in the corporate context. Brands are often one of the only sources of real revenue for struggling artists in China, and it’s a huge shame (and inevitable) that a less-than-transparent industry has emerged here to take advantage of the creators. Anyway, over to Brad:

BF: Yeah, so put up your Tiger poster and your Jagermeister banner or whatever, and then there is some benefit. I don’t see any of it as ‘selling out’; all these people should be getting paid, whether they’re getting paid by door sales or by a beer sponsor, to me that doesn’t really make any difference as long as they’re not getting screwed by the sponsors.

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Mercedes going large

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Mercedes do seem to be spending pretty heavily in the entertainment space recently. On top of their purchase of naming rights at the Shanghai Mercedes Benz Arena and the entertaining of select groups of VIPs at sit down Mary J Blige dinners, they are also putting forward a series of 10 shows in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen from 10-21 August – their “International Music Festival”. Check out the video:

Keane launch Burberry in China

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In case you didn’t know, UK band Keane flew into China for a few minutes, played a show in a film studio to selected guests (who were all individually whisked to said venue in Mercedes) stepped into the Star Live to play for HIT FM and then left. For those of you that didn’t get one of the golden invites, we present to you a video of the performance.

Oh, and there is a new Burberry store in Beijing.

Carsick Cars x Coca Cola

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Carsick Cars are in Austin, playing SxSW with Queen Sea Big Shark courtesy of Converse. If you want to see them when they get back from the US, you may have to go somewhere different than normal. For the first band of Chinese alternative music are playing somewhere very strange indeed. Hangzhou Stadium, to be precise, on April 9, with Wang Xiaokun and the actress Wang Luodan, all courtesy of Coca Cola.

Is this brave or foolhardy? For a band affectionately dubbed the Chinese equivalent of Sonic Youth, it seems like a bizarre mix indeed. Has Coke thought context, or have they pulled in a band that they think are famous but don’t understand why? Will a stadium full of mainstream fans of the famous actress and the famous pop star be turned on or off by a band that take their cues from noise and avant garde rather than honey and sugar, or will Carsick Cars become the first truly mainstream alt band in China? It’s certainly something we will be watching with interest – it could be genius: what do we know?

FYI, they are the guys and girls with coke bottle tops over their heads.

Intel x Vice

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We complained last week that details of the three day final event of the Intel/ Vice Creator’s Project hadn’t been announced 17 days prior to the event, missing out on press, hype and excitement in the process.

Well, they have just released a full rundown of what will be over the weekend of 17-19 September, and it looks like it will be a pretty awesome day or two at the Dashanzi 798 art district, with some truly great creative minds presenting their wares. From the website:

The event will begin on Friday, the 17th with a dazzling array of exhibitions and installations featuring some of the very best digital artists at work today. These will include Li Hui, Kingsley Ng, Xu Wenkai, Teddy Lo, Xu Feng, Hojun Song, Mira Calix, Muti Randolph, United Visual Artists, Radical Friend, Ricardo Carioba, Takeshi Murata, Nick Zinner, DSP, Seeper, and Mark Essen.

The festivities will continue Saturday, September 18th all-day and into the night, starting with screenings of films by Peng Lei, Ray Lei, Sun Haipeng, Yeondoo Jung, Richie Hawtin, Ladj Ly, Margherita Premuroso, Spike Jonze, Danny Perez, and Brain Farm. We’ll have panel discussions led by Vega Wang, Peng Lei, and Tobias Thomas; and will be featuring intimate live performances by Rebuilding the Rights of Statues, Queen Sea Big Shark, New Pants, Dead J, Sulumi, White +, CSS, Delorean, Major Lazer, Ada, and Nick Catchdubs along with DJ sets by B6, DJ Wordy, and Tobias Thomas. On Sunday the 19th, we’ll have open exhibitions all day for all you gallery goers. For a taste of what to expect check out this video.

You can check out the full works at the Creators Project website and you can RSVP to the event HERE.

Dickies x Music

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Apparel brands seem to work in seasons. In January, we pointed you towards the fact that three sneaker brands were all doing similar things in the same month in the same venue. HERE.

American workwear brand Dickies has been active in the music space for a couple of years now. We first saw the brand activate at the 2009 Modern Sky Festival in Beijing, providing t-shirts to the staff and having some stall/ shop presence.

Now they are going a little bigger, working on a short tour with Modern Sky bands Queen Sea Big Shark and Life Journey.

Sep 10 Nanjing 61 house

Sep 11 Shanghai MAO

Sep 12 Hangzhou Code-space

There isn’t too much original about this – QSBS have been heavily associated with other bands, Converse particularly. The timing is also somewhat unfortunate as it runs almost parallel with another very similar activation by Puma, who are touring Mavis and her 100% band, to the same venue in Shanghai the day before.

9/10 Shanghai Mao: Mavis, Bigger Bang, Sonnet, etc

9/18 Beijing Star Live Mavis, Bigger Bang, Steely Heart, Dude

One pair of Puma shoes plus T-shirt gets 2 free tickets. No tickets at the door.

There is lots of potential in this space, but consumers need new and creative concepts, rather than retreads and remakes…