WeChat is changing the culture in China. That's undeniable. It's also changing the conversations we have online. It’s not just the country’s largest social media app designed as an instant messaging space: many brands use this platform for conversational commerce. By combining social media, chat and payment features, WeChat is now a go-to channel for fashion houses to drive the conversation around their brand forward.
Pinko China knows this well since they have started an ongoing collaboration with Istituto Marangoni in Shanghai. This liaison stands as a gateway to the cross-culture of two international fashion universes sharing Italian roots – the colourful Emilian style of an innovative Maison and the avant-garde vision of rising talents from the Chinese innovative campus of the historic yet fashion-forward school founded in Milan in 1935.
So, Pinko and Istituto Marangoni have joined forces to create content that cuts through the noise.
“Young students help us to see Pinko in a different maybe even less commercial perspective. Moreover, the way Istituto Marangoni Shanghai works is fast and very professional,” said Pinko’s PR and Digital Manager APAC Ambre Gao.
The project started as a styling workshop to mix and match Pinko’s spring-summer 2021 collection, where the students were given carte blanche. The marketing and PR of Pinko China eventually found the images styled and shot were fitting their brand identity extension on WeChat, whose official accounts template gives a much more editorial look to the campaign and digital contents. Therefore a mini digital zine “Issue 1 and Only” has been published as a secondary post illustrating the collection in a grunge/vintage mood.
S-S 21 / Project Name: P _ _ _ O - Styling: Tian Yu, O’Leikin, Xu Yingtian, Raven, Lou Min - Photographers: Olivier Hero Dressen, Francesco Fioretto - Styling Supervisor: Thibault Royer - MUA&H: Firdonyokiki - Models: Sasha Timoshe, Wen
The crossover continued with a proper digital fall-winter 21/22 campaign for their official accounts on both WeChat and the app working as a cloud-based event management software provider, GOAHEADLINE (a digital system the Chinese media and PR Agencies use to feature fashion brands in their fashion editorials or celebrity styling and works much like an e-commerce platform). Several teams of students participated from different courses, including fashion design, fashion styling and digital art direction, coordinated by Pinko’s marketing staff and lecturers with long experience in campaign production.
F-W 21/22 Lookbook x GOHEADLINE - Styling: Li Yuxin, Wu Jiayao - Photographers: Gabriele Cordioli, Francesco Fioretto - Styling Supervisor: Thibault Royer - MUA&H: Firdonyokiki - Models: Joyce, Valeria
The result was so outstanding in terms of views and impact on Chinese customers that Pinko and Istituto Marangoni extended their partnership for spring-summer 22, to be followed by a project for the upcoming season, fall-winter 2022/23. Ambre Gao and the Pinko team agreed that the images produced have such a strong appeal and are highly professional as if taken by big names in the fashion industry.
Up-and-coming talents working on these projects will definitely become fashion heavyweights shortly, with some of them already joining the Pinko team thanks to the internship opportunities offered by the brand.
Is there a difference between observing young talent in action and having a classic interview with them? “This gives us good feedback on the candidates,” Gao replied. “So, the odds of finding unmotivated or unenthusiastic fashion interns are very low.”
Indeed, the images reflect the words of Pinko’s manager. For instance, working on the Pinko s-s 22 campaign, called Unconventional Reloaded, students from Istituto Marangoni Shanghai imagined celebrating a free, spontaneous, unconventional femininity. This was in line with Pinko’s commitment to stand by women season after season, with outfits that interpret their growing need for independence and empowerment but also elegance and sensuality.
S-S 22 Lookbook x Pinko Official Account - Styling: Chen Chuyi - Art Directors: An Linzhong, Gu Menging, Faye, Hu Na, Sui Wei - Photographer: Gabriele Cordioli - Styling Supervisor: Thibault Royer - MUA&H: Firdonyokiki - Models: Lenny, Sai, Yi
Our students came up with the idea of staging several different personas related to Pinko’s Pen Portraits, from the Gentle rebel to the Confident juggler, from the Fun explorer to the Creative aficionado and created the characters for the digital campaign.
S-S 22 Digital Campaign x Pinko Official WeChat Account - Styling: Che Chuyi - Art Directors: An Linzhong, Gu Menging, Faye, Hu Na, Sui Wei - Photographer: Francesco Fioretto, Roberto La iacona - Styling Supervisor: Thibault Royer - MUA&H: Firdonyokiki - Models: Lenny, Sai, Yi
While our creatives enjoyed exploring Pinko’s unique mission and reinterpreting that vision under their visionary lens, the campaigns also boomed, as shown by the improvement in key performance indicators that track the exact number of users reached. Stay tuned for f-w 22 and more.
Francesco Fioretto,
Director of Education, Shanghai
