Rebirth of the Fashion King

Early May 2009.

In Paris, the French capital, temperatures are rising, and pedestrians on the streets are already wearing short sleeves.

31 Rue Cambon, Chanel headquarters.

Li Xun, who had been drawing for a long time, was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his studio on the third floor, looking at the scenery outside. His eyes were a little tired, so he looked into the distance to relax.

On the main road outside the window, art students carrying painting tubes passed by the entrance of the Les Deux Magots café, their laughter drifting in through the glass.

Li Xun is 22 years old this year, 181 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist that is rare among people of Asian descent, and healthy ivory white skin. Thanks to his parents' good genes, Li Xun has the potential to be a pretty boy. Even if he doesn't become a designer, he can still make a living based on his looks.

……

Li Xun has been with Chanel for four years, meaning he entered the company the day he graduated from Central Saint Martins at the age of nineteen.

A 19-year-old college graduate was able to directly enter Chanel's core creative studio and work alongside two top fashion moguls, Virginie Villede and Karl Lagerfeld.

This made many recent fashion design graduates a little jealous.

Now in 2009, some people are already calling him the first fashion miracle of the new millennium and the most mysterious designer in the fashion world.

But only Li Xun himself knew that this was not a gifted talent, but rather "cheating," or rather, a bit of "tricking."

Some scenes from his past life are already blurry, but some key details, the experiences and lessons learned from his career after graduating from university, are exceptionally clear in Li Xun's mind.

Born in Shanghai, although it's a suburb far from the city center, it is indeed Shanghai.

Beijing, the Southern Magic City.

These two cities can be considered representative of the greater China.

Many people dream of living in Beijing or Shanghai.

Most of the indigenous people in these two places are quite wealthy.

Li Xun's father, Li Yi, is a middle school Chinese teacher, and his mother, Lin Yin, is a factory accountant who occasionally gets her hair permed and dresses fashionably.

His family's financial situation was neither good nor bad, neither the best nor the worst.

  

When Li Xun was born, his Chinese teacher, Lao Li, named him with classical allusions.

The phrase "Seeking the word" comes from Li Yu's poem "Bodhisattva's Charm" from the Southern Tang Dynasty: "To seek spring, one must arrive early; to see flowers, one must not wait until the branches are old."

Then, I studied step by step, completed nine years of compulsory education, went to high school, and then took the college entrance examination step by step. When I was nineteen, I accidentally watched a broadcast of Paris Fashion Week and got a glimpse into fashion design.

What followed was a struggle that lasted for more than a decade.

Li Xun works as a design assistant at a clothing company in China, where he works overtime until the early hours of the morning every day, earning a few thousand yuan a month, and designing the popular Taobao clothing items that his bosses like.

At the age of 25, I took the money I had saved for more than three years and went to London, where I studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins.

I was twenty-seven when I graduated, an age that's neither too young nor too old.

Li Xun persevered for another three years in his small studio in London. When he was thirty, he finally received an offer from an independent designer brand in Paris.

Then came the relentless workday and night, sleeping only six hours a day, drinking cup after cup of coffee, and revising the design over and over again.

At the age of thirty-three, finally!

Li Xun had his first small collection, which was shown at a peripheral show during Paris Fashion Week. That night, he drank half a bottle of wine in his studio, which seemed to be whiskey.

I cried and laughed, laughed and cried again.

Later, due to long hours of staying up late and high-intensity work, health problems broke out. While lying in the hospital, Li Xun looked at the savings in his bank account and suddenly felt it was utterly absurd.

To use a small goal as an example, if a person has 100 million RMB, and the 1 is followed by many zeros, then the 1 has completely collapsed. What meaning do all the zeros after that have?

Perhaps the King of Hell saw how miserable his life had been and couldn't bear to take him away, so he showed great mercy.

When Li Xun opened his eyes again, he was back in 1986, back in his mother's warm embrace, sucking on a pacifier.

It took him a long time to accept this fact.

The first few years were pure torture. The soul of a man in his thirties was trapped in the body of a little kid, making it difficult to even turn over. He could only stare blankly at the ceiling from time to time.

But this torment soon passed.

He can basically skip many stages that don't need to be repeated.

He skipped grades in elementary school, skipped grades in middle school, and went straight to high school in London. Wuhu—studying was like flying.

Most of the lessons I learned in my past life, the pitfalls I fell into, and the detours I took, can be avoided in this life.

This advantage is huge!

……

When Li Xun graduated from high school and took the college entrance exam, he chose Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design without hesitation.

For no other reason than that the fashion design at this academy was undoubtedly number one at the beginning of the century, and Antwerp would take more than a decade to become number one.

While studying at Central Saint Martins in London.

When Professor Louise Wilson (the fashion icon of Central Saint Martins) first met him, she said to him with British humor, "Kid, I hope you haven't wandered into the wrong classroom."

That year, Li Xuncai had just enrolled in school; he was the youngest student.

He looked at this legendary woman in the fashion education world and replied earnestly, "Professor, I hope you won't lower your highest standards because of my age."

In the years that followed, Professor Wilson became Li Xun's most important mentor at Central Saint Martins.

This fashion icon, known for her extreme rigor, never held back in questioning and criticizing his design philosophy.

Showing absolutely no mercy.

Some girls can't handle the pressure and cry their eyes out; it's so pitiful!

The strict Professor Wilson taught Li Xun something very important: fashion is not about making pretty clothes; fashion is about using fabric and lines to express your understanding of the times.

This really benefited Li Xun a lot.

Four years later, he joined Chanel.

Li Xun started as a basic assistant and by 2009, he was Virginie Viard's most trusted friend and the only young designer in the entire studio who could directly consult and discuss designs with Karl Lagerfeld himself.

He is never flamboyant, never accepts media interviews, and never makes public appearances, but in 2006, Li Xun personally designed the Himalaya series of leather bags.

The entire Parisian fashion world knew that Chanel had a mysterious genius, but most people didn't know what he looked like or how amazing he was.

Li Xun didn't care about any of that.

He has seen many examples of young people who became famous at a young age but eventually fell from grace. He has seen too many in this industry in his past life and this life. Talent is something that cannot be squandered.

Moreover, he wasn't a true super genius at all; at most, he was a talented person. That's why Li Xun spent several years quietly developing his skills at Chanel.

If Li Xun was frantically perfecting the foundation before graduating from university, then during his time working in seclusion at Chanel, his worldview was completely reshaped.

He was originally a fashion designer for an ordinary commercial brand, and he entered Chanel with some instinctive understanding of "blockbuster products, cost-effectiveness, and quarterly turnover". However, under the guidance of Karl Lagerfeld and Virginie Villede, Li Xun experienced not only "skill upgrades", but also a systematic replacement from the underlying logic to the value system.

This impact is layered and progressive.

From the initial sensory shock of being amazed by the ultimate craftsmanship, to the cognitive subversion reshaped by the brand's heritage, and then to the transformation of his life philosophy of fashion etched into his bones by two completely different teachers, Li Xun's understanding of "what fashion is, what designers should do, and what the essence of luxury is" was completely changed.

Chanel's first lesson was to tell Li Xun through every detail that true luxury is a complete betrayal of "efficiency".

Li Xun saw a classic tweed jacket that required 150-300 hours of work by artisans in six different workshops. The quilting of the lining alone involved 12 manual processes, with each stitch spaced precisely to the millimeter. The weight of the buttons had to perfectly match the drape of the fabric, and even the pattern of the lining had to be precisely aligned with the pattern of the jacket.

Most consumers wouldn't notice these details when buying a product, and might not even realize them after wearing it for a long time. But Chanel invests time and manpower in these "invisible perfections" regardless of cost.

Karl Lagerfeld would have the dye factory adjust the color 37 times to achieve a specific shade of blue, until he finally found the "deep sea blue that belonged to Chanel" in his mind.

Virginie would make the workshop scrap all the finished accessories and redo them if the curve of a camellia petal wasn't natural enough.

Li Xun previously thought that "handmade" was a marketing gimmick, but here, handmade is "an irreplaceable warmth".

The veteran artisans at Lesage embroidery workshop can create dozens of different sheens with a single thread.

The craftsmen at Massaro shoe workshop custom-made high heels according to the shape of each model's foot, allowing them to walk the entire show in 12-centimeter stilettos with ease...

This is luxury: it's not about selling expensive things, but about selling "the sedimentation of time" and "human dignity."

……