No other domestic fashion brand has had the same transformation as Charles & Keith, Straits Times commented.
The remarkable development of this brand, from a modest shoe store founded by Singaporean brothers Charles and Keith Wong in 1996 to a globally recognized brand, with customers being celebrities such as supermodel Gigi Hadid and actress Maisie Williams, is certainly a typical case for any Singaporean brand that wants to grow stronger in the international market.
However, the company's story is not just a case of successful brand transformation. CEO Keith Wong said: Its been a process of continuous development for many years, although the pandemic has definitely slowed us down and reassessed which is the key to the brand.
Many of the campaigns and initiatives launched today are the result of planning over the past two to three years, added Wong, 46, a spokesperson for the agency.
Global expansion is always a concern. The Singapore brand is now making a global mark with more than 700 retail stores while online stores have goods shipped to nearly 60 destinations.
This brand is currently wholly owned by the private sector and has achieved important milestones. This is one of the first Singaporean fashion brands to launch an e-commerce platform in 2004, before launching handbags - currently the flagship product - in 2005.
After rapidly expanding to the Middle East, this brand has targeted China. Currently, Singapore's brand is highly appreciated by Chinese customers, even being affectionately called "little CK", compared to "big CK" which is the global fashion brand Calvin Klein.
In recent years, Charles & Keith has made marketing efforts focusing on Western markets. In 2019, the brand had a fall and winter campaign with the participation of models Hailey Bieber and Thu Hieu Van. The company reached one million followers on Instagram by the end of that year.
Regarding the reason for choosing famous models, Mr. Keith Wong said: "Both have international appeal suitable for our majority customers of the Millennium and Gen Z. They have a remarkable appearance and imitable style, making them perfect muses".
In January 2022, the agency announced Korean-American singer Krystal Jung as its first global ambassador. The company then joined Web 3.0, introducing cryptocurrency as a payment method on its website and launching it at Metaverse fashion week in March 2022.
In April of that year, the brand brought a group of influential people to the Coachella music festival in California, USA. Mr. Wong said that these KOLs come from the US, UK and Europe - "upcoming markets that are important for our e-commerce business activities". "The idea is to create content that is not only attractive to current customers but also capable of attracting the attention of new customers" - he said.
The company also has a similar approach to brand collaboration, including a collaboration with Danish fashion designer Cecilie Bah Their, Shanghai's Shushu/Tong fashion brand and most recently Spanish visual artist Coco Capitan.
Next, the Singapore brand cooperated with an international YouTube channel to produce a series of films in which the main characters would wear items from the company's collection and the public could then buy them on the website. This series of films is a joint effort to attract Gen Z customers - the brand's main customer group.
On TikTok, there are thousands of videos of Singaporean fashion brand products, in which customers share reviews and new reveals, most famous of which is the Gabine bag model launched by the company in 2021. Another strategy that has been effective for Charles & Keith is the way the brand interacts directly with customers on social media. This makes the Singapore brand more accessible even though it is reaching an increasingly high level of status.
