Every winter, there are always some clothing brands occupying the front page of the news, from Canada Goose in previous years, to lululemon last year, to Archaeopteryx in 2022.

Every winter, there are always some clothing brands occupying the front page of the news, from Canada Goose in previous years, to last year's lululemon, to Arc'teryx in 2022. High-end down jackets, which were originally niche and aloof and cost thousands or even tens of thousands, seem to have never enjoyed such attention and discussion. Clothes are not just clothes, people also need to show their lifestyle and fashion attitude through them.

You may have felt that the Canada Goose, which is bulky and uniform-like, looks a bit outdated this year. As outdoor sports have become popular among the urban middle class in the past few years due to the epidemic, outdoor and functional styles that focus on lightness and warmth are becoming the common selling points of this generation of down jackets.

Fast fashion giant Uniqlo launched the first generation of high-end light down series in 2009. This evergreen series has also followed the fashion trend this year, launching light down with pearlescent models and "wide quilting" designs; Arc'teryx, which started out as a mountaineering outdoor product, has lightweighting engraved in its genes. Its core winter item, the lightweight warm down jacket, is designed for special scenes such as outdoor rock climbing and camping.

Since October this year, a local high-end down jacket brand with a "business-functional style" has opened two stores in Taikoo Li Sanlitun in Beijing and HKRI Taikoo Hui in Shanghai. Its name is SKYPEOPLE.

SKYPEOPLE Skyman Shanghai Industrial Taikoo Hui Store

SKYPEOPLE Skyman brand is affiliated to Kanyun Holdings. In 2021, Kanyun Holdings was established. It wholly owns three companies: Beijing Icefield Clothing, Single Origin, and Beijing Yuanman Maternity and Infant Care. It integrates consumer businesses such as down jackets, cafes, and confinement centers.

’s sufficient cash reserves, precise brand positioning capabilities, and user operation and product iteration capabilities in the genes of technology companies are the source of confidence for Kanyun Holdings to make down jackets.

How to make a high-end down jacket that costs about 5,000 yuan? Overseas brands such as Moncler and Canada Goose have entered the Chinese market, and outdoor sportswear players such as Arc'teryx and Lululemon have also crossed over. In the context of continued high-endization of major domestic manufacturers Bosideng , how does SKYPEOPLE prepare to win over consumers?

How "business functional style" became popular

A brand that opened its first store in Taikoo Li, Sanlitun, Beijing, is tantamount to announcing an urban and high-quality brand image to the outside world. After the latest round of business district updates, Taikoo Li North District has been positioned as an overall higher-end area to attract more first-tier luxury brands. SKYPEOPLE's first store "THE CUBE" is opened here.

This is a simple and fluffy white space. The brand logo is a pedestrian looking down from a high altitude. "First, it symbolizes looking at our work and the world around us from different angles and looking for solutions that are better than others. Second, using the sky as the boundary, we constantly touch higher standards and provide better experiences." said the person in charge of SKYPEOPLE Skyman brand.

Similar to the first store in Beijing, SKYPEOPLE’s first store in Shanghai, “THE PLAZA”, is located in HKRI Taikoo Hui , which is also produced by Swire Group and has adjusted its positioning towards high luxury.

The Internet pursues winner-take-all, but consumer products need differentiated positioning and clear thinking about what kind of consumers they serve. Behind SKYPEOPLE's brand positioning is the unique understanding of "dressing" and "what target users want" by this entrepreneurial team with an Internet background.

"Our peers see down jackets as a functional product to prevent coldness, a fashion item, or a must-have item that requires little thought. I tend to think that what we want to make in the long term is not clothes, but products that can help you function freely at work and in certain occasions where you need to be elegant." said Xi Wei, head of product and brand of SKYPEOPLE.

SKYPEOPLE The user profile of SKYPEOPLE seems to be a group of office workers with a certain taste, usually in the middle and upper levels of the company. Although they may not have any business meetings every day, because they generally live well, they have requirements for decent clothing, good quality and comfort. They don't need high-profile luxury goods that "show their status", but high-quality products that can appropriately reflect their confidence in the workplace.

A typical portrait may be a 35-year-old man from a technology company who drives an ideal car to work at the company, and after work, puts on a customized jersey to participate in industry games. They advocate an efficient and high-quality life and need clothes that are simple, convenient, highly adaptable, and suitable for many occasions. Therefore, SKYPEOPLE's style is between the formality of business clothing and the casualness of outdoor leisure, in order to achieve a balance between the two.

Take a down jacket called "Skyline Traveler", designed for business trips, as an example. The simple appearance is flat and unquilted, but the inner lining of the jacket contains an internal storage system. By folding the sleeves back and rolling them inwards, the zipper can be hung on the luggage rod or used as a waist pillow. The design inspiration of this series comes from the pain points of business travelers traveling between the north and the south, as well as the lack of lumbar pillows when flying.

SKYPEOPLE "SkyPEOPLE", one of Skyman's flagship products "SkyPEOPLE"

"SkyPEOPLE" comes with its own PACK AND GO system, which can pack clothes into a small bag and hang it directly on the suitcase

SKYPEOPLE "SkyPEOPLE", one of Skyman's flagship products Picture source: Captain Yerga

SKYPEOPLE One of the main products of Sky People is "SkyPEOPLE" Image source: Actor Yi Zai

Open the SKYPEOPLE Sky People WeChat applet, and the outfit displays of many bloggers fully reflect the "usefulness" of their designs: using the top waterproof and breathable membrane brand eVent® The fabric of the membrane is to be "windproof and rainproof"; the choice of Mute™️ fabric is to reduce the fine friction sound of the down jacket when moving; the use of wool and other fabrics can enhance the appearance and texture; the introduction of classic silhouette cuts such as windbreakers and suits is to make the down no longer look bloated; even in terms of color, SKYPEOPLE also mostly uses colors with high grayscale and low brightness in order to "unobtrusively blend into the winter background of modern Chinese cities"; in order to solve the problem of difficult cleaning of down jackets, SKYPEOPLE also provides "free lifetime cleaning service".

On social media such as Xiaohongshu, some users said that the design of SKYPEOPLE is difficult to control at first glance, but they also received comments such as "the fabric is special, not like ordinary down jacket fabrics", "lighter than many other brands", and "sleek style". One user left a message saying, "I didn't feel anything when I looked at the pictures online, and I didn't have any hope at first when I went to the store, but once I put it on, it looked really good, and I felt a sense of surprise."

"Taking into account both fashion and warmth, reducing friction noise, and making it more appropriate to wear and take off when walking, these are changes we wanted to make before and have now achieved. I think clothing can give people a more comfortable life through technological creation," Xiwei said.

When technology companies target the down jacket business

Looking at the standards of a startup company, the user insight, user operation capabilities and product capabilities of a team with an Internet background are the advantages of SKYPEOPLE. However, if it wants to truly play the new business of clothing, it still needs to establish some new capabilities in a short period of time.

The current price of SKYPEOPLE ranges from 3,200 yuan for the entry-level model to 7,200 yuan for the "SkyPEOPLE Commander" series. The price range of and is higher than Bosideng's mainstream product lines and lower than Canada Goose and Moncler. It is a blank price band.

html Down jackets priced around 35,000 are still expensive. As a newbie with no brand premium, how can SKYPEOPLE impress consumers and get them to pay?

Professionalism and pursuit of ultimate product quality are the answers given by SKYPEOPLE from the product level.

It is understood that the chief costume designer of SKYPEOPLE is the first Chinese to graduate from the Royal Academy of Art in Antwerp, Belgium, and once worked for the British fashion brand Alexander McQueen. In addition, SKYPEOPLE also established a professional team within one year, from user research, product planning to design, craftsmanship, and pattern making.

"Down jacket products are still relatively complex and require a lot of teamwork. It can only be said that in the first year, we found the best people who want to do this with us in the above links." Xiwei said.

And how to find a suitable foundry as a partner? SKYPEOPLE has two principles: first, professionalism, "Have you had good cooperation with master brands in outdoor sports before?"; second, forward-lookingness in production and research and development, "Have you had future-focused production technologies, processes, and concepts?"

If we make a horizontal evaluation from the four dimensions of evaluating the quality of down jackets (filling type, filling color, down content, and fill power), the white goose down with 90% down content and 800 fill power makes SKYPEOPLE considered to be of sufficient material and high quality among many mid-to-high-end down jacket brands.

In terms of fabrics, SKYPEOPLE also pursues comfortable touch and "dumb" effect. Therefore, some fabrics are independently developed and the cycle is relatively long. This makes the entire product from design to launch cycle as little as 7 months and as much as one year.

Down of the same weight, the larger the volume and the higher the fluffiness in the stretched state

In the new round of entrepreneurial practice of consumer goods, some people are paying attention to the possibility of innovation on the supply side, while others are more concerned about the opportunities brought by changes in the demand side. And being able to grasp both sides at the same time will undoubtedly greatly increase the probability of success.

What kind of down jacket does the new generation of professionals need? How to make them willing to pay for local high-end brands? With enthusiasm for the application of new materials and precise insights into user needs and consumer psychology, SKYPEOPLE is making groundbreaking attempts.