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During Taipei Fashion Week in October, it wasn’t the brands on the schedule that generated the most buzz. Instead, all eyes were on the latest drop from local luxury brand Goopimade.
Founded in 2016 by Chen Chang and Yo Lee — better known by their internet personalities Smirk and Leo — Goopimade has become known for its “urban outdoor” style. It releases in extremely limited quantities that sell out within minutes. Fans offer to buy products from others at up to twice the original retail price, before they are even released. Tech-savvy profiteers use online bots that guarantee successful purchases, with the intent to resell at a higher price.
Together with strategic collaborations and a focus on material quality, the limited-edition drop model has helped to propel Goopimade to both local and international success — setting it apart from the majority of young Taiwanese brands. The brand has 23 stockists outside of Taiwan, including End Clothing and HBX.
Goopimade typically releases new garments individually rather than as part of a collection. “Every Goopimade product is independent in the sense that we design and develop dedicated fabrics for each product with local textile developers,” says Smirk. “The R&D of fabrics usually takes up to eight months itself, so designing a single garment from scratch would regularly take 10 to 14 months.” The seasonality of fashion weeks goes against its ethos, he adds. “In every garment we design, we put in the same amount of resources and time equivalent to what other designer brands put into an entire season or collection.”
Goopimade’s designs are characterised by broad shoulders and loose fits — an ‘IYKYK’ [If you know, you know] silhouette that is easily identifiable. Local netizens refer to those who dress head to toe in the brand as the “clone army”. Fans include influential pop culture figures such as actor Yōsuke Kubozuka and Blackpink’s creative director Verdy.
The urban outdoor style first took off in Japan, where many brands offer garments for everyday use that incorporate technical functionalities originally designed for outdoor pursuits, says Ali George Hinkins, writer and brand consultant specialising in technical outerwear. The Cut coined the term “gorpcore” in 2017 to describe this trend, and it became a post-lockdown buzzword — helping to accelerate Goopimade’s international exposure.
“We saw something unique in their designs very early. The prevailing look in the UK and Europe was very different,” says Tim McTavish, founder of UK-based lifestyle store This Thing Of Ours, the first retailer to stock Goopimade outside of Asia. “We were instantly attracted to their looser aesthetic and technical features.”
Goopimade has tapped into the strength of the Taiwanese supply chain to source high performance materials at low costs, servicing a growing desire globally for functional fashion. The challenge now is how to scale further, particularly as some parts of the supply chain prove slow to innovate.
Taiwan’s missing link
Goopimade’s ability to leverage Taiwan’s textile resources has given it a competitive edge.
Three-quarters of all textiles and apparel produced in Taiwan over the past decade were exported, according to a 2022 report by the Taiwan Textile Federation. This ecosystem has been less supportive of local designers, who typically have lower order quantities. “Textile developers are not considering local brands, but rather international clients that order in bulk,” says Florence Lu, fashion curator, consultant, and associate professor at Taiwan’s Fu Jen Catholic University with over 30 years of experience in the industry.
This is beginning to shift. “There has been a qualitative change in the relationship between textile developers and designers over the past decade, where the former is becoming more collaborative on a local level, under a consensus of generating more value for the local apparel economy,” says Lu.
In 2011, Shinkong Textile, a Taiwanese high-performance textile developer Goopimade regularly works with, launched a new retail concept called Artifacts, which stocks emerging local designers. Similar ventures include Onefifteen, founded by Wintex Knitwear Corporation in 2013. “This type of collaboration is even more significant with outdoor-focused designer brands, whose garments help highlight the utility and performance of the textiles,” says Lu. The Taiwan Textile Foundation’s report also suggests that the collaboration is particularly significant for textiles developed “for function plus fashion”.
Goopimade is among the outdoorsy designer brands taking advantage of this. Around 70 per cent of its products use fabrics designed in collaboration with Taiwanese textile developers, and Goopimade promotes their use heavily in its marketing.
Smirk, however, raises a concern. “We have top-tier textile resources in Taiwan with the latest technology, but other parts of the supply chain are becoming outdated and incompetent. We might have to consider manufacturing outside of Taiwan someday, but we will still stay here as long as we can.”
In January, Taiwan’s Industrial Development Administration brought awareness to the need for more advanced modernisation to make the local textile industry more competent, especially SMEs. The government agency aims to help create greener and more efficient supply chains and logistics by implementing internet of things (IoT), cloud computing and decarbonisation technologies. This is part of the agency’s plan to modernise Taiwanese conventional industry sectors by 2030.
Dual strategy: Clothing brand and ‘select shop’ retailers
Before Goopimade, in 2016, Smirk and Leo founded Goopi.co, an online multi-brand retailer specialising in outdoor fashion brands. The store, still running, currently stocks 41 brands, such as Brooklyn fragrance brand Apotheke and Tokyo-based artisanal hatmaker Found Feather, alongside Goopimade. Goopi.co accounts for 40 per cent of overall income, according to the company, and the rest comes from Goopimade.
Goopi.co’s model is referred to as “select shop retailing”, a term that originated in Japan to describe multi-brand stores that are more expensive than fast fashion but generally more affordable than luxury boutiques. Goopimade’s prices range from NT$360 (£9) for a pair of socks to NT$10,800 (£270) for a parka. Select shops usually offer a curation of garments and accessories with a uniform aesthetic that could easily be mixed and matched.
“Due to Taiwan’s history, education, and familial values, the mainstream Taiwanese population is more concerned with comfort and convenience instead of style,” says Lu. “With Goopimade and Goopi.co’s curated products, people less sensible to style could easily adopt the urban outdoor style hassle free, especially when the brand’s price point offers more value than other designer brands.”
Smirk and Leo have been gaining social media fame since the early days of Goopi.co for styling high-performance products in everyday settings. The pair regularly launch collections designed and produced in collaboration with Goopimade’s stockists — mostly other select shops worldwide. Recent examples include a knitwear collection with Japanese select shop pioneer United Arrows; a tailoring-focused collection with GQ Taiwan’s e-commerce lifestyle boutique GQ Shop; and a 1990s hip-hop inspired collection with Manchester-based menswear store This Thing Of Ours. This gives versatility to Goopimade’s products and is a strategy Taiwanese designer brands rarely use.
“We started with urban outdoor, but we are not limiting ourselves to that, we try to make Goopimade dynamic and with versatility,” says Smirk.
While the international expansion of Goopimade makes it an exception among its peers, other local emerging designers are looking at the possibilities. In March, Taiwan Fashion Startup, a NT$200 million (£5 million) venture by the government-funded Taiwan Creative Content Agency, was founded to connect Taiwanese designers to the global market and its supply chain. The initiative aims to create a more global-minded creative landscape in Taiwan.
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