Icicle Co-founder Ye Shouzeng Inducted Into France’s National Order of Merit – WWD

Ye Shouzeng, the founder of the Shanghai-based fashion group Icicle, on Thursday was made a knight in France’s National Order of Merit by the Consul General of France in Shanghai.

France’s ambassador to China Laurent Bili emphasized Ye’s “outstanding contributions” to the development of sustainability as well as fostering “friendship and artistic exchange” between the two countries.

Local fashion elites, including Kering’s China head Jinqing Cai, former WWD columnist Hung Huang and the Shanghai Fashion Week doyenne Lv Xiaolei gathered at Villa Basset, the French Consul House in Shanghai, to witness the decoration ceremony.

“We made a small effort in creating a synergy between France and China in the fashion industry,” Ye said during his acceptance speech.

Ye thanked his close confidantes, including Hung Huang, notable Chinese painter Xi He and Jun Wang, the head of China Fashion Forum, for being “his teacher and friend” throughout the years.

The reserved businessman also expressed gratitude toward his wife Tao Xiaoma, known as Shawna Tao to Western colleagues, for being his best right-hand person.

“We started Icicle together, we bought Carven together, we explored the world together, we got into heated arguments for having different point of views,” said Ye. “We started from Shanghai, went all over China, then Europe. In the future, we are ready to take the world.”

The effort to make the whole world Icicle’s stage began a decade ago, when Tao and Ye arrived in Paris with two suitcases, a hotel booking and a plan: to set up an office in France for their fashion label Icicle, Tao told WWD in a separate interview.

Founded in 1997 in Shanghai and then 15 years old, it was a successful midsized business in China that topped the 100-store mark, built on the premises of rebuilding the connection between nature and modern urban lives.

Graduates of the design department of Shanghai’s Dong Hua University, the pair wanted to offer an eco-friendly, ethically minded option for women living professional urban lives, looking to their respective familial roots in the Guangdong and Fujian regions.

Natural fibers, used with their original hues or dyed with natural pigments, formed the basis for a wardrobe of quiet staples they named Icicle, using characters that loosely translate to “seed that germinates.”

“We never thought it was something pioneering [since] ancient ways of life were always there. The point was how to modernize [these practices] to fit today’s life,” recalled Tao.

Though sustainability or responsible practices weren’t even a glimmer on the horizon, the brand took off commercially and by 2006, they owned their first factory on the outskirts of Shanghai.

But to reach the “high level natural proposal for modern life” the pair intended, they were “facing a ceiling in China” due to a lack of talent based there. “[Even] foreign talent just traveled to China, staying there but going home after several years,” especially the “French-level talents” they wanted, she rued.

So off to Paris they went. “If they cannot come [to us], we come to their country,” Tao quipped.

Their first executive hire in Europe was Isabelle Capron, a graduate of France’s prestigious HEC business school with a track record in marketing and putting high-end caterer Fauchon back on the road to success. She became the group’s vice president and was instrumental in the installation of Icicle’s design studio and showroom in the tony 16th arrondissement, where they’re still located.

Tao said Icicle is not a luxury brand but offers “high quality at a reasonable price,” ranging from 190 euros for tops to 2,850 euros for double-face cashmere coats, with leather goods under 600 euros.

At 25, Tao and Ye’s company has grown into a group now called ICCF, for the initials of the two brands in it — Icicle and Carven, purchased in 2018 for 4.2 million euros — and those of its two geographic touch points of France and China.

While keeping its Chinese roots, the company “cannot use a purely European way to do [a] fashion business or we will lose our uniqueness. However we really wanted to learn how European fashion brands [operate],” Tao explained.

In 2020, the group generated 334 million euros in sales and 217 million in revenue, which amounted to a 12 percent increase over 2019’s figures, despite the COVID-19 context. For 2021, revenue grew to 286 million euros, while sales increased 16 percent to 425.7 million euros.

According to local media reports, the company has been growing steadily at 30 to 40 percent in the past three years. There are some 2,900 employees, including the 100-or-so currently based in Paris.

Icicle, the brand, has grown to some 270 stores in 100 cities in China, as well as five international points of sale. In addition to its two Paris flagships, and two corners in the Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché department stores, the latest one is the brand’s first step in Japan, in the Hankyu department store in the western coastal metropolis of Osaka.

Europe general director Thomas Busler said the Japanese shop embodied their method of a “very small testing [approach] to ensure we understand the market, we understand the philosophy and adjust the collaboration between the markets.”

Beyond offering clothes and accessories, Icicle also intends its philosophy as a lifestyle. The best way to explain their concept of “oneness” between humans and nature is offer “insight into the culture” it stems from, Tao said.

This has most recently taken the shape of “Icicle Live,” which Busler likened to a “platform for brands, ideas or products which are part of [Icicle’s] environment and world,” as showcased in its George V flagship, which includes an exhibition space, a library dedicated to Chinese culture, and a revolving roster of wide-ranging exhibitions.

Among those who have shown in the space are Australian artist and florist Lisa Cooper, best known as Doctor Cooper; Paris-based store Landline, which offers well-made daily objects, and Hong Kong-born tea master Chi Wah Chan.

As for the brand, it continues to forge ahead, seeking nature-based solutions to fashion’s pressing issues. The major vehicle is the “Natural Way Project,” an ongoing experimental project that serves as the brand’s laboratory.

Projects under this banner range from introducing recycled cashmere yarns into their pieces and looking at ways to close the loop on materials to collaborating with external designers, creatives or other brands to push forward in terms of aesthetics.

“They have a quiet consistency in what they do and are developing,” said Shanghai and London-based designer Samuel Guì Yang, who grew curious about Icicle’s “committed and devoted” customer base and way of operating. That’s what pushed him to say yes to a co-branded capsule for fall 2021, where he gave a youthful spin to its universe, from product to promotional material.

While the sell-through of the capsule within Icicle’s retail network could not be learned, the designer said it had also been stocked by retailers of his brand, “creating a lot of interesting discussion and feedback.”

Another sign of Icicle’s future-first focus is its 2022 arrival among the sponsors of the Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories, offering winners the possibility of designing a capsule for the brand that will be commercialized in its stores.

For all its milestones, the founders of Icicle and its parent group chart a course Tao described as “continuous improvement.”

Most recently, Ye has taken over as chief executive officer of Icicle, while Tao will now be focusing her efforts on building up the Carven brand, where a new artistic director will be named in coming months.

A quarter of a century into it all, “it’s still the starting point,” she said.