What's the link between iron and steel and fine exquisite fabric? How about between a man and bras? That's what the man, Zhang Rongming, who founded the Aimer lingerie company, has explored for 15 years.
Trained in the nation's top metal engineering school, Beijing University of Science and Technology, formerly the Institute of Iron and Steel Engineering, Zhang is a metallurgist, educated in the science of phosphorous-copper, cast iron and other alloys.
But his business Aimer is China's top high-end ladies' lingerie company in terms of production, sales and consumer awareness.
As the founder, chairman and general manager of Beijing-based Aimer Lingerie Co Ltd, Zhang says the first 10 years were rather difficult, when the assets value of the company increased from nearly zero to 100 million yuan, and the following five years were a period of progressive growth.
"The strength of the brand has prompted Aimer's tremendous surge," says the man from Suzhou, Jiangsu province, a place noted in Chinese culture for its shrewd and hardworking people.
After receiving a post-graduate degree in engineering in 1987, Zhang was assigned as a teacher in the university affiliated with the Shougang Iron and Steel Group, one of the country's largest State-owned enterprises. At the time the position was enviable as China was just beginning to open up, but a secure, lifetime "iron rice bowl" job was still an ideal for many people.
But Zhang was not satisfied, saying that his teaching duties required little thought and even less work. So the engineer embarked on his own project to develop "metals with memory", alloys that can return to their original shape even after extensive bending and twisting.
As luck would have it, the most practical application of his patent was to make underwire supports for bras. So in 1993 Zhang decided to quit teaching and start his own business - producing lingerie.
"I saw the potential opportunities and taking my own patent into a new industry made me feel excited," says Zhang, a thin, short and energetic man.
In 1990s, a patent registration was not a common idea for businesses. And lingerie producers in China were mainly OEMs for foreign brands or making low budget bras without registered brands.
Zhang was determined to register a brand for his products. He chose Aimu, meaning love and adoration in Chinese, and registered it in 1993. But with an instinct that his brand would one day become international, Zhang found Aimu was meaningless in English, so he looked in another dictionary and discovered the common French verb, "aimer" meaning to love or like.
"That's it!" Zhang says he thought. "Aimer perfectly suits the charming and sexy characteristics of our products and our corporate value - a disseminator of love and an advocate of beauty."
The 46-year-old entrepreneur had to go back to the industrial and commercial bureau to change the name, though the procedure was complicated and time-consuming.
Growing track
"Underwear development in China went hand-in-hand with our country's economic development," says Sun Yi, editor-in-chief of China Fashion Weekly and a senior garment industry analyst.
"It was not easy at the time (1990s) because Chinese women knew next to nothing about bras. They saw it as something whose sole function was to cover up the body. They didn't know anything about stretch fabric, supporting wires, shape and a fashion sense."
Zhang, the first Chinese businessman to make bras with a strong brand, opened some small shops in downtown Beijing and set up booths near foreign competing brands, such as Germany's Triumph and Japan's Wacoal, in the capital city's large department stores in the mid-1990s.
Some upscale women noticed Aimer's cute pink flower logo and began buying.
"I thought Aimer was a foreign brand and bought my first bra for about 150 yuan," recalls Beijinger Shu Mingqing, 45, saying that she then worked for a multinational company and earned 3,000 yuan per month, much higher than ordinary dwellers with a monthly salary at no more than 1,000 yuan.
Though, sales were not huge, Aimer insisted on high quality and modern technology and established its image as a state-of-art lingerie brand in Beijing where it became very popular for middle-aged women to have Aimer bras in the late 1990s.
Aimer began expanding to other mainland markets, mainly northern cities and set up another manufacturing base in Suzhou Industrial Park, Zhang's hometown, and another near Shanghai, aiming at exploring the southern China market and supervised by Zhang's brother.
Turning mature
Zhang, usually refined, gentle and quiet with simple eyeglasses, looks like a typical Chinese intellectual, "but he always bursts out with new imaginative ideas", says Sun, who has been observing Aimer since its establishment.
At the beginning of 2001, Zhang proposed holding an annual lingerie fashion show, a bold idea in China, though commonplace in the United States and Europe. Sun said the concept would put any lingerie's company's designing capability and research and development to the test and was also a huge challenge because of China's design copycat problem, particularly in the fashion industry. In addition, the investment for facilities and staff for such a show would be huge.
But Zhang stuck to his idea and in 2002 the first lingerie fashion show was held with the theme Mogao Grottoes (also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas), a system of almost 500 temples 25 km southeast of Dunhuang, an oasis at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years
The show attracted attention from home and abroad, and since 2005 Aimer has hosted lingerie fashion shows annually, with themes such as Eastern Myth, Harmony, and Dream all focusing on Chinese and international styles.
"It's really worthwhile because it demonstrates to our counterparts that we are the leader in China's lingerie industry and it expands our fame in the international market," says Zhang.
This year's show is scheduled for November 4 in Beijing and Zhang says it will be "novel and astonishing".
Zhang's company works with a team of 50 local and foreign designers and releases between 80 and 100 new lingerie designs each season.
Zhang has created three new brands for women since 2004.
In addition to Aimer, which targets white-collar professional Chinese women with high disposable incomes, a European-sounding brand called La Clover, which uses up to 80 percent imported materials, was rolled out in 2004 for the high-end market.
Another product line, Imi's, was designed for younger and more active consumers - "the sunshine type girls", says Zhang.
But the breakthrough for the lingerie company has been its entry into the men underclothes market with Aimer Men, which has become a success.
In the latest four years, annual sales increases of La Clover and Imi's are 80 percent and 60 percent respectively, the figure for Aimer Men is 80 percent. The general year-on-year growth of Aimer Lingerie Co Ltd is between 40 to 50 percent.
The underwear producer now has a staff of 3,000, over 300 of whom are in Beijing, mostly in the company headquarters at Aimer Plaza in the city's northern Wangjing district, and two manufacturing bases in Beijing and Suzhou with annual production capacity of 10 million units.
Last year's sales revenue exceeded $90 million, with exports contributing $5 million.
Aimer Lingerie Co Ltd already claims to be the largest lingerie supplier in China, and says it dominates 11 percent of the nation's medium- and high-end lingerie market. Its only two serious competitors on the mainland are Triumph, founded in 1886, and the nearly-60-year-old Wacoal.
Globalization
When Zhang decided to think about internationalizing its brand he decided to start expanding in Asia. "Body types in the East and the West are different. Because our products are designed for Asians, we will tap the water from this point," he says.
At the end of November, an Aimer shop will open in Macao's newly established Venice Hotel, and another one in Saudi Arabia.
Macao is well-known for its casino industry and a paradise for millionaires, celebrities and other fat cats. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has a lot of wealthy men with strong purchasing power.
He has also just rented a building in the renovated Qianmen area of Beijing, a commercial street with a history of hundreds of years that neighbors Tian'anmen Square.
The company will turn the building into an Aimer flagship shop, not only for retail use, but also as a museum of sorts on the history of lingerie worldwide and Aimer's growth. In addition, events, such as fashion shows, forums and salons will be held there.
"It will be a showcase for the Aimer brand because Qianmen is a symbol of old Beijing and a must-see for domestic and overseas travelers," says Zhang.
