The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2018
Lao Gan Ma puts founder Tao Huabi on a $120 NYFW hoodie — sold out instantly
Tmall's guochao program turned Lao Gan Ma's founder into a $120 NYFW streetwear hoodie — the ¥1,288 chili-sauce bundle sold out immediately.
Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) · Tmall (天猫)
What it had to solve
Tmall's 'Guochao' (China-chic) program had used the previous New York Fashion Week (NYFW) China Day to turn Li-Ning from sportswear into streetwear. For season two it needed another legacy Chinese brand that could carry the same trick — and chose Lao Gan Ma (老干妈), a sauce brand whose founder's face is already its logo.
How it works
In September 2018, shoppers at Opening Ceremony's Broadway store in Manhattan found an unexpected item: a red hoodie printed with the stern portrait of Tao Huabi, founder of Guizhou chili-sauce brand Lao Gan Ma (老干妈), priced at $120. It was part of 'China Day' — Tmall's collaboration with New York Fashion Week to put Chinese brands on a global fashion stage.
The design treated Tao like a streetwear icon: her vintage portrait and the characters for Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) on the chest, 'Sauces Queen' and 'National Goddess' (国民女神) on the sleeves, plus a matching black apron. Opening Ceremony created the range with Tmall's Guochao program, which had used China Day the year before to turn Li-Ning into a streetwear sensation.
Back home the stunt went stratospheric: Lao Gan Ma topped Weibo's hot search, a Xinhua video about the hoodie passed five million views, and on September 18 the brand's Tmall flagship bundled the hoodie with 99 jars of sauce for ¥1,288 — the bundle sold out immediately, as did the $120 hoodie in the Manhattan store.
Media and consumers read the collision as the emblem of guochao ('China-chic'): a 10-yuan pantry staple reframed as culture — credible enough for the fashion press, meme-worthy enough for Weibo. Yunnan Baiyao, Shuangmei, the Summer Palace and others rode the same Tmall showcase.
Why it lands
- The contrast was the story: the unlikeliest brand — a cheap chili sauce — on fashion's most prestigious stage.
- The founder's face was already the logo: Tao Huabi's portrait made the hoodie instantly recognizable with zero explanation needed.
- It sold the product through culture: the ¥1,288 bundle made buying 99 jars of sauce feel like collecting a designer drop, not hoarding groceries.
- Tmall did the staging: a world-class retailer and NYFW gave a small Guizhou brand global credibility it could not have bought alone.
What it did
The hoodie sold out in the Manhattan store; the ¥1,288 Tmall bundle (99 jars plus hoodie) sold out on arrival; Lao Gan Ma topped Weibo's hot search; a Xinhua video passed five million views; and the moment became a flagship example of the 2018 'guochao' wave.
What you can take
Give the brand's own face a fashion-stage moment: a designer garment reframes a cheap commodity as culture, and the absurdity of the pairing becomes the news itself.
Since then
The hoodie became one of the most cited symbols of the 2018 guochao wave and the template for legacy-brand fashion crossovers in China. Tmall repeated the formula with more heritage names in later 'China Day' seasons, and 'guochao' grew from a campaign theme into a lasting consumer movement. Lao Gan Ma itself kept selling sauce — the hoodie was a moment, but the moment re-anchored the brand inside young consumers' culture.
Sources
- “老干妈”进军时尚界，它出的卫衣都登上纽约时装周了！
- 天猫新零售带老干妈潮爆纽约时装周 东方美学引领文化消费新趋势
- The Hottest Look at New York Fashion Week SS2019? A Chinese Chili Sauce
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