Amazing Song

Amazing Song’s first store opened in the winter of 2013 on Xueyuan Road, Beijing. It measured just over ten square metres. People sometimes assumed it was a multi-brand boutique because it carried relatively few products. Founder Zhang Nana, 张娜娜, known as Nina Zhang, says everything inside carried Amazing Song’s own name, trademark, tags and designs.

Zhang had studied fashion design and then worked at an advertising company serving industry exhibitions. She understood parts of the fashion supply chain, but her available capital made launching a clothing label look unrealistic. Bags presented a narrower opening — she already collected them and paid close attention to structure, material and craft.

Six months before the shop opened, Zhang began developing the products. She lived in Beijing and travelled to Guangzhou each month to work with suppliers. The early customers came from the universities, offices and foot traffic around Xueyuan Road. The shop accumulated thousands of private WeChat contacts, creating a customer base that would matter later.

Amazing Song expanded to more than ten physical stores and achieved modest profits, according to Zhang. By 2019 she had concluded that stores alone would not create the national brand she wanted. Old customers contributed a combined RMB 2 million to fund a new e-commerce team. The first half-year produced little.

Then the pandemic emptied the offline network. During home working in early 2020, the team began using bloggers to create product photography and styling content with more atmosphere than conventional catalogue images. The initial purpose was better imagery. The approach also generated sales and pushed the company into influencer-led e-commerce.

Delivery pressure created another turn. Zhang travelled to Guangzhou in April 2020 when factories were closed and orders were backing up. She rented a warehouse, recruited experienced workers and assembled a small factory. The wider team later moved from Beijing to Guangzhou to stay close to the bag supply chain. Zhang says sales passed RMB 20 million in 2020 and RMB 100 million in 2021 — founder testimony rather than audited accounts.

The product that fixed the brand in customers’ minds was the 软欧包, or Soft Euro bag. Zhang says its shape escaped conventional bag structures while remaining practical and easy to wear. Celebrity use brought exposure; customers sustained it. The Donut hobo and Half Moon bag followed as recognisable shapes.

The design language is deliberately cheerful — simplicity plus colour, with a “colourful and healing” character Zhang says has existed since the beginning. The silhouettes changed as the market moved from rigid mini bags toward softer, larger and more relaxed forms. The use of colour remained.

Amazing Song matters because its history charts an entire commercial era in Chinese fashion: a tiny self-owned store, private WeChat customers, customer-financed e-commerce, blogger seeding, livestream exposure, proximity to Guangzhou production, and a breakout soft bag. Its origin story is also a warning. The founder now says the influencer model that once produced sales has become far less efficient. The brand born through social commerce is already learning how to live after the easy version of social commerce.