G2000 founder Michael Tien on building a non-designer brand in Hong Kong

Why are you wearing a Seiko when you employ 2,000 people?” Michael Tien, founder of the Hong Kong brand G2000 asked his dad, who was into jeans manufacturing at that time. Michael was only a kid then, tagging along to his father’s meetings. “My father came down from China in 1930 and started producing jeans in 1958. I was eight years old then. For the next 10 years, he took me around to meetings. During one meeting I noticed he was wearing a Seiko watch and this Jewish buyer from New York was wearing a Rolex. I told him, ‘He must be employing 20,000 people!’ My father said, ‘No, he only employs five people.’ To me that didn’t make sense,” said Tien.

That was when he learned his first lesson about business. “In business, the closer you are to manufacturing, the less profit you make. The closer you are to the consumer, that’s where you make all the money. That’s where branding comes in,” he said. “That buyer buys from us, puts his own label and sells our products in a department store for double the price. What I learned from my father is you have to have your own brand, your own design.” And in 1989, he created G2000, a timeless retail brand, around this model.

Hong Kong in 1989 was saturated with local brands competing against each other. G2000 was one of the few that survived. Tien believed in concentrating on building the brand and making it strong, because, he says, the brand is their best asset and ultimately what led G2000 to last in the business.

“Back in the ’80s there was a lot of casual wear. There was a lot of competition, so the price tags were coming down. We decided to focus on work wear because there were a lot of young people coming to work and they needed work wear. When you come to work, you don’t want to stand out. You just want to look presentable. They wanted something functional, of good quality, and would look good on their body. They don’t care about fabric. And they want good value for money. And I like that business because in a way, I’m achieving a social mission,” says Tien.

Having a social mission, he believes, is important, being a businessman in politics, since Tien is also a legislator and deputy chair of the New People’s Party. He considers himself a fashion player with a social mission, and this is “to help young people who are struggling in their first few jobs to be able to look good without paying too much so they can spend their money for other things.”

He believes that business and politics are interconnected. “There’s a bit of relevance between working in politics and business. My father was the same. He believed that while he made money for himself, he should also contribute to society. This was something he instilled in my brother’s mind and my mind. So when I do my business, I keep the prices down to benefit that entry-level working class, because I have this mindset that while my business gives a reasonable lifestyle to my family — not extravagant — I have to contribute in politics,” he says.

A testament to this “reasonable lifestyle”? During our interview, he says he’s wearing a shirt in a style that’s been around for 15 years. He has it in 16 colors, and it’s G2000. “Our target segment is from 27 to 30 years old. Of course, once these people get into business and trace up, they abandon us. That’s fine with me — I think there is a group that stays with us up to their 50s. Even today, all the things I wear are G2000,” he says.

G2000 is all about fashionable work wear, but don’t expect them to make green or purple suits. “You can have a black suit, but it’ll still be fashionable because of the way it is cut. Then you match the color of the shirt to the suit. We’ve changed 16 colors every six months for 15 years, and we haven’t changed the price too much. Of course we make fashionable stuff, but those are of small quantities. Our ladies’ wear may look like Forever 21 or Zara, but I try to pick those that are not too cutting-edge or too playful,” Tien explains.

G2000, in line with Tien’s social mission of making good quality, reasonably priced work wear, also doesn’t make 100-percent cotton for the convenience of its buyers who don’t have time to iron and dry clean. All the fabrics they use are cotton-blend mixtures.

When I asked him about the brand’s latest collection, he says, “We don’t go after fads and trends. We’re not a designer brand. Every season we update our look through new styling details, new color themes and constantly try to bring in new fabrics and new technology. Nowadays they have the cool wool, the polyester that is anti-static, anti-sweat. They are all, in a way, functional. And working people find them very user-friendly. We run a business through new fabric introduction — without making it too fancy. It’s still a black suit, but with new finishing. The styling, we try to keep it simple. We try to have the colors that most people want. So we won’t have a season where everything is green.”

When I browse through the collection at G2000’s new flagship store at the East Wing of Shangri-La Mall, it screams classics — classics that won’t be found in your father’s closet, mind you. The suits are sleek and slim, and have a modern sheen to them. The pants are cut slim as well, and the colors veer towards neutrals with pops of warm ocher, navy and deep green. I can see why the brand’s lasted so long — precisely because it’s not a designer brand. We already have a lot of those. What we need is exactly what G2000 offers — a go-to brand for pieces that never go out of style. Tien really knows his business.

“Out of 10 young people, maybe two to three are cutting-edge, another two to three don’t even look at the mirror â€” they are looking at the Internet and other stuff, and then there’s the 50 percent that care about how they look and that’s the customer that really matters. And we’ve never veered from that position,” he shares. With a customer share that big, G2000 has no room in its collection for leather pants and studs and purple pants. Like a classic black suit in one of its windows, G2000 is timeless but never out of style. Too bad Mr. Tien’s hands were tucked in his pockets. It would’ve been interesting to find out what watch he was wearing — a Seiko or a Rolex.