A bottle of perfume priced at RMB 1,750 (USD 245) might not only come from Chanel or Hermes. It could also be Chinese.
During the heyday of China’s consumer boom, brand premiumization became a feverish trend. But as spending patterns evolved, affordability emerged as the new norm.
While price-conscious players like Mixue Bingcheng and Luckin Coffee have dominated the mass market, there have been outliers, one of the most notable being Laopu Gold, which sells gold jewelry priced into the tens of thousands of RMB. Another exception is Documents, a high-end Chinese perfume brand that has managed to wedge itself into a fortress long occupied by legacy luxury houses.
Founded in 2021, Documents took a bold step by focusing on extrait de parfum: formulas with double the usual concentration of fragrance oils. It chose to position itself through a blend of original design and sensory storytelling. Without the benefit of a century-old brand name like its global rivals, Documents has had to convince customers that it deserves its “expensive” reputation.
Each product launch is treated like a fashion collection, released in “seasons.” The first three seasons were titled “Human,” “Free,” and “Lost,” each featuring three to six products with evocative names like “Naive,” “Void,” and “Feather.”
This creative approach has attracted a loyal customer base. In its offline retail channels, repeat purchases made up 60% of transactions last year, with most coming from existing customers.
The brand’s early momentum and pricing power caught the attention of major investors, including L’Oreal, which made Documents its first venture capital investment in China.
But success came fast, and perhaps too easily. Founder Meng Zhaoran admits that early success led to overconfidence, which manifested in premature retail expansion in Chengdu and missteps like dabbling in fashion and jewelry.
“Thankfully, we were still small enough to absorb those mistakes,” Meng said. “Had we scaled first and stumbled later, the fallout would’ve been much harder to contain. I’m actually grateful for that phase.”
Now, having weathered a few turbulent years, Meng’s ambitions have evolved. He no longer wants to make a niche brand admired within the industry. He wants Documents to be widely seen and purchased.
Still, he’s keenly aware that turning a personal vision into a mass-market product is easier said than done.
“We used to make good work, but not necessarily good products,” Meng said.
This realization has prompted a shift in strategy. In Meng’s words, the brand’s previous storytelling was “too niche, too personal, too self-referential.” That level of introspection might win over a small group of loyalists but won’t scale across markets and channels.
“Now that we’ve ventured into e-commerce, started exporting, and entered Sephora, we’re reaching a broader and more diverse customer base. That means we need a clearer, more unified message. The old ‘quirky’ identity won’t build trust on new platforms.”
The following transcript has been edited and consolidated for brevity and clarity.
Building products, not just works of art
36Kr: Documents is an unusual name. How did you come up with it?
Meng Zhaoran (MZ): We started with the English name. Since most of us on the founding team came from design backgrounds, we saw scent as a way to store memory and express identity. The word implies storage and recording, which are things tied to memory.
To localize into Mandarin, we chose a name that’s a wordplay on the direct translation, where smell and
Since most of us on the founding team came from design backgrounds, we saw scent as a way to store memory and express identity. The word implies storage and recording, which are things tied to memory. We localized the name into a Mandarin wordplay based on homophonics, which captured our purpose perfectly: to document emotions, experiences, and time through fragrance.
36Kr: Why go into perfume when high-ticket items can take so many forms?
MZ: My background in floral design really influenced me. When you work with flowers, you notice subtle seasonal changes. It’s more than just spring, summer, fall, or winter. There’s also scent, color, and texture. All of that made me want to create a product that could capture this sense of connection with nature in a more lasting, structured way. Perfume felt right.
36Kr: Your seasonal products have pretty unconventional names.
MZ: That kind of naming comes from a very personal, almost artistic place. It worked well for crafting unique works. But as we scale up, we need to shift toward creating products that more people can access and understand. So our seventh season marks a turning point, focusing on delivering something more commercialized and friendly for the mass market.
36Kr: Wasn’t this branding barrier obvious from the beginning?
MZ: It was a conscious choice. Dressing things up draws curiosity.
36Kr: So why shift now?
MZ: It’s about mindset and goals. Initially, we just wanted to make a small, beautiful brand that insiders liked. But people evolve. Eventually, I wanted more than just peer recognition. I wanted our products to be loved and bought by a wider audience. That meant making products that could break out of the niche.
36Kr: Did L’Oreal influence that transition?
MZ: Not directly. But they have been incredibly helpful. L’Oreal shared commercial insights, market data, even budget templates and evaluation metrics with us. Our team didn’t come from major beauty companies, so this saved us a ton of trial and error.
36Kr: Was this transformation necessary?
MZ: Not for everyone. Some brands can live forever in “art project” mode. But for me, the volatility of that model became too risky. When your business gets bigger, uncertainty becomes a liability. Our products need to correspond not just with me, but to the team, customers, and investors. That shift toward accountability made me realize sustainability matters more than aesthetics.
36Kr: Was it painful?
MZ: Not painful, it’s all part of a learning curve. We had to plug major information gaps. For example, I had no clue how to forecast budgets or manage distribution early on.
36Kr: What’s something you used to oppose but now accept?
MZ: Discounted cross-channel reselling, or gray market sales. We never offer discounts on our in-house channels, not even in Li Jiaqi’s live streams. But sometimes discounted units appear online. I used to panic about brand perception. Now, I’m more relaxed. The Chinese market is enormous, and each platform has its own logic. As long as the system is overall healthy, there’s no need to sweat the small stuff.
A matter of price
36Kr: International perfume brands usually have 8–15% fragrance concentration. Why did Documents double that?
MZ: Two reasons. First, yes, it supports a premium price. But more importantly, that’s how my team and I use perfume. We go heavy on usage. While others might apply it twice to the wrist or neck, we might spray it ten times. After work, we’ll head to dinner or drinks, and we want the scent to last all evening. The insight that younger users want strong, lasting fragrances inspired our focus on extrait de parfum.
36Kr: But the brand is known for being expensive.
MZ: Some SKUs are priced on the higher side, yes. But if you break it down per milliliter, we’re not outrageously priced. We’re more expensive than mainstream fragrances, but our materials cost more, and we don’t cut corners. Most of our customers don’t find us overpriced after trying the product.
36Kr: Does it bother you that the brand’s labeled that way?
MZ: It used to, a lot. It would really affect my mood. But not anymore. Our business is stable. Customers come back. Our team is healthy. That’s what matters. I’ve even deleted all my social media, to not let noise influence my headspace.
36Kr: What do you think keeps people buying from Documents?
MZ: We have a distinctive style. And style is really just an attitude. It attracts people who resonate with it. That sense of identity is how we carve out a place in the market.
Embracing Chinese culture
36Kr: As you move from niche to mainstream, will the brand still retain its uniqueness?
MZ: Definitely. Just because we’re going more commercial doesn’t mean we’re losing our personality. We’ve just made the naming and messaging more accessible. And to be accessible doesn’t mean to turn generic. It just means more people can relate.
We feel confident right now. 60% of offline repeat purchases last year came from returning customers. Our business is stable, and our customer loyalty is strong.
36Kr: What does that commercialization look like in practice?
MZ: The seventh season is the turning point. The series uses rich Chinese symbolism. The packaging is layered in different tones of Chinese red. The product names draw directly from traditional incense materials. This line even includes co-branded incense sticks.
We’re also delving into international retail, building a presence at airport shops and beyond. So we had to ask: why would someone overseas buy Chinese-made perfume? What sets it apart? The answer we arrived at is culture.
36Kr: Why center the brand around Chinese culture?
MZ: Because perfume, like all luxury products, sells emotions and stories. A pleasant scent isn’t enough. You need a memorable narrative that people can carry with them.
When speaking to a broader audience—Chinese or otherwise, retail or e-commerce, premium or mass market—we need one common story. We felt that only Chinese culture can serve that role.
36Kr: But isn’t perfume usually tailored to body chemistry? Won’t foreign markets need a different formula?
MZ: French brands don’t change their formulas for China. Why should we? Trying to match a Western scent profile is a race we’ll never win. What we can offer instead is difference. And that difference is cultural.
I first realized this in France while studying photography. My work looked nothing like what my classmates produced. But I often ranked at the top of the class. I even graduated first in the school. One teacher told me that they saw something inherently different in me, and that it may stem from me being the first Chinese student there. That cultural lens, that difference, is priceless.
36Kr: Has L’Oreal helped with going global?
MZ: Absolutely. The L’Oreal name itself is a powerful endorsement. When we talk to potential partners overseas and mention we’re the first to be backed by L’Oreal in China, it creates trust quickly. And trust is everything when you’re a newcomer.
36Kr: Can culture justify premium pricing?
MZ: Yes, but not as a gimmick. Culture has to be felt and understood. Our pricing reflects real factors: ingredients, concentration, and channel strategy. Culture supports that price, but it’s not just decoration.
We’re a young brand. We can’t fake heritage. And design aesthetics alone aren’t enough to carry a high price point. Culture gives our brand emotional depth and narrative strength.
It’s not about turning a RMB 100 (USD 14) fragrance into a RMB 1,000 (USD 140) product. It’s about helping people understand, connect with, and willingly pay for a RMB 1,000 perfume.
Scaling the business
36Kr: You’ve opened over 25 stores. Will retail expansion continue?
MZ: Definitely. We plan to have 35 stores by year’s end. But the bigger focus this year is e-commerce. Most beauty startups are online-first. For us, it has been the reverse. Offline came first for us.
This channel mix is unbalanced, but it also represents an opportunity. We’re building out our digital team and hiring aggressively to fix that.
36Kr: Online shoppers are more price-sensitive than in-store customers.
MZ: Exactly. That’s why we introduced lighter perfumes online. On Douyin, for example, we promote lighter eau de parfums instead of our signature extraits. We even made 5 and 15 ml versions of our bestsellers. These formats are selling really well and are more accessible price-wise.
That’s how you solve the issue of price: product design. If there’s a price gap in the market, we try to fill it through channels like Douyin, Tmall, and Kuaishou, while still staying true to our premium positioning elsewhere.
Think of it like cars: entry-level models exist alongside luxury ones. Someone with a RMB 400,000 (USD 56,000) budget won’t complain that a RMB 300,000 (USD 42,000) car is too pricey. Our product strategy works the same way.
36Kr: Some Chinese perfumes mimic international brands. Why hasn’t Documents done the same?
MZ: That’s the norm, sadly. Many fragrance manufacturers pitch knockoffs, in other words formulas they claim are inspired by international brands like Chanel or Dior.
That happens because a lot of brand founders don’t have their own scent vocabulary. They come from sales, trade, or product backgrounds. So they rely on the classics as references.
From day one, we made it clear: no copying. If a supplier pitches us a dupe, we walk away. Period.
36Kr: Then how do you create something that actually sells?
MZ: We know what Chinese consumers like. Perfume preferences follow patterns, and what sells is rarely surprising. But what elevates a product isn’t the smell alone. It’s the story behind it. That’s what spreads. That’s what builds brand equity.
Perfume is ultimately a business of storytelling and distribution.
Building a bigger brand
36Kr: You’re also expanding into body care and home fragrance. Is it to build scale?
MZ: It’s a strategic expansion. If you look at the product roadmap of other established brands like Guerlain, Mao Geping Cosmetics (MGP), or even Hermes, they have all ventured into categories like skincare, cosmetics, and fragrance. It’s a validated path to building scale.
36Kr: What about Documents makes you proud?
MZ: I’m not proud of our scale. Perfume is a niche market. Compared to brands in bigger categories, we’re still small.
But I’m proud that we’ve survived and perhaps even thrived, despite going head-to-head with legacy luxury brands. We started from zero, with no celebrity endorsements, no brand legacy, and a fairly premium price tag. To have built a loyal customer base and repeat sales under those conditions is no small feat.
36Kr: Has the journey always been smooth?
MZ: Not at all. We’ve had cash crunches, product outages, underperforming stores, bad site selection. Some locations had such high costs that closing them was more expensive than keeping them open due to penalties, broken leases, and wasted renovations. Those were costly lessons.
36Kr: What brands do you admire?
MZ: I used to like Balenciaga, especially when I was still working in fashion. It influenced my early aesthetics. More recently, I’m drawn to Bottega Veneta. It’s understated but refined. The cuts, the silhouettes, the use of repetition in its woven patterns and stacked details feels very intentional. That aligns with our own “Chanku” design philosophy.
36Kr: What is “Chanku?”
MZ: It’s a wordplay referencing the terms “zen” and “cool” in Mandarin.
“Zen” is rooted in daily practice: doing something again and again until you reach a moment of clarity. That clarity, that sudden insight, is what I call “cool.” It’s a breakthrough born from repetition. Kind of like the 10,000-hour rule, but from a more spiritual place.
36Kr: Any favorite directors or authors?
MZ: Directors like Cheng Er and Ang Lee.
Writers like Shuang Xuetao. There’s something raw and passionate about his work that really moves me.
36Kr: Do those artistic influences shape your product ideas?
MZ: Honestly? Not really. I’m more of a consumerist. I get inspiration from shopping, experiencing other brands’ products, packaging, store layouts, textures, scents.
That’s why I love consumer goods. I think they impact everyday people more than novels or movies ever could. And I happen to be good at building them.
My ideas come from buying, not watching. I walk through stores, test skincare textures, examine bottle designs, and feel fabrics. Every new brand I discover, every luxury item I handle, reveals a new insight. Consumerism, when you dig into it, is full of cultural codes: status, taste, identity. It’s endlessly fascinating.
36Kr: What do you think the future of Chinese brands looks like?
MZ: It’s not just about being seen. It’s about being understood, loved, and believed in.
For our generation, this may be the first time we can define what China means in a global context, not by copying Western templates or rehashing ancient motifs, but by expressing who we are today.
A good brand isn’t just a product, but a worldview. It’s an introduction to a lifestyle, a set of values, an aesthetic perspective. And for Chinese brands to matter globally, our values must be seen as legitimate, our stories worth hearing.
I’m not saying we’ve arrived yet. But I believe we’ll get there, as long as we keep creating and questioning. Even if it’s a slow journey, it’s a meaningful one.
36Kr: Could Documents one day be acquired by L’Oreal?
MZ: That’s not something I’ve really thought about. If and when the time comes to make that decision, I’ll consider it then.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Li Xiaoxia for 36Kr.