Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 276 - 271 Suddenly Changed

Yan Ling initially hoped for a wider variety of shoe styles to choose from, but considering Yan Yan’s current work situation, ensuring that one pair of shoes she was satisfied with per year, shoes that felt "as comfortable as wearing nothing at all," was already quite an achievement.

Moreover, Yan Yan’s design was cleverly devised, with an all-in-one approach that seemed to aim for a permanent solution.

Yan Yan designed a shoe style and indicated that Y·Y would only produce one style per year, with "unperceivable wearing" as the key selling point.

The shoe’s upper had a two-millimeter indent; since it was a solid color, it wasn’t very noticeable visually at first glance.

The edges of the indent featured two rows of hidden eyelets.

Such a design was unusual in that the outermost layer of the shoe’s upper was insertable and could be changed at will.

Next to the shoe design drafts, Yan Yan also drew a separate design for the upper.

The outermost layer of the upper incorporated elements from many "classic" trendy clothing styles.

In other words, the upper was of an assembly-type design.

For fans, it meant that each year, they only needed to buy one pair of shoes, and then they could purchase uppers that matched their clothes.

This way, apart from the uppers, the "base shoes" could be uniformly produced in domestic factories.

With the level of tacit understanding that Yan Ling and Yan Yan had since childhood, he didn’t need to ask what Yan Yan wanted to do next.

Lingyan Shoe Industry quickly set up a new production line for sneakers that manufactured the shoes Yan Yan had designed.

The first batch planned for production was available only in black and white, versatile colors that wouldn’t look too out of place regardless of the upper design.

Then, Yan Ling opened a factory in the United States specifically for producing the uppers.

After the sample shoes were produced, Yan Yan was mostly satisfied, except for one thing.

Yan Yan wanted a pair of shoes that felt "like wearing nothing at all," which first and foremost had to be light.

But even though Yan Ling tried his best and chose the lightest shoe-making materials on the market, the sample shoes based on Yan Yan’s design still weighed 166 grams.

This was far from an acceptable weight for Yan Yan.

Once Miss Yan of the Yan Family got her hands on the sample shoes, she was extremely displeased, "Nike’s running shoes, the Mayfly, weighed only 135 grams years ago, and New Balance’s MRC5000 is even lighter than 100 grams. You’re bringing me a shoe that’s nearly 200 grams and talking about ’unperceivable wearing’?"

Miss Yan had been mixing in the Haute Couture circles for too long; she was used to using the world’s top materials and simply looked down on the "common" materials of the "ordinary" market. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

Yan Ling tried to persuade her kindly, Y·Y is not Maison Yan II.

Yan Yan turned a deaf ear and even said she was very busy, telling Yan Ling to quickly solve the weight issue and not to show her any crappy thing that was over 100 grams.

Additionally, she didn’t want to see anything about Nike’s Mayfly running shoes, which had a short lifespan and received plenty of complaints for their subpar quality.

Over the past few years, Yan Yan worked herself to exhaustion, and in the process, she dragged down her cousin as well.

Yan Ling had no choice but to search the world for materials for Yan Yan but failed to find anything that met his incredibly picky cousin’s requirements.

The New Balance shoes, in their quest to become the lightest in the world, had extremely thin uppers, while Yan Yan’s design was as thick as regular sports shoes.

On the brink of a breakdown over material issues, Yan Ling, both angry and helpless, felt he needed to have a row with Yan Yan; he wouldn’t give up until he "scolded" her into accepting reality.

However, before Yan Ling could "start scolding," he was rebuked by his cousin.

"How come you still haven’t sorted out the materials? The material that Stanford’s material lab just came up with is quite good, isn’t it?" Yan Yan looked innocently puzzled.

The material Yan Yan referred to hadn’t even left the lab when Yan Ling saw it; it was still in the final stages of testing.

It was a nearly-finished product that had not yet been mass-produced.

That piece of material was borrowed by Li Tianle and Li Tianyou from the materials lab "next-door" to Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence lab.

The Robot Brothers took this material hoping to see if it could be used on Y Master.

First, it could reduce Y Master’s weight from a robot’s level to that of human weight.

Second, it could make Y Master’s skin feel better, with the touch of baby skin.

In the end, Yan Yan set her sights on this material.

At the time, Maison Yan II wanted to use this material for clothing.

But it was a patented material, not yet in production; to buy the material, one first had to purchase the patent, and the transfer fee for the patent alone was in the tens of millions of US dollars.

Using the new material to make a few clothes would imply a per-item patent cost that was astronomical.

Even such a luxurious Haute Couture studio as Maison Yan II simply couldn’t afford it.

Here was Miss Yan, expecting Y·Y’s shoes to use this patented material, utterly unconcerned with the impracticalities.

Over the past two years, Yan Ling had opened so many Y·Y trendsetting stores, and although the sales were good, much of the initial investment had yet to be recovered.

Yan Ling saw no need to spend so much cash to buy the patent.

Not to mention the company’s cash flow was a bit tight; even if he had enough cash to buy the patent, he wouldn’t do it.

Because after buying the patent, there would be the production investment, a high-tech production line that would cost tens of millions of US dollars anyway.

After being berated, Yan Ling was even more inclined to argue with his cousin, "Miss Yan, do you know how much that patent costs?"

"Brother Yan, if you didn’t have the money, why didn’t you say so earlier?" Yan Yan looked disdainful.

"Little Sister Yan, if you have the money, go buy it yourself!" Yan Ling was extremely exasperated.

"It’s my purchase, my purchase. What? The turtle fears the hammer?" Just then, the private equity investment Yan Yan had made with Ian had reached the stage where it could be redeemed.

Without hesitation, Yan Yan withdrew all the money she had invested in the private equity.

Yan Yan was very bullish on this patent and had high expectations for the material’s prospects.

After securing the patent, she would first set up a small production line to supply her own brand for a year or two.

Once the material became famous, she could make a fortune just by selling the material.

The "lightness" alone was enough to be a selling point, not to mention that it was an extremely "skin-friendly" material.

The applications of this patented material would not be limited to shoes alone.

It was the first time Yan Ling wanted to argue with his cousin, but the argument never started, and he was scolded twice by her.

Up to now, Yan Yan had always cried poverty, never spending a penny, claiming to be the creative director, responsible only for the effort, not the money.

Yan Ling’s cousin, stingy with every penny, suddenly changed her ways.

When she made a move, it was a big one.