Peter Som: Rolling with NRDC?

The early stage fashion investment deals keep on rolling in.

A day after the announcement from Matthew Williamson, The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Peter Som is close to finalising a deal with NRDC Equity Partners, further confirming a report from WWD back in February. NRDC is the firm behind the investment and turnaround of Lord & Taylor, the American department store.

It's an unconventional choice for Som whose savvy business partner, Elana Posner, has been driving the fund raising search for Som for over a year now. While other designers have been taking investments from upstream strategic investors (Sophia Kokosalaki and Staff International, Proenza Schouler and Valentino), this is the first deal in some years that comes from a retail partner whose expertise is more focused on retail distribution than on production and brand development.

Perhaps one reason for this choice is the unique structure of the deal.

If the deal structure as reported by the WSJ is accurate, then Som has managed to preserve ownership of his name by licensing it (probably for free) to a newly-created entity, which would in turn be owned in a 65/35 equity split, with NRDC retaining the majority stake.

In this way, if the parties decide to go their separate ways, Som can hang on to his name and avoid the fate faced by Roland Mouret and others who lost the rights to use their names when partnerships went sour. For NRDC, which appears to be trying to gain more of an upscale cachet, perhaps even just the affiliation with Som and the potential to distribute a forthcoming lower-priced collection in Lord & Taylor one day was enough for them to make this concession.

This has been a busy summer for Som, who signed on to become the Creative Director for Bill Blass in July.  While the Journal was careful to say the deal could still fall apart, it is expected that an official announcement could come as early as next  week.

For readers who want to get to know Peter a bit better, here's a look at Peter's collaboration with Lancome and esteemed make-up artist Gucci Westman for A/W 2007.