I was reading about the NexCen-Camuto acquisition of Shoe-Box and it got me to thinking about Tom Ford. Why, you ask? Because, unlike his tenure at Gucci where, as Fashion Inc points out, it was all about controlling everything, Tom has been using an innovative strategy similar to NexCen's in building his eponymous business.
Nexcen (NEXC) believes that by focusing on developing the brand while outsourcing other activities to carefully chosen partners, they can capture outsize performance from their brand investments. It's certainly not an easy proposition to "fix" brands like Bill Blass and Athlete's Foot this way, but I have been intrigued by NexCen ever since I heard Craig Hoffman, an MD at NexCen, speak at the HBS Luxury Goods & Retail Conference earlier this year.
As I thought about it some more, Tom Ford's model is not too different from this, i.e. control the critical branding and creative aspects, while carefully partnering with others to execute on the rest: distribution, production, and brand extension.
Continue reading "Tom Ford: Building a brand, one partner at a time" »
The Times of London: G-Force
Frida Giannini, the last remaining designer of the trio that was selected to replace Tom Ford at Gucci, is an advocate for Gucci without the sex. According to The Times, the results speak for themselves with a 16% increase in sales to over £1.5b - the highest in the company's history.
The New York Times: The Murder on Ocean Drive
Gianni Versace, who was feted at a glamorous ballet last weekend in Milan, was murdered 10 years ago this month. Cathy Horyn gives us a behind-the-scenes take on that shocking week in Miami in 1997, showing a different side of Gianni's replacement, his sister Donnatella.
The Wall Street Journal: Brooks Brothers tries hip line: Will it suit?
As a collaboration with Thom Browne and Brooks Brothers launches in stores, the masses will for the first time have access to Mr. Browne's directional short-suit silhouette. The WSJ muses on the potential of the line, which while less expensive than his own astronomically-priced line, is still 30-40% more expensive that Brook Brothers normal price points.
Photoclip courtesy of the New York Times
That oft-ignored market for men's luxury has been popping up on my radar screen a lot more often in the last few months. Up until now, men's luxury spending has been dominated by expensive watches. But, as a generation of high net-worth men with a taste for modern design is growing up, more players are reaching out to meet their sophisticated needs in innovative ways.
It brings to mind a casual gathering of friends that took place in my kitchen on a recent Saturday evening. Over wine and cheese, I watched in awe as hedge fund managers, private
equity investors and investment bankers from London's burgeoning financial community were comparing, discussing and examining each other's (expensive) watches in excruciating detail. Some were taking pride in the beautiful pearl dialfaces, others in the high-tech mechanics, and still others in having a Swiss watch brand that nobody else had heard of. Digits were exchanged. Prices were quoted. Statistics were cited. Still, it wasn't so different from the groups of professional women I have seen cooing over their
friend's new Chloe bag. Could the same passion for those watches and
handbags be transferred to cufflinks, tailor-made suits and high-tech men's cosmetics?
Continue reading "Men's luxury: Time for an (arm)revolution?" »
Thisismoney.co.uk: Exposed: I am not an Ethical Bag and Susie Bubble: I am not a Smug Twat
The Anya Hindmarch "I am not a Plastic Bag" PR catastrophe got worse
when it was revealed that the bags were made in China and
probably cost a carbon fooprint fortune to get them over to the UK.
Now, in an even funnier twist, Susie Bubble has photos of ripoff bags m0cking the buyers of those bags, saying "I am not a smug twat" on sale for £19,
but currently sold out. Certainly not the expected turn of events for Sainsbury's, or Anya Hindmarch, or most upsettingly, for the genuine campaigners for ethical and socially
responsible consumption. BoF first discussed this issue
back when a horde of desparate shoppers queued up my street, clamouring
for the bags on weekday morning.
New York Magazine: Tom Ford After Sex
Another article on Tom Ford (he's clearly got PR under control) this
time from New York Magazine. If you want to get into the psyche of the
man himself, this article will help you get there.
Financial Times, Style: Models of a Financial Kind
You've heard of Roland Mouret for Gap and Giles Deacon for New Look, but now its Rodnik for HBS.
Back in the Autumn, I talked to Rich and Phil of Rodnik about designing a t-shirt for the 5th year reunion of my business school class. They have woven this into their latest Financial Times column on the Adventures of Fashion.
© 2007 Copyright Imran Amed - The Business of Fashion.
On my last trip to New York, I finally managed to see the new Tom Ford flagship store in person. After all of the hubbub about its "Hermes and Oprah" similarities, I wanted to judge for myself. Was Cathy Horyn right in criticising the high price-points as being out of reach even for the most discerning male customers? Was Horacio Silva on the mark for panning the store for its overly-exclusive environment?
I'm afraid the answer is yes. In spades.
For all of the talk about the luxurious feel of the store, I have to say it all felt quite ordinary to me. That is to say, it didn't feel different from most of the other masses of luxury stores that are out there. The grey colour palette and silver store fittings reminded me a bit of the old Gucci store formats (that are now being phased out). Sure, the furniture and materials, based on Ford's London home, were sumptuous and very tasteful. However, the store lacked that special something that makes truly unique retail formats stand out. When you walk into a Chanel store - any Chanel store - you feel like you have truly entered the world of Chanel and all that it stands for. When you walk into Abercrombie & Fitch, there is a certain electricity in how the product and store environment go hand-in-hand to speak about the brand.
This, the Tom Ford store did not have. Not yet, at least. For now, customers need to get through glass cabinets that hold many of the clothes more like museum pieces, than sumptuous articles of clothing. How is a customer going to feel the need to buy a beautiful cashmere sweater if he can't even touch it before asking someone's permission? This is akin to taking a child to a petting zoo and saying, "no petting allowed, unless you ask me first. "
The most disappointing thing for me is that Mr. Ford has completely misjudged the consumer he is going after. After having nailed it at Gucci, he has completely missed the mark here. Ford has insulted the intelligence of the customer by assuming he will pay the steep prices just because of all the frills. Frills or no frills, most luxury customers are very discerning about the product, and by making it so hard to form a judgment, the customer is forced to judge based on the store itself, not the product. The Gucci formula of glamour and sex won't work when you are asking a man to spend $5000+ on a suit. It's no wonder the store was completely empty.
My expections for this store were very high, even with the unfavourable media coverage that I had seen in advance. Mostly, this is because Tom Ford has been selling the idea of his eponymous brand to us for the past year and half. It is also because I respect the man a great deal for his creativity, business acumen and personal style. So, you can say I felt rather disappointed than critical.
Many industry observers have been waiting with baited breath to see what he would come up with. Maybe this is another lesson learned for Mr. Ford, the erstwhile master of PR and spin. Be careful what you say (and how long you say it for, and how often you say it) about a big project in advance of its launch. You might just be setting yourself up for a different kind of high-profile PR than you had expected: the negative kind. Perhaps it would have been better for Mr. Ford to take a listen from the Internet world and go beta first, testing out the concept and honing it carefully before making the big splash.
© 2007 Copyright Imran Amed - The Business of Fashion.
In Canada, many young aspiring fashionistas cut their teeth on Fashion Television (or FT), hosted by Jeanne Beker. I accidentally happened upon the site recently and came across a veritable treasure trove of video content that is relevant to some of the topics recently debated and discussed on The Business of Fashion:
Fashion blogging
Any regular readers of this blog know that I have been a big fan of the Sartorialist, aka Scott Schuman, since I first came across his site almost two years ago. His was the first blog of any sort to really catch my attention because there was something really powerful about seeing clothes that are styled by real people on the street. It brings the clothes to life in a way that high-fashion editorial sometimes cannot. FT does a great video profile of Scott that allows you to see how The Sartorialist came to be, explains how Scott thinks about his work and reveals that The Sartorialist is now receiving over 1.3 million page views per month. [You can see my own Sartorialist moment here]
The Sartorialist blog also opened my eyes to the potential of what the democracy of blogging could do for a fashion business, particularly emerging businesses with limited profiles and advertising budgets. What if, for example, you could mouse over a sweater you like in one of Scott's photos and could discover who designed the sweater and where you could buy it online through phototagging (just like you can tag people in your photos on Facebook.com)? Its Fashion 2.0 folks and its only going to get more interesting.
There is a lot more discussion of the fashion blogosphere is in this video overview narrated by Jeanne Beker, highlighting the pros and cons of the fashion blogging phenomenon, which some say has resulted in a reported 2 million fashion blogs. Jeanne speaks to some of the world's leading fashion critics (Cathy Horyn of the New York Times, Kate Betts from Time magazine, and Colin McDowell from the Sunday Times) to get their views on what blogging has done for them. She also speakss to the (love-him-or-hate-him) blogstar Perez Hilton.
Tom Ford's new store on Madison Avenue
FT also gives us a peek into the much-discussed Madison Avenue flagship recently opened by Tom Ford, and heavily criticised by some observers for being too exclusive and too expensive. Tom Ford gives Jeanne a personal tour of the store which provides some of Tom's own thinking on what he was trying to accomplish with the store. Jeanne does go through the price points in the store, which are truly astronomical, including personalised underwear for $75.
Mentoring emerging designers
When emerging designers talk to me about setting up their own businesses, I often encourage them to try to get some time working in the studio of an established design house first. This video outlines the mentorship of young proteges including Yves Saint Laurent (mentored by Christian Dior) to Francisco Costa (mentored by Calvin Klein) to Narcisco Rodriguez (mentored by Donna Karan). You can see how some of the industry's biggest names of today started their careers as apprentices to some of the biggest names from yesteryear.
© 2007 Copyright Imran Amed - The Business of Fashion.
Scott Shuman photo courtesy of FT.
Top fashion business links for the week of 30 April, 2007:
New York Times - No Store is a Hero to its Valet
Either the New York Times really has it in for Tom Ford (perhaps he spurned and interview request or declined an editors request for a discount?) or there is a real issue with Tom Ford's new eponymous business. First, Cathy Horyn criticized Ford's new business for being too niche and too grand (after Ford had provided her with a private tour - you can't buy this woman's vote) and today, in its Critical Shopper feature, Horacio Silva pans the store for confusing "exclusionary for exclusive."
Modabot.de - Brave New Internet World - How the Internet is changing the Fashion Universe
Fashion 2.0 is a hot topic. The Business of Fashion recently advocated that big fashion brands should consider the Internet an avenue that they should be cruising down, albeit with necessary caution. Over at Modabot.de, the Berlin-based fashion blog for avantgarde fashionistas, they delve into the topic with vigour, providing a 360 degree view of the fashion blogosphere and some of the new social shopping sites that are bound to change the way consumers shop forever, if not now, then certainly in the years to come.
Style.com - Gathering Moss
Sarah Mower at Style.com provides a witty and always insightful peek into the Kate Moss for Top Shop event this week. This is no small business. Philip Green has managed to make this line a pilot project for expanding Top Shop to other markets, particularly the US. Not only will the line bow at Top Shops around the world, it will also be sold at Colette in Paris, Barney's in America and 10 Corso Como in Milan. Mr. Green was even on hand to provide some sales assistance himself. Clearly, this is a business he is counting on.
The Daily Telegraph - Farewell to Floaty and Flirty
Is this a harbinger of Chloe's fast fall, after its fast rise on the fashion scene? At the Daily Telegraph, they have joined the chorus of people questioning the design direction taken by new Chloe's new Creative Director, Paulo Melim Andersson. One can definitely appreciate a bit of Marni heritage in the collection he showed for A/W 2007, but the question is whether Chloe loyalists are brand faithful or design faithful. As the Telegraph points out, if it is the latter, then there are plenty of other places for girly girls to look for the look that Chloe has become known for over the past 10 years. Clearly, for a large fashion house like Chloe, a change in creative direction like this should be considered carefully as part of a broader strategic exercise. This is no less important to a fashion business than an airline choosing to fly to a new market (did you know Virgin flies to Nairobi?), a cola company changing their age old formulation (New Coke, anyone?), or Colonel Sanders tweaking the KFC recipe (do you like your chicken more crispy?).
Last week, Tom Ford launched his much-awaited menswear collection at a brand new New York flagship, where he provided personal tours to the fashion elite, including Bernard Arnault of LVMH and Cathy Horyn of the New York Times.
It seems that while Cathy was impressed, she didn't necessarily understand the business rationale for Tom's decision to focus solely on the most elite niche of the menswear market, i.e. men who are willing to spend upwards of $3000 on a suit. Tot top it all off, Ford has supplemented the purchase of the suit with a truly luxurious environment (read expensive capital expenditure and rent) to provide a truly unique tailoring experience.
Will Mr Ford be able to work his Gucci magic again? There is an interesting discussion speculating on this topic in the comments section of Cathy Horyn's post.
For all of you budding young designers based in America, the CFDA has officially begun its annual search for America's most promising young designers. Each year, the CFDA awards a $200,000 grant to the winner, along with mentoring from a recognised fashion business guru as part of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Past winners include the intelligent and talented Doo-Ri Chung (looking super glam in this ad) who is mentored by J.Crew's legendary Mickey Drexler and the refined-beyond-their-years Proenza Schouler design duo, Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez, who were mentored by Burberry's impressive former CEO, Rose Marie Bravo.
This is a really great initiative from the CFDA and other venerable fashion names like Barneys New York and Vogue. That said, I have one suggestion to make it even more powerful. I believe the CFDA should supplement the business mentoring and cash with a requirement and access to funding for the winning designers to find a suitable day-to-day business partner/advisor. While mentoring from an experienced fashion business executive is priceless, it does not make up for daily support and partnership.
I have made this point before, but so many young designers try to do everything on their own, and this means they deal with areas where they might not have any formal training or expertise. One look at the long list of established designers who have relied on business parters to act as thought partners on day-to-day decisions and to share the workload, shows that this is a real pattern of success in the industry. Marc Jacobs (who has Robert Duffy), Miuccia Prada (has always worked with her husband Patrizio Bertelli), Tom Ford (who with Domenico De Sole turned Gucci around from a fuddy duddy backwater brand), Giorgio Armani (Sergio Galeotti worked with Armani for years before he passed away), Valentino (Giancarlo Gianetti is still his business partner, even if he is no longer his life partner), and Derek Lam (Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann) have all shown that this tandem approach can help to get the business off the ground properly, allowing the designer to focus more on the creative aspects of the business.
This ad above, from today's WWD, lays out all of the requirements and the application procedure. Good luck!
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