Fashion Blog

I know I’ve talked your ear off about it, and sent emails on it, but here is the proof of how much GPC loves Brazil fashion! Watch my interview with Fashion Insider TV for their FI Special Report on the Minas Trends Fair, which took place from April to May 2009 in Bel Horizonte. Enjoy!

Watch interview here

Photo: .craig

It was exactly 10 months, 10 days and 10 hours when the store that I gave 6 months to close shut its doors.

I first met the new owners of Tony Mora when they were beside themselves with joy, having landed a retail location in the "center of the universe"—their quote, not mine. We met through a mutual friend who thought my retail experience could help them, at least with the hiring and training of the staff.

Our first meeting didn’t go well…I guess the truth is a bitter pill to take when everyone around you is your YES man. I have a rule in the office: if you want to hire me and not hear the truth, the fees are double. The meeting went downhill quickly after hearing the plan…they wanted to sell high-end cowboy boots made in Spain…my thought was, "How authentic can that be?" But the punch line was that they had just signed a lease in Time Square.

What? Holy mother of God…are they kidding? The look on my face must have given away my surprise, horror and doubt that I heard them right.

So they started throwing numbers at me…300,000 people cross that corner every week. The W hotel across the street has $500/night rooms. The investment banking offices of Morgan Stanley are on the other corner…"this is the best location, in the best city of the best state, in the best country in the world for retail!" "We only have to sell 20 pairs of boots a day to make the numbers!" They happily shouted to me.

This is why I say numbers lie, demographic studies can be used for toilet paper and all traffic is not the same. Shopping traffic is shopping traffic! Entertainment traffic, sight-seeing traffic or theatre traffic are not high-end shopping traffic.

I asked him if he had taken a walk around the block; if he had counted shopping bags. FYI the only shopping bags in the area are from the M&M store and tee shirts that say I love NY and run 3 for $10. He rudely informed me that he didn’t have to do this because he had hired the best team in the market to put together this store.

In fact, I think this was the part of the conversation where he asked me who I thought I was telling him this location “sucked” (ok really I said “wasn’t a good fit”, but I should have said sucked). I assured him that being a native New Yorker and having grown up in the business…oh yeah, and having opened up more than 1000 stores, sitting on the board of two universities (you get it); I might know a thing or two about this location.

Then the emails started coming in. First from Stetson, "your boots are the Rolls Royce of cowboy boots." Nice compliment, but that doesn’t pay the over $100k a month rent. Then came emails from Camper and TOUS, both Spanish brands, congratulating him on the great location and opening of the store. I think their stores are in Soho, right? Not Time Square.

This guy was killing me. I became obsessed with helping him; so many people where just taking advantage of him. Remember that team of industry professionals? Well I could write a book, not a blog, on how they oversold him, cheated him and ripped him off. For example, the insurance policy they sold him covered a million dollars of jewelry and furs, costing $30k (which by the way, he doesn’t sell!). We got him a full coverage one for under $8K.

Now it’s not that the owner Jose Maria Castresana is a stupid man. He is just not a retailer; he got into the business because the grass always seems greener and he put blind faith in what the “industry professionals” told him.

But 90% of the reason was for the ego! This was my first true encounter with the classic “emperor’s new clothes”.

It’s an odd phenomenon...think Michael Jackson…really no one could tell him “no more plastic surgery” and he had the best doctors. This team knew exactly what he wanted to hear, and that’s what made them the experts. Here’s a quick, fun example…..we were in the lawyers’ office…Oh, yeah fast forward 3 months—I started working with him after meeting in Spain and seeing that already he was in over his head…without the store even being open.

So back at the lawyers’ office…we were trying to find some type of exit clause, some loop hole out of the 10 year lease (!) and could not find anything to help us. Good thing he had such a great retail lawyer…but again with the punch line: as we are leaving the office, the lawyer comments to me, “You know I didn’t think that was a good retail location.”

Are you joking? Now you speak up. Ugh!

On a good day we could sell 4 pairs of boots, most days just 1. Cash flow was tight and the store wasn’t finished (we had no bathrooms, no access to the storage room), but some designer friend of his told the owner that he needed to put mirrors in the store. That doing this would make the store more high-end looking and chic. Meantime I was begging him to do some advertising…he spent the $6000 on the wall-to-wall mirror…which we left in the store when it closed.

There is a fine line between ranting and blogging so I am going to save the rest of my tale for a trade magazine story and for my book. But I should leave you with a few “morals of the story”:

- Do not let ego lead you.
- Do not make decisions based on emotion (only based on your pocket).
- Listen to that devil’s advocate.
- The people that give you “good advice”, question their motive.
- And my number one golden rule…people that sell you things are not your friend!

So I have a love-hate affair with Reva. I was one of the first to jump on the trend of the simple, chic, comfortable little gem flats. I had a standing order for black ones once a year at the Elizabeth street store.

When each new shipment came in, the sales associate would call to inform me of the newest, fabulous print or color of the season. I wore them and loved them to death. And then they were everywhere! I could not walk down one block in New York City without running into 2 people wearing a pair. It seemed Reva was everywhere. What was once hard to find and always out of stock was now common.

Common is a four letter word in fashion. 

I put away my gold, black, animal print pairs. I missed them, but I felt cheated. They would fade away..but they didn’t. They became a fashion basic. Often imitated but never the same, Reva had become the ‘little black dress’ of foot wear. Every fashionista and every ‘industry’ person didn’t have just one pair but at least half a dozen.

Now when we walk down the street and see another Reva wearer, we give each other a little grin and nod. Yes, we are part of the group a group of Jimmy, Manolo and Christian wearers but you know tucked deep into our designer bags is a pair of Revas, waiting to give us comfort. 

My story doesn’t end here. A week ago I was hit by a taxi! I landed on the hood of the cab and my foot under its wheel. The taxi ran over my foot and fractured it in two places.

The EMS and the Doctor that treated me at the hospital both asked me what shoe I was wearing. It turns out that if not for the metal logo on the shoe, for certain I would have lost a toe. The shoe had protected me, like a fashion lucky charm or a fashion amulet. I will forever be grateful for being a fashionable victim and not a victim of a horrible accident. 

Of course I can’t be seen in this hideous boot that has to be strapped to my leg for 6 weeks! So I took the metal logo off the ruined shoe and Velcro-ed it on the boot. I now happily walk/hobble the streets of the big apple, this time getting more than a grim and nod.

Lately I have been reading a lot of reviews on Yelp to better understand what consumers get ticked off by. It’s interesting how insanely demanding consumers are, but yet how little they want. This is what I have learned.

They basically want 4 things from you.

1. A sense of community.

No one craves generic cookie cutter retail. Consumers shop independent retailers because they expect to feel more welcomed and want to feel like they are a part of something.

I don’t care if you are selling a cup of coffee or $1000 gowns. It’s the environment that makes that difference and gives stores that sense of community. They also want to feel appreciated and even if they don’t go to all the events you plan, they still like to know about them. It gives them a sense that you have included them as a part of something.

The Starbucks guys tell us that we need to be in 3 places: home, work/school and somewhere else. That “somewhere else” should be our retail locations. The internet, with its ‘second life’, and thousands of retail fashion websites (none of which I’ve heard of making any profit) will never be able to appeal to consumers’ emotional needs like a brick and mortar store can. At the end of the day we need, crave, and want social contact.

2. They want easy, fast friendly service.

I can’t believe that about 90% of comments were on rude or poor service! See my review of Christian Louboutin on yelp. There is a thin line between being harassed and giving excellent customer service.

Take a walk in the Saks 5th ave shoe department if you want to know what being harassed at retail is like. It is important to train your staff on not just customer service but on building customer relationships, which means you get repeat sales from existing customers and aren’t just hustling for sales from new customer.

Recently I had a customer email me that she needed to pick up her layaway before Thursday because she was going out of town to a wedding. The store is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I had no one to open the store for her. So I overnighted her the keys so she could get it herself. She left the key with the shop next door and came in the following week to pay for it. Definitely not something I would recommend in the big city, but we knew her. The word of mouth we got from our “outrages” customer service could fill a phone book.

Going a little out of the way proved to go a long way when it came to customer reviews.

3. They are looking for value.

Note I didn’t say cheap prices. The consumer today is very savvy with websites like Shoptime where they have up-to-date sales and price information at their convenience. This is where, as a merchant, you need to know your consumers’ price resistance and costing. We can no longer afford to just pay the price the vendors ask for. We need to be in control and have an understanding of what it’s worth to our consumer.

So next time you’re in the market, before you ask for a price, ask yourself “how much would my customer pay for this?” Then ask the price. I think you will be surprised at how little the mark up might be and you will either have to rethink some of your brands or negotiate with them a littler harder. We are in business to make money, not to show off trendy brands that are over priced and only sell when marked down.

At the end of the day, a tee shirt is just a tee shirt and we have to look at garments for what they are at face value, not by their label.

4. They want something new…… they want to be the insider.

They want to be the first to try a new dish, new designer, or new idea. Diana Vreeland said it best. “give the consumer what they didn’t know they wanted.”

More of the same is what has been killing retail. Consumers want to talk to other people about something new that they have discovered or as happened to them. This type of word of mouth or social media is so important that no one has been able to put a dollar amount to it’s return… but I can tell you it’s priceless. I haven’t booked a hotel room without reading a review in years. I don’t care how pretty the ads look.

The consumers who have experienced it themselves are more credible than anything staged. Consumer experience is, at the end of the day, the key to having them come back, tell a friend—love you.

Do you know that girl with the hairy upper lip? She’s the one that looks at her lip everyday and assumes that no one else notices something so small so unimportant.

Each day when she walks into the office, you have to fight back that urge to tackle her to the ground and hot wax the thing off. Until the day she takes a photo of herself for Match.com, and she can see herself as others see her… the girl with a hairy upper lip.

Think of this letter as the hot wax of what is so obvious in retail (the hairy lip), yet no one has the nerve to RIP IT OFF (find a solution). They just let the small problems build up and become a huge hairy, ugly mess.

Are we really surprised that so many retailers are closing? Did we need a Home Depot and a Lowe’s at the edge of every new housing development? Did we really need a Best Buy and a Circuit City, or a Linen and Things and Bed Bath and Beyond? Did we really need 5 Starbucks on 4 NYC blocks? (I swear it’s true I live in the middle of that starbuck pentagon).

The Boutiques

Let’s start with the boutiques, since they are the ones closest to my heart. For too long, too many hobby stores where popping up all around the country. You know the boutique... the one which opens when the owners’ friends “all want to shop in my closet”… or who’s husband needed a tax write off (seems like a funny idea now huh) or my favorite, the store who "has to teach everyone how to dress."

Worst yet, the boutique who opens because they and all their friends need somewhere to shop that’s "unique” yet all those stores ended up looking exactly alike. You and your friends all put you out of business, because you (the owner) steals from the store and your friends all want discounts.

Here is some of the wax for boutique owners: If you don’t have a good location or you are just buying the things you like….if you are not negotiating hard with the vendors and looking for margin builders….if you work in the store and are just getting by….if you hate buying ugly things….you WILL NOT MAKE IT.

It’s time to take a hard look at your business and stop your losses.

The Department Stores

Department store….ugh! Where do I start? You are the bearded lady of the retail world.

I have seen buying plans that have 40% markdowns in them! Why would you buy things that you KNOW are not going to sell? The supply chain is decades old, meeting for how many buying meetings they should have is costing more than the budget they are meeting about buying.

But let’s take it to the most basic level. I was in Macy’s on 34th street about 3 weeks ago. I picked 4 dresses (none on sale) to try on. The only time anyone approached me was to ask me if I wanted a Macy’s credit card.

While in the dressing room the two attendants, who by the way did no LOSS PREVENTION (meaning they didn’t even count what I took in to the dressing room), chatted about how it was cheaper to shop at Conways. When I asked them if someone could run out (really, about 10 steps from the front of the dressing rooms) they said no ”that’s not my job”. I left $1,245 worth of FULL PRICE goods in the dressing room and walked out.

Some buzz words for the department stores, wear now, fashion, kill over production of product developments, service!

The Nationals

The nationals are not any better…I was at the BCBG store on 5th ave near 21st street and I was just running in before they closed. I grabbed 4 dresses (I was looking for 4 outfits to wear for the MAGIC tradeshow).

I asked if I tried them on at home and return what didn’t fit in the morning, could I get a refund. They replied ”store credit only”. I said, can you stay while I try them on…”the store closes in 5 minute”. For Pete’s sake is business so good at BCBG that they could just turn FULL PRICE customers away.

PS. I saw the same dress at Macy’s—I could have bought it there and returned it for a FULL refund, that is if the woman would have gone 10 steps out of the dressing room to find me a size.

Some of the other nationals. J.Jill, Cache, Coldwater, Chico’s, Ann Taylor - why are you chasing a customer you don’t have (younger) and why don’t you get to know your core who loves you? Cache? Do you know how much the Hispanic consumer loves you? When are you going to start expanding to Latin America?

Why is it that our “American” brands have such a hard time expending internationally? Why is it that Mango (from Spain) is in 22 countries (including Cuba) and we can’t get the airport Gap right?

How about Zara whose supply chain is beyond impressive and puts 12,000 fashion items out a year with only 18% markdowns at the end of a season while US department stores are at 40%. Zara, small tip for you: you would do more UPT's if you got rid of the huge center aisle you need a moment of interruption at the front door and more dressing rooms!

Abercrombie I have one thing to say to you….5 years of the same back-to school hoodie? The only thing that changes is the price. You can’t contuine on image you need to have a product! Fashion!

Internet Retailers

Internet retailers (no one is safe in this waxing of the market). What are you doing? You have created the worst type of price wars. People are now only shopping for fashion based on price or replenishment. If there is one internet retailer (fashion without a brick and mortar) out there making a profit PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

Zappos I know you are a billion dollar company, innovator of the year (Fast Company) but with your pricing and return policy are you making money? Bluefly, I love what you stand for, what you are doing, many try to copy but they don’t have it right (just yet), but please you need to find buyers that know how to negotiate. No more Saks buyers; you need “down and dirty” buyers that will fight tooth and nail for a nickel off. Old school.

The Vendors, Brands, Designers...

Last but not least the vendors, brands, designers, or whatever you are calling yourself these days. During the tradeshows I was lucky that Dr. Kevorkian was not one of my fav 5. So many vendors told me they couldn’t work with us because of “department store” cancellations and that they didn’t have any over cuts for independents.

What the heck is going on in this business? Doesn’t anyone remember when Federated lost their credit and took hundreds of vendors/brands with them?

How about this: start manufacturing here in the US! Have smaller cuts but more fashion short lead times and faster turn around.

Don’t worry about the production cost you make them up on speed and shipping. The boutiques can test it, sell it, and move on. If you have a hit then you can take it overseas and sell it to the department store.

Just ask Forever 21 if that doesn’t work for them…. (Forever let me know when you go public because you are one retailer I would invest in, but please think about over extension….it can sneak up on you.)

The Bottom Line

Whew that felt good. Here is the bottom line… people will always shop, in good times and bad. When people are sad and depressed….they shop!

Give them a little service, respect, value (don’t rip them off like the $695 Donna Karen Tee shirt on page 18 of the Neiman Marcus catalog) give them something new (young designers get it together it’s your time to shine), make it easy for them and make it a nice environment, keep the floor fresh and when you do have a sale…make it real.

For those that are doing it right, hang in and buckle up. Once this ride is over you will have better placement and a huge amount of market share.

Please don’t email me with your negative comments. I am venting because I know there is money to be made out there. This is a business where excuses don’t pay the rent. It’s not a business for the shy, weak or short sighted. Your business is a work in progress, whenever you think you know your customer base it changes, whenever you think you have your product mix right….you are wrong.

Does anyone remember when Barney’s was a men’s discount store? I rest my case.

Customers care more about affordability than designers. Photo Phototom

You have seen the feature in most fashion magazines with titles like Splurge vs. Steal and Lust or Bust, typically a column that illustrates a designer “look” next to a cheaper, sometimes really cheap, knockoff.

Take a look at most fashion buyers. We are stuck in retail fashion agony. We know the price of goods and HATE to pay retail for them and yet we also crave the designer labels. Personally, I try to justify a high-ticket item by the number of times I’ll wear it. If I buy a pair of $600 Jimmy’s it’s a PayLess bargain at $3.33 each time I wear them if I wear them 2000 times!

The designers of course are not so happy to be featured next to a copy for a fraction of the price. In fact, they are down right MAD, and are taking action against the knockoff companies.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America is leading the way with a lobbying campaign in Washington for new anti-copying laws. Some designers like Diane Von Furstenberg and Zac Posen have been traveling to Washington to speak in favor of copyright protection. They would be similar to the ones that protect books and music from being illegal obtained.

But really who are they kidding? How do you trademark pants, or (wink) a wrap dress.

The Real Question

The important question is: do knockoffs really hurt designer’s sales?

I did a quick poll at my new favorite “designer inspired” store Club Monaco. I was looking at a skirt that was identical to a Prada skirt I had seen a month ago. As a customer neared the rack of skirts I was looking at I would turn to them and ask, “Doesn’t this look just like the Prada one?” Two of the five people polled didn’t know who Prada was. One customer said it looked like a skirt at H&M she saw, while another said she saw it at Target. The last just ran away from me like I was crazy.

That right there proves my point. Consumers don’t buy knockoffs because they feel they are “fooling” anyone in believing they wear designer clothing. They buy it because they like the style and it’s affordable. More than half the time they don’t know it has been knocked off from a designer simply because they don’t shop designer brands.

Of course there is the “Chinatown” group…they are only fooling themselves. In fact we must unite and set some universal LAW that any retailer, fashion student, industry type caught with a fake designer bag….inspired ok…but FAKE should be black balled from the industry.

Good business is the best art

Designers should learn a lesson from Isaac Mizrahi. He knocks himself off. Brilliant!

He sells to both Bergdorf Goodman and to Target. Both retailers are the paramount retailer of their niche market. WWD book of lists states that only 2% of the U.S. population would pay more than $100 for a pair of jeans, with the most popular price point being $29.99.

Considering that, most $300 jeans cost around $12 to make…who is ripping whom off?

But my favorite thing to complain about is when a designer knocks off other designers. I love it when they are “inspired” from some long dead fashionista it becomes an Homage to them. Ugh!

Despite of all this, there will always be a market for designers brands and price points. In fact the luxury business has never been better with increased sales in the U.S. and new markets in India, China and Latin America opening up. Designer labels have a place in society because they make us feel good and make us believe that we fit in.

They inspire us and they open the door for amazing fabrications and skilled craftsmanship. They are the touchstones of the business and the fashion set will always look and pay for that.

Andy Warhol once said, “Good business is the best art.”

What do you think of knock-offs? Do they hurt designers' sales? Share your thoughts in the comments!

A shot of the crowds at MAGIC last year.

Excuse me……I never got the email-memo-postcard with whose idea it was to jam pack JULY with tradeshows! Back in the day (which was last Wednesday) it was a SIN to run a tradeshow during July.

July has more traditionally been a month for sales, markdowns, more sales, inventory and vacation. If you own a “resort” type store July is your holiday season.
So what is up with all the shows?

Let’s review…

Bread and Butter has become a “must go” show but this one is held over 4th of July weekend. The “fair”, as they like to call them, is in Barcelona and the Europeans go on vacation in August so I guess they don’t care about us….but really 4th of July?

Premer Vision or Premer Vis-yawn held in NY is nothing like its big sister in France. Save your money and go to Paris! But if you must feel the heat (and smell) of NYC city streets the tradeshow runs July 16-17.

The Miami swim show July 18-21….well; this has always been an important show, especially if you do big business in swim. I guess a weekend in Miami can’t be too bad. It’s hot everywhere, and since they moved the show to South Beach it’s bearable.

Now here are the ones that KILL me (or better said I would like to hurt).

Collective and Blue NYC July 21-23 Project and Capsule NYC July 21-23. Who what where why? Are they showing?

Checking out the online resource guide they all have very important brands that will be showing. But really what should I be buying….aren’t all the men’s brands opening the lines at MAGIC? Did I miss another memo?

In my (I hope not too old fashion) world…the idea has always been, by the time the vendors show the lines at MAGIC/Project (Las Vegas 25-27) the vendors know (or least they tell me they do) what they are cutting and it’s much easier for the independent retailer to do their buying.

I know what a few of you are thinking…and I don’t want any hate mail on this. The truth is that a buyer is always buying two seasons at the same time. Some are buying three deliveries at once. We train our buyers to buy 30% of the OTB up front when the season opens (usually with the hot lines that sell out early) then 30% at the end of a buying season and the balance in season.

Each store is a little different but you get the idea.

In August I will be previewing Spring I, wrapping up Holiday and buying “in season” FALL hopefully at off price. Even in October I am still looking for “at once” but now I am looking for only off price and margin builders. I am also looking to test early spring and get a heads up on the fashion trends.

Buying is a full time job….please let me keep my July’s free…if not what’s next - tradeshows in December?

I have to tell you something. I am feeling a little depressed. We’ve gotten dozens of phone calls in the pass few weeks for retail check ups. Some of these stores had been doing “ok” business but now find themselves overstocked and with no traffic.

I can’t stress enough how important the right location is! You can spend all the money in the world and have the best PR person but you cannot make people go out of their way to shop!

Maybe these stores got by (which you know is not what retail is about) but now…I don’t know what to tell them. Well, actually I do…move the location or close. But most of the stores really just need a little kick in the pants….no cry babies allowed. You can’t sit and wait for the customers to come in…you have to give them a reason to. Hear is SOME GOOD NEWS, people are shopping and they are shopping at full price!

The key is to have something different. You need to have items in the window that make people stop in there tracks and say WOW! Trust me, everyone will find a way to justify spending if you give them a reason. In the words of DV “give them what they didn’t know they wanted”.

Here are a few more key tips.

1. 1. Suck it up and kill (markdown aggressively) goods you know are dead. Use that money to buy in season off price items you know are selling well. If you are not a resort store you have about 2 weeks to do this (before Memorial Day) because after that you won’t be able to give goods away. Think July as your vacation, inventory and clearance sale month.
2. 2. Take a good look at your floor. Does it bring people in or is it cluttered with merchandise and decorative items? Track how people walk around in your store! Look for the “dead” zones and find ways of driving traffic there.
3. 3. Set up some spy shopping in your store. Test out your sales team. Do some sales training…..sales is not something that you just learn, it really is an art.
4. 4. Check your customer service….policies allowing returns only for store credit have to go! You need to be competitive.
5. 5. Take the time to review every penny spent. You WILL lose your business in nickels and dimes. Check your credit card rates, cell phone service, and anything you think can be negotiated.
6. 6. No every form of promotion cost an arm and a leg. Do thing different to get written about in your local paper. Do you have a my space page? A mini website? Do you send email blast?
7. 7. Feeling overwhelmed? Call us for a retail check up. It’s an excellent return on your investment and the changes we implement will affect your business immediately.

For those of you thinking about opening a store….funny as it sounds, there probably hasn’t been a better time in the past 5 years! You will be able to find great locations in hot areas, you will be able to better negotiate rent and terms and you will be able to find excellent staff. I say go for it.

Studies have always shown that business that open during slow economic times do better than business that open during a boom. Why? Because they have better leverage in negotiations and that have to learn early to count every penny.

The trend in retailing is also all about the boutiques! Mall traffic is down and people just don’t want to shop in big boxes….it is all about the personal experience and having something different!

Have a question? Feel free to post a comment!