the business side of things.

[adhi]

when it comes to clothes at the higher level, how do companies operate? i usually like to think about this kind of stuff with almost every market, but higher fashion is something totally over my head in this way. i have a few specific questions to start off:

what are profit margins like? and how do they vary? gucci is a 'high-tier' brand but is more famous for it's name and logo than it's design really, and i wonder what their revenues and profits are like, because they target just people who want to spend money, not really people who take much interest in style aside from status symbolism. and then take something like jil sander,what kind of money does that company make? this is also a ultra-high-tier fashion label but appeals more to people who are actually into fashion more than people who just want to drop bands. and 'into fashion' people are definitely a minority compared to that, so JS would make less money. or are they?

how does a entity like raf simons operate? he's not exactly a super well known 'brand' persay. ofc anyone into fashion knows of him but no one is going to recognize raf simons on the street (the clothes or the man himself) if they don't take specific interest in him. how much do labels like him spend on different things? how many people does he employ? how much does raf simons himself make? (let's say all of those questions apply to rick owens too)

one thing that's always confused me is how super high level brands spend sooooo much on advertising. if they only appeal to a very small population price wise, how can they make enough money to advertise so much, you know? and how effective is that advertising in the fist place? only .1% of people who see the burberry billboards in heathrow are actually wealthy enough to go and buy stuff, you know? advertising for a high level label seems inefficient compare to say, a mcdonalds, coke, or walmart advert.

then on the smaller scale, niche internet fashion brands: take nepenthes, or outlier. what do they make in a fiscal year, and are these companies making millionaires out of people? would daiki suzuki make more than like a practicing doctor who makes like, 250k a year?

how much money does a small menswear shop like odin ny or something handle in a year?

SO, i know that this is a lot of questions, and people can choose to answer them as specifically, individually or as generally as they want. these are just some of the things i've mused about but could never get the answer to. i just want to get a general feel for what kind of money this industry is handling, you know?

[sknss]

[germinal]

[Syeknom]

Crazy interesting

Can imagine sunglasses, regular glasses and perfumes bankroll so much operation

Where did Michelle Lamy get her money from? She's listed on fr.wikipedia as simply being Rick Owen's muse.

[can-]

yes i'm very curious about ricks wife. she owns a cafe or something?

[germinal]

ah yes forgot about perfume

not entirely sure, i know she owned the factory in LA where rick first learnt pattern-making making fake versace

[sknss]

wikipedia says michèle lamy used to own a restaurant/cabaret in los angeles called Les deux cafés. they also say she was an inconic figure of the los angeles nightlife in the 1990s

here she is around 2000

[adhi]

skns thanks for that hapsical article, apparently it's a part 2 of something.

here's part one which is really relevant to my first set of questions: http://hapsical.blogspot.com/2011/10/ho ... icing.html

[adhi]

[germinal]

oh ppl must be making seven figures but i couldn't say for sure. i wouldn't be surprised if raf@dior, bailey, jacobs, lagerfeld, slimane etc. all earn that much
bear in mind though that there plenty of job perks too; food, parties, chauffeurs, PAs, cocaine, models...

[adhi]

oh do designers get with models much? fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkk

germy pls become designer

[can-]

designers are all gay

[bels]

Is Tim Ford?

Richard Owens is married at least.

[Syeknom]

Tommy Ford is extremely gay

[adhi]

oh... well i guess male models then

[starfox64]

is raf gay? he always struck me as being sort of asexual.

[Rosenrot]

[starfox64]

in regards to the second article it definitely seems like it's easier to find japanese brands and brand info online today than it did even 12 or 15 months ago.

[bels]

People always say "Well it is a business, (designer) has to make money in the end." about fashion. But if you said "Well it is a business, (writer) has to make money in the end." you'd probably get shit on.

[starfox64]

is that a valid argument, though? why shouldn't writers get paid?

[bels]

I'm not saying they shouldn't but I don't see the excuse used so much in anything else. Maybe I'm not hanging out on enough writing forums though.

Would you expect a book review to say "They made the character a bit like the character from shades of grey because that's popular at the moment, after all, writers have to get paid."

Heard Cormac McCarthy is going to bring out a diffusion line of novels with more punctuation and less violence.

[starfox64]

Sure but at the same time, for whatever reason designers are expected not to get paid? Like successful designers shouldn't be compensated in the same way as successful authors? I think a more fair assessment would be cooking or restaurants, where there is actually a variety of ingredients being used that factors into price, unlike books or records or something where everything is produced using the same exact materials. But even then there is pricing variation between like del rey paperbacks and Cormac McCarthy novels. Books in the Star Trek extended universe do not have a retail price of $24.99, for example.

Btw this was the first entry in McCarthy's diffusion line:

[MxmHrpr]

Reverberating the fact this is a great thread.

Could I ask where you got those figures on 3rd party retailer margins? Really interesting industry. Also, don't suppose you have a cache'd version of that article you linked to, the owner has removed it.

The salary is ridiculous.Worth noting that Angela Ahrendts was the highest paid CEO regardless of gender in the UK ($26.3 million p.a.) excluding stock options/under the table compensation. Burberry is fascinating as a lens on the industry, wrote a paper for uni on their turnaround in the early 2000's which I could share if you're interested.

One thing I'd like to know more about is Thom Browne the actual company not the man, there's so little stuff on the operations rather than the man himself.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Markups on items I've read in this thread seem way higher than I've experienced. It depends how your business runs, of course.

All I can say is that when we took STORY to a particular retailer that shall not be named they insisted we need to sell our jeans in his shop for £300 based on the cost of production. That left a really, really bad taste in my mouth - although his general boasting about the way he loves to send stock back to suppliers unpaid was the final nail.

Selling to retail is very challenging. Another friend of mine who had a brand and is a successful designer explained to me that selling wholesale you may not get paid for your product until almost a whole 12 months after you paid for production - which is crippling and largely a reason for big mark ups.

Just because shopping is done this way, and has been done this way, for a while doesn't mean it's good or right. Katy and I are trying to explore new ways that aren't "CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN 4 VALUE!!!" but don't end up adding insulting amounts that no one seems to benefit from.

[stappard_]

[ramseames]

[sidewalk]

[sidewalk]

"not appropriate" even though a few comments up it dierged into "is this designer gay?"and homoerotic perks to bring a designer.

[oucho]

[nick]

Because it can't fit in a rep comment: Nice article . Crazy to think despite the dozens of attempts, no one has been able to nail the iconic 'minimal sneaker' since Common Projects foray into the market until Eytys came along with theirs. Eytys has the perfect amount of 'character' with the sole and purple pull tab.

What it does make me think about though is pricing from a marketing perspective (not a purely profit one). Priced too low, perhaps these sneakers could have came off as too cheap (and not iconic enough to justify the affordability as bizarre as that sounds) for the cool boutique/internet fashionista to wear. Too high, and well, not enough sales. They're at a point where it's high enough to feel at place in a cool shop, low enough that aspirational buyers who dream of that shops aesthetic can purchase them. Not sure how else to explain. Another example - Supreme's price points I think perfectly are here too.