DosViolines
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nytimes
March 22, 2007
A Split in Fashiondom: Can This Label Be Saved?
Axel Koester for The New York Times
BEACH CLUB A passing surfer checks out John Whitledge and his Trovata-clad posse.
By ERIC WILSON
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.
THE Trovata holiday office party, for those who can remember, was a scream. The 18 employees of the rustic-prep sportswear line, made in Orange County by a collective of greenhorn-designers-cum-surf-dudes, were divided into three teams. Each had a car, a camera and a list of stupid things to do on a video scavenger hunt: Drain a shot of tequila with a beer chaser at two locations. Sing carols at a mall for tips. Eat a spoonful of wasabi. Trade pants with a stranger. Buy another round of beer.
One item on the list was actually embarrassing: Give a motivational speech.
John Whitledge, the founder of the label, thought up this game, which had a subversive purpose, as he will explain.
Trovata, originally designed by a photogenic quartet of young men, had been shaken that December by the departures of two of its members, for reasons that boiled down to creative differences with Mr. Whitledge. Another partner had left in June to be with his girlfriend, who was beginning a medical residency in Seattle. Office morale was low, so Mr. Whitledge, an avid student of the management style of the Fortune 500 set, borrowed a page from the books of Steve Jobs and Howard Schultz, as interpreted by Jose Cuervo.
“The idea was to remember that we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Mr. Whitledge said one afternoon at a diner across the road from the Trovata offices, in an old boathouse in a city that feels impermanent, as if it were built on waves.
Mr. Whitledge, 27, looks and acts like one of the Beach Boys — not the pretty one who drowned, but his brother, the one with the Prince Valiant hair. As a youth, in the ’90s, he was a competitive surfer in Florida. He started Trovata in his dorm room at Claremont McKenna in sunny Claremont, Calif., a college he selected for its proximity to the beach. People might imagine that not much is going on behind the blond bangs, but Mr. Whitledge’s laidback image, also reflected in his designs, is part of the Trovata package, and a well-thought-out one at that.
In November 2005, the four friends — Jeff Halmos, Sam Shipley, Josia Lamberto-Egan and Mr. Whitledge — had stood together on a podium in New York, wearing Vans sneakers with their tuxedos, and accepted an award from Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The honor came with a $200,000 grant and the promise of business mentoring. It was the fashion industry’s endorsement of Trovata as the freshman label most likely to succeed.
Part of Trovata’s charm, along with the artfully frayed polo shirts with colorful stitching and chino blazers with D.I.Y. patches, was its story as a collective. It was like a boy band of fashion. But that story had unraveled.
And the tension that grew among the designers was underscored when Mr. Shipley and Mr. Halmos, after leaving the company, announced that they would start a new label. Mr. Whitledge now has to prove that Trovata can survive as a collective of one.
In interviews, the partners downplayed their differences, though they said they have not spoken to one another, other than by e-mail message, since December.
“I had a very particular way of building the business,” Mr. Whitledge said. “They also had their ideas. There’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of little disagreements can turn into one where we realize, ‘O.K., it’s probably better to do our own things.’ ”
Mr. Shipley and Mr. Halmos declined to address the specific problems, noting that they retain an ownership stake in Trovata.
Mr. Halmos said there were “too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Mr. Shipley said it more about the different directions the partners favored: “We all grew separately away from the center of what we were trying to create.” Ultimately, they were unhappy.
“As much as there was disappointment, there was also relief,” Mr. Whitledge said of the break. “Instead of hearing different ideas from each of us, everybody on the team now knows we are going in one direction. I’ve never been busier in my entire life, but I haven’t been stressed once since then.”
Of the four designers, Mr. Whitledge was the one who took the business side of the job most seriously — perhaps too seriously — scouring the biographies of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Halston for the potential pitfalls of brand building. But Mr. Whitledge’s dedication to those case studies was a source of friction. He was like a new parent living in a house full of exposed electrical sockets, an odd characteristic for the designer of a label that includes a sense of humor as part of its mission statement.
Each season, the designers concocted a narrative for the clothes, including a murder mystery involving a fondue fork and the travails of a wealthy family gone bankrupt. It was really a story about four cool guys with no formal fashion training having a ball.
“They designed the clothes they wanted to wear themselves,” said Michael Macko, the vice president for men’s fashion for Saks Fifth Avenue. “The four of them really were the label, and there wasn’t another one like them at the time.”
Mr. Whitledge, whose training came from summers in a surf shop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and a college internship with Abercrombie & Fitch, pulled together the collective with Mr. Lamberto-Egan, who was the boyfriend of Mr. Whitledge’s girlfriend’s lab partner; Mr. Halmos, a childhood friend; and Mr. Shipley, Mr. Halmos’s college roommate. They made a sample collection, packed it in a pair of vintage suitcases, and knocked on doors until they got an order.
The first, for $10,000, came from American Rag, and before long, Barneys New York, Saks and other stores ordered the line. Last year the collection, carried in 250 stores around the country, had sales of about $8 million.
With the industry’s attention came opportunities, for licensing, investors and quick expansion, but Mr. Whitledge resisted. Saks wanted to carry Trovata in more of its stores, Mr. Macko said, but Mr. Whitledge would not commit to more than he thought the company could supply.
Mr. Whitledge said that part of his strategy is to retain a measure of exclusivity by controlling distribution. This spring he wants to open a Trovata store somewhere in California.
No one who has been around fashion for long, or read the Halston biography, would argue with his rationale. The industry can be merciless to its rising stars. Among the awards bestowed on the Trovata designers last year was the Perry Ellis Award, a 20-year-old prize from the designers’ council for new talent; more often than not, the recipients have gone out of business. (As if to thwart a curse, the award was renamed the Swarovski Award this year.)
Nonetheless, Mr. Whitledge’s approach to building Trovata could backfire. In the five years since Trovata’s arrival, a dozen new labels have emerged with similar concepts of arts-and-crafts hoodies and retro-striped cardigans (and names like Obedient Sons, Loden Dager, Barking Irons, Project E and Rogues Gallery).
“There are definitely more and more men’s lines every season,” said Paul Birardi, an owner of Odin, a New York shop that has carried Trovata since 2004. “The business seems to be getting saturated.”
It is also possible that the split, coming just after the designers received so much support from the top levels of the fashion industry, could be construed as ungrateful. Reed Krakoff, the president of Coach, who met with the designers monthly to provide business advice after the Vogue award, said he was as surprised as anyone.
“I was maybe a little disappointed,” he said. “I thought they worked well together.”
During New York Fashion Week in February, instead of a runway show, Mr. Whitledge hired two models to show up at events claiming to be members of Romanian society, and carrying a cat. At the end of the week, it was revealed that they were wearing his fall designs. The message to editors and retailers was that Trovata, despite the breakup, was going forward.
Mr. Halmos and Mr. Shipley plan to introduce their new line in stores next spring. Like Trovata, it will consist of playful contemporary sportswear.
“I think it’s going to be a similar aesthetic to Trovata,” said Mr. Macko of Saks. “They’ve spawned so many imitators who are making clothes that are not really preppy, but classic, with enough interesting details, but are not so overdesigned that they look too fashiony.”
Mr. Halmos responded delicately when asked if the new business would compete with Trovata. “Once we have our collection together, people can judge for themselves how it compares or contrasts to Trovata,” he said. “Within the contemporary category, there’s only a certain number of stores and a certain number of brands.”
Using a line from a corporate playbook, Mr. Whitledge said he welcomed the competition.
“In a lot of ways, it is a motivation,” he said.
Axel Koester for The New York Times
CAPERS John Whitledge, far left, the founder and remaining member of the clothing company Trovata, with models and friends.
Axel Koester for The New York Times
Models show off the line.
Axel Koester for The New York Times
Mr. Whitledge, right, in his Newport Beach office.
....oh well the idea sounds pretty cool.....
