Phoebe Philo - Designer

[Lola701]

Not so long ago, we had a fashion industry with a lively independent designer scene that actually spawned promising talent of which unfortunately a lot of businesses did not survive the Covid years and financial crisis that has dominated the past 10 years.

So from that perspective I can only find it saddening when people consider Phoebe Philo’s decision to launch her own brand daring when in fact she has an established name already and a minority investment from LVMH as well as production through the facilities she worked with at Celine sorted out.

All these factors put her in a much more favorable position than other emerging designers and it’s safe to say she could have been where the J.W. Anderson brand is at right now, had she gone for a different distribution strategy with her brand and put the gambles that high.

So yeah, not much pity for Phoebe from my side if she has to learn it the hard way now that being this super secretive and highly pretentious insider brand that she wants to be is perhaps not the right way to success.

Im sorry but your comment doesn’t make sense from a business standpoint.
Brands have strategies and positioning. You can’t expect one brand to follow a supposed strategy just because of the status and the glorious past of a designer.

Clearly she doesn’t want to be a contemporary designer. There are compromises that she probably don’t want to have at this stage of her career.

And again, we are talking about a brand that has been operating for a year. We can give someone grace over 1 year of operation…

Yes, she has the unfair advantage to have access to the facilities she had at Celine. But, as an independent brand, she won’t be able to afford the same number of orders they did at Celine.
Celine was already a fully operating brand when she took over.

There’s a reality of the industry, the reality of the current climate in terms of economy, the aspiration of a designer.

Choices have to be made and we cannot expect anyone to come with the fully « set up 1 decade looking brand » just because they are established.

We can say, ok Tom Ford did it but Tom Ford had a different plan and choose a different path. And even with that path and immediate success he had to compromise at the end.

And of course that launching your own brand as an established designer who had the opportunity to express yourself for years in other brands and with a lot of success is daring.

That’s why there are so few examples of designers who did it. Except for YSL, Karl, Lacroix, Tom and Phoebe, I can’t name others. I could almost add Herve Léger to the list…
And those brands have had different trajectories, different milestones, some different outcomes and example of success.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

After the death of McQueen, which for me marks the end of an era, the obvious names who have all that you need to create your own brand (Nicolas, Hedi, Alessandro...) have always preferred to work for heritage houses.
Even Demna, who had a big momentum with Vetements, moved to Balenciaga asap.

It's easier to work for an stablished structure than having to create it yourself from scratch. And it pays better, most probably.

But you know what?
I think this will change, more soon than late.
There will be fashion students that will discover the runways of Margiela in the outskirts of Paris, with the children running across and playing with the models.
And the idea of becoming a new Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior or a new Kim Jones at Fendi will appear too bland and depressing to them.

 

[Lola701]

After the death of McQueen, which for me marks the end of an era, the obvious names who have all that you need to create your own brand (Nicolas, Hedi, Alessandro...) have always preferred to work for heritage houses.
Even Demna, who had a big momentum with Vetements, moved to Balenciaga asap.

It's easier to work for an stablished structure than having to create it yourself from scratch. And it pays better, most probably.

But you know what?
I think this will change, more soon than late.
There will be fashion students that will discover the runways of Margiela in the outskirts of Paris, with the children running across and playing with the models.
And the idea of becoming a new Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior or a new Kim Jones at Fendi will appear too bland and depressing to them.

I think there’s something simple: when someone wants to become a designer, he/she wants to design. The person is excited about the creative side. And sometimes, they are as excited about the business side.

The reality of a designer being at the helm of his own house means responsibility, meetings outside of the creative side and maybe some unwanted compromises.

The stories of a Lee McQueen, of a Margiela or stories that are difficult to replicate and out of all the brands we have had, there are so few survivals.

Margiela had a good business partner. But despite all his influence, he hasn’t experienced a quarter of the commercial success his brand has today. Thankfully, the barometer of success wasn’t solely about sales. He had a following of clients and retailers and critical acclaim. He did Hermes and even if we can blame him for a lot of things, Renzo Rosso saved the brand.

When you look at the story of Karl Lagerfeld, it’s a story of creative freedom above all. He had a good business sense but didn’t want to deal with business. He launched his own brand through a licensing deal. When the business side didn’t worked, he got his name back, had Lagerfeld Gallery (which was really the only time he operated the brand himself) which was a very small operation and as soon as it experienced a bit of success, he sold the brand.

The reality is that today’s environment is very difficult. Fashion is a very expensive business and there’s a business side to handle and on that, it’s really a gamble.

There are designers like Alexandre Mattuissi who are fantastic in their pragmatism but it’s something else.

We talk about Hedi Slimane often. He has a great business sense but the man was in his studio at Saint Tropez. He wasn’t dealing with the challenges of the company on the day to day basis.

We will continue to have design assistant who wants to be on their own, to be Margiela and others. But much like the idea of being a MGC would seem bland to someone, the idea of being a Nicolas Ghesquiere can also be exciting. The man is putting whatever he wants on the runway, he express his creativity, he doesn’t even have to sell one dress, as long as his bags works.

I think in High Fashion, you are either a Karl or an Azzedine. If you can’t be either, do contemporary.
You can’t have it both way because the level of compromises are insane and the creativity is always loosing.

 

[tricotineacetat]

It

Im sorry but your comment doesn’t make sense from a business standpoint.
Brands have strategies and positioning. You can’t expect one brand to follow a supposed strategy just because of the status and the glorious past of a designer.

Clearly she doesn’t want to be a contemporary designer. There are compromises that she probably don’t want to have at this stage of her career.

And again, we are talking about a brand that has been operating for a year. We can give someone grace over 1 year of operation…

Yes, she has the unfair advantage to have access to the facilities she had at Celine. But, as an independent brand, she won’t be able to afford the same number of orders they did at Celine.
Celine was already a fully operating brand when she took over.

There’s a reality of the industry, the reality of the current climate in terms of economy, the aspiration of a designer.

Choices have to be made and we cannot expect anyone to come with the fully « set up 1 decade looking brand » just because they are established.

We can say, ok Tom Ford did it but Tom Ford had a different plan and choose a different path. And even with that path and immediate success he had to compromise at the end.

And of course that launching your own brand as an established designer who had the opportunity to express yourself for years in other brands and with a lot of success is daring.

That’s why there are so few examples of designers who did it. Except for YSL, Karl, Lacroix, Tom and Phoebe, I can’t name others. I could almost add Herve Léger to the list…
And those brands have had different trajectories, different milestones, some different outcomes and example of success.

Back in those years when I worked as a buyer for a multibrand boutique, the common strategy was for brands to start off with maybe 10 assorted top wholesale clients worldwide - The names showing up on that list would often be similar ones, such as Joyce, Dover Street Market, Ikram, Maria Luisa, Via Bus Stop etc. - Obviously as of the last 10 years, the market has changed and brand-run e-commerce has become a more common practice but I don’t think wholesale has completely vanished since.

Phoebe Philo has the authority to make strong demands (such as asking for her collection not to be put on sale or for the entirety of the order to be paid upon confirmation) and cherry pick the clients she would like to work with. Working with wholesale partners on different markets is not a question of market position, that’s largely what The Row is generating it’s revenues from even today…