Phoebe Philo - Designer

[fruitdots]

I, on the contrary, think that PP is catering to her old CÉLINE clientele, and that a change in the strategy will be needed in the mid-term, if she wants to grow.
The whole project is interesting because she is avant-garde in the distribution (no brick-and-mortar stores) but at the same time is... nostalgic.
"To finally get the original" might make sense for an old Céline customer; for a thirty-something woman who buys Toteme, I doubt it.

Very accurate comment PDFSD about how high luxury works; I think fashion is a little bit different though, because the aura of a house can be damaged in a couple of years (cf. Gucci). It is not a solid value, almost by definition, because fashion is change.
Their story telling about being founded in 1913 or 1917 is a way to convince you that the jacket you are purchasing won't look passé three years later (it actually will).
The only house that you can really compare with Patek, Cartier, Rolex, Ferrari... is Hermès, and that by staying always a little outside of fashion.

Well where do Loro Piana or Bruno Cucinelli fit in this equation? Does a Loro Piana sweater look passé in three years? I'd say no. Since the discourse on "silent luxury" has heated up over the past so many years, people seem to have forgotten that it has a longstanding market & purchasing demographic, stretching back decades. Yes, there is hype around brands like The Row & Toteme, which has made the "trend" of silent luxury a big story in fashion circles, but that isn't the full story. Many people are purchasing luxury without being looped into the sort of hype that drives some brands.

 

[Nimsay]

I think the plan is that in 5 - 10 years when those brands move out of PP Celine ... Phoebe Philo will still offer her look and by then they will have distribution and established image.

 

[j02215]

The women I know who are buying her pieces at this point in time are in tech, finance, real estate, law, even academia. They are not, on a daily basis, in circles where their average colleague or social contact is able to identify their clothing as Phoebe Philo

The irony here is that you know that they are wearing phoebe philo, defeating the premise of the argument 😆 ...

Jokes aside…the truth is, none of us know the breakdowns of who her current customers are and we are all prone to our own recall bias. I don’t think even Phoebe knows herself unless she invest in market research, esp since her operation is quite removed from the clients.

 

[fruitdots]

The irony here is that you know that they are wearing phoebe philo, defeating the premise of the argument 😆 ...

Jokes aside…the truth is, none of us know the breakdowns of who her current customers are and we are all prone to our own recall bias. I don’t think even Phoebe knows herself unless she invest in market research, esp since her operation is quite removed from the clients.

Well I'm not the average colleague or social contact

But yes, I agree in general, though I imagine she probably has invested pretty substantially in market research. And if she's selling out $1500 silk blouses, which she is, she's probably found the right clientele (whoever they may be).