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).

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

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.

Loro Piana and Brunello are brands whose products are not affected by time, because of their neutral aesthetics.
The difference here is that time not only doesn't affect Hermès, but works in its favour.
To give you an example, a friend of mine bought seven years ago a vintage Hermès croco piece at Drouot (Parisian auction house).
Can you imagine the same scenario with a Brunello weekender or a Loro Piana jacket?
So yes, I still think Hermès is the nec plus ultra, in a category where Patek and Ferrari also belong, but not Loro Piana or Brunello.

 

[Lola701]

I genuinely don't think that the buyer here is any sort of woman "hype beast," or at least not as a majority. I think Phoebe Philo's customer base is almost exactly who she has targeted: a woman in her 40s-50s who is also purchasing Hermes, Bottega, Hedi's Celine, etc. Many of the items selling out—the car coat, the jeans, the tie neck shirt—are modest in appearance and signify very little to anyone beyond the wearer.

I kind of feel weird because I’m a Phoebe Philo customer. I’m not buying clothes or bags or accessories at Hermes. I did enjoyed Bottega Veneta clothes. I only bought a menswear look from Hedi’s Celine lol.

However I was a Celine by Philo customer.

But I must say that I’m not one to go to designers to buy basics. But Phoebe Philo is a brand I would buy basics from. The pieces that I bought are rather transitional but I didn’t want to buy coats or things like that without any physical retail space.

And is it weird but I don’t see Phoebe Philo as a luxury brand. It may be expensive but I see it as a fashion brand.

I’m turning 40 soon so you must be right about the age range even though I think she may have younger customers. Younger people who works in fashion and who got access to that could be customers too.

It’s just my personal take but I don’t think that the Phoebe Philo customer goes to Hermes for something else than bags, scarves or jewelry and probably things like riding boots. Hermes is very classic and bourgeois.

 

[rowjellies]

It’s giving this Chloé ad in the early naughts

 

[PDFSD]

It’s giving this Chloé ad in the early naughts




View attachment 1345050
View attachment 1345051

the chloe older versions are still more cooler and authentic ..the new PP version is giving shein if you put it side by side and i like PP lol

 

[Nimsay]

So sexy under a TF silk blouse ... I don't even care for PP because she doesn't do men's but I see her always having this sort of Warrior Princess POV.

This necklace drapes across the body like armor, caressing feminine form but also covering it like chain mail.

 

[fruitdots]

Loro Piana and Brunello are brands whose products are not affected by time, because of their neutral aesthetics.
The difference here is that time not only doesn't affect Hermès, but works in its favour.
To give you an example, a friend of mine bought seven years ago a vintage Hermès croco piece at Drouot (Parisian auction house).
Can you imagine the same scenario with a Brunello weekender or a Loro Piana jacket?
So yes, I still think Hermès is the nec plus ultra, in a category where Patek and Ferrari also belong, but not Loro Piana or Brunello.

I think this is sort of dodging my point. I'm saying that Phoebe Philo is aiming for the same customer as these houses, and that the generally "neutral aesthetics" (your term) of her current work mean that the woman who is buying $1200 Loro Piana jeans is the target market for PP's... $1200 jeans. Are there moments of "fashion," in her work?—of course—but I don't think that has enough explanatory force in this case. And the fact that certain Hermès items (leather goods, typically not ready-to-wear) appreciate in value over time seems immaterial here. Put otherwise, I'm not convinced that the wealthy woman buying these pieces for her wardrobe is buying them with their future value in mind.

 

[90sfan]

Phoebe Philo Just never took off as they hoped it would. The clothes are too tricky for mail-in order, also, they are very Celine, which we all have so much of in our closets, and lastly, the visuals they produce are trying so hard to be arty, but end up hurting them as they are only quite flat and just farty, and they dont make anyone want the pieces.

 

[br3ncon1]

You know things are getting desperate when she starts to sell $650 logo t-shirts with Binx on it.

 

[LadyJunon]

You know things are getting desperate when she starts to sell $650 logo t-shirts with Binx on it. View attachment 1347944

If it was an abstract/semi-abstract recreation of the photograph, I'd actually approve of this.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

She is having fun! Good for her.

 

[fruitdots]

You know things are getting desperate when she starts to sell $650 logo t-shirts with Binx on it. View attachment 1347944

If she's desperate why have multiple other pieces in this drop already sold out in some sizes, or overall? And I'm not talking about the big ticket items. The cashmere sweater is completely sold out, the sharp shoulder asymmetric top is sold out in 3 sizes, the bud top is sold out in 2, the soft sock pumps seem to be a hit, etc.

So many people here seem to think that their distaste for PP has some connection to the success of her brand, while reality says something different. It's fine if you aren't excited by the direction she's taken; I think one of her great strengths has always been her work with colour and prints, so I am less enchanted by the current monochromatic offerings. Yet I'm not about to act as though my opinions matter in terms of her business model.