Rochas to close

[smartarse]

Designers and Brand owners must realized that artistry and media glory is irrelevant when it comes to practicality.

This is the worst news I've heard all week. I will follow Oliver wherever he goes but Rochas was the ultimate label as far as I'm concerned. The clothes were beautiful and timeless but it seems P&G only value the profit margins. Its an absolute shame that they can't appreciate and support artistry of this level.

 

[sarah13]

Your right...it is after all a business at heart and it is the bottom line that matters. I personally think Oliver needs his own lable. Hopefully a larger fashion company will invest in him. He is a fantastic designer, but will need the business support and marketing support.

 

[Scott]

Well,really,he had been pretty successful with his own label till he began running into financial problems just before taking his tenure at the house. Which in my mind is what leads me to believe why he even took the realm of Rochas in the first place.

 

[smartarse]

exactly! it's all about money isn't it? Hopefully, Anna will do wonders for him. He's a talent that cannot be left out in the cold. he's made an impeccable resume and whatever he decides he'll be fine. but i hope he and other designers learns from this.

Well,really,he had been pretty successful with his own label till he began running into financial problems just before taking his tenure at the house. Which in my mind is what leads me to believe why he even took the realm of Rochas in the first place.

 

[Grill]

Such a loss to the fashion world - I would have rather it had been Nina Ricci! As I feel Rochas under Olivier gave us more...

 

[sarah13]

With all due respect, stoping your lable because of financial problems does not exactly scream success to me. He has had much critical success but ran in to financial problems as you say. That is why many designers need a team, a company, so they can focus on the design and the creative direction and others trained in finance, marketing etc. can focus on that. I think sometimes people forget that even in such a creative field the customer must still be reached in a similar way as other goods and products. I found this when I worked in an art gallery in Chicago. It is a delicate balance, as with any business.

Unfortunately Procter & Gamble ultimately just wanted the perfume label and not the fashion label. I guess if someone analyzed P&G's business plans this may have been a forgone conclusion that they would not want the fashion label (what with never having supported a fashion brand before), but it is still sad that the name Rochas will not longer be associated with fashion

 

[Luxx]

Designers and Brand owners must realized that artistry and media glory is irrelevant when it comes to practicality.

True it is a business but I feel as though 3 years really isn't long enough to turn a profit on a brand like Rochas. And if they simply wanted a profit why did they bring it a designer like Oliver who isn't exactly known for raking in the cash, the looks he creates aren't particularly mass market. They don't have that instant rack appeal that alot of other designers have. Perhaps he could have changed his aesthetic a bit but I do think that the look he created for Rochas is the sort of thing that's only going to be embraced by a small group of people. Perhaps he will find some compromise between art and commerce soon. His talent is undeniable.

 

[sarah13]

Just wanted to add one more note, that Rochas would have been/was a great way for P&G to grow laterally and extend beyond beauty products into fashion, but in the end I guess they just were not willing to take that risk. I don't know what the numbers were for Rochas under P&G and if they were in the black, but someone said a few pages back that they never really tapped the accessories market that is extremely profitable and very high profile. It would have been great for brand awareness and to extend beyond just the fashion insiders like us, and wealthy women. Look as what the accessories market has done for Luella, Derek Lam, Gucci, Prada...

Again, I am not worried for Oliver, he has great critical acclaim, now he just needs to find a savvy financial backer that can support his vision on the business end.

 

[smartarse]

VERY WELL SAID! ...

this very statement is what hurts and is whats reeling on our minds. Like I said earlier, it doesn't hurt if he has the possibility to continue the legacy of Rocha couture-- that is if PG and Olivier has an open discussion about licensing the label with the help of Anna and company?

but it is still sad that the name Rochas will not longer be associated with fashion

 

[Meg]

I don't think anyone on here is said for Olivier, we all know he will continue on whether it be with own label or someone else's. It is always a sad day when a venerable house closes it's doors, as it is another framework, another aesthetic of fashion that is seemingly lost.

thank you tricotine for the info regarding accessories. It seems then that ultimately the downfall was not having the right PR and marketing to push the accessories or the collection, but somehow that doesn't seem to fit with Rochas and I'm not sure in the end it really would have made a difference. But this is the beauty of fashion. Doors close and new ones open. There will be other great houses and in the future, maybe that will be Olivier Theyskens.

 

[slemus]

Sad, a classic gone.

 

[Salvatore]

That's a shame.

 

[sosneha]

i dont like that Rochas is closing

 

[smartarse]

October seems to be "D" day for closing...

 

[KhaoticKharma]

That blows.

At least Olivier will be able to grow as a designer... his work at Rochas is great, but I think that he has a darker, stronger side that he is just itching to show us, but couldn't at ultra feminine Rochas.

 

[indie]

Big companies have so much power. It's not like they care about culture it's about money money money.

 

[kimair]

from today's wwd:

...all the talent in the world no longer seems to suffice. In today's industry, which is increasingly being helmed by conglomerates that must report to shareholders and private equity funds, creativity — Theysken's kind that makes fashion insiders swoon — is no insurance policy.

"It means that talent is not enough," said Jean Jacques Picart, a Paris-based industry consultant. "Obviously, Olivier is a very talented designer. But we must not forget our job is commerce. We need to go back to the product, back to the trade." He suggested that brand owners seeking to rejuvenate old names often "pay too much attention to the media to revive and not enough to the business side."

A spokeswoman for P&G said Wednesday, "It's not our core competency. We're not a fashion company. We're very grateful to him [Theyskens]. He's done an amazing job at Rochas, but our core competency lies elsewhere. Running a fashion business in terms of the distribution chain requires specific skills. We looked at creative solutions and did everything we possibly could. We had to make tough choices." Cedric Charbit, general merchandise manager at Printemps in Paris, noted, "Sure, it's a shame, but at the end of the day, everyone needs to make money and some projects are not economically viable. Fashion is about supply and demand.

"In fashion you can have a lot of buzz, but it sells or it doesn't," Charbit added. "[Rochas] had no advertising, it had no accessories, no hit bag and the clothing was difficult. Theyskens has talent, but he wasn't focused. [Balenciaga's] Nicolas Ghesquière has had commercial pressure put on him and that's proved that it can create energy when done in the right way."

"Buzz is not what makes a business succeed," said David Wolfe, creative director of The Doneger Group, the New York-based buying office and trend forecaster. "Often, media buzz is only about the media and not necessarily about the business of moving merchandise or running a business. Olivier is a great interview, he is very photogenic, and the clothes made great pictures, but they were artistic and fashion is a very commercial art."

By all accounts, Rochas has seen increases at retail. Barneys New York has experienced double-digit gains every season with Rochas, according to Julie Gilhart, senior vice president and fashion director. "We loved Rochas and how it was developing," she said. "Everything about it was great — Olivier, his team, the clothes. The bags and shoes were beginning to develop. It is really hard to understand why it had to stop this way.

However, some retailers said the customers balked at the expensive prices.

Joan Burstein, owner of Browns in London, said high pricing was an Achilles' heel, which is why she no longer carries the brand. "The customer is very aware of prices, and obviously the arithmetic didn't work out," she said. "The pieces were beautiful, you could turn the garment inside out and the pieces were hand-done, but sometimes it did not justify the prices. Up against the other designers, Rochas was too expensive."

The news made some wonder whether a conglomerate the size of P&G didn't have the finesse to handle a house so deeply rooted in French fashion, and it begs the question of just how healthy selling out to a corporate parent can be. "Corporate couture is an oxymoron," Doneger's Wolfe quipped.

But even if the wan, longhaired likes of Theyskens are rare in the halls of P&G headquarters in Cincinnati, others suggested the shutdown was premature.

"I think he did a great job there," said Karl Lagerfeld, who counts Theyskens as a personal friend and a frequent guest at his Chanel shows. "He did a lot to create an image they didn't know how to use properly."

Meanwhile, news of the Rochas fashion closure, reported first by wwd.com on Wednesday, is likely to prompt a fresh round of new suitors for Rochas.

Although P&G had reportedly sought to license the rtw business, sources said the consumer products giant could entertain enticing offers for an outright sale of the fashion and fragrance brands together.

P&G declined to disclose figures for the fashion house, but sources estimate revenues of less than $12.6 million and suggested the business was losing money, given high labor costs in France and the big-budget runway shows Theyskens mounted each season in a tent in the Tuileries gardens. One source suggested annual losses could have been as high as sales, noting: "Procter & Gamble wouldn't shut down a company because it lost $2 million or $3 million a year."

To be sure, it's another signal that conglomerates are sharpening their focus and whittling out distractions. Paco Rabanne, owned by Spain's Puig Group, has ceased rtw shipments as it seeks to close down its high-cost Paris operations, which employ some 40 people. Rabanne is said to be considering several options, including a manufacturing partnership for fashion.

Theyskens did not return phone calls Wednesday, and sources suggested he is likely to keep a low profile until the fall and evaluate any offers that might come his way. While many would-be matchmakers were immediately pitching him as a candidate for Chloé, which has a longstanding vacancy, speculation immediately focused on the 29-year-old Belgian relaunching his signature brand, which he owns but had put on hiatus to focus on Rochas.

i didn't know about the paco rabanne business...

 

[liberty33r1b]

^thanks for posting, very interesting.

 

[sarah13]

Very interesting indeed. Is WWD free via internet, or do you need a subscription?

 

[kimair]

Very interesting indeed. Is WWD free via internet, or do you need a subscription?

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