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subscribe to style file blog via RSSthe international downtown, at an urban outfitters near you
October 23, 2008 2:50 pm
Remember when fashion collaborations were exciting? When shoppers queued up for first dibs on Karl Lagerfeld’s collection for H&M? When mere word that Pierre Hardy would be designing shoes for the Gap made you believe—briefly, at least—that the universe is just, people are good, and all will end well? That wasn’t that long ago if you measure by standard human time, but plenty long in the world of fast fashion, where trend cycles live and die like flies. When Comme des Garçons is working with H&M and hardly anyone bothers to raise an eyebrow, it’s time for someone to call the game. Or find a new way to play it, which is what Urban Outfitters has quietly managed to do. Earlier this year, the company flipped the fashion collaboration script when it launched Lark & Wolf and Hawks, ranges designed by Steven Alan and Geren Ford, respectively, and sold exclusively at Urban Outfitters stores. No hoopla, no marketing campaign. Just Steven Alan’s rumpled classics and Geren Ford’s downtown soigné clothes, tweaked for the Urban demo. And in the months since, brands such as Grey Ant, Spring & Clifton, Paul & Joe, and Charlotte Ronson have been brought into the store’s fold, likewise delivering lines targeted at the Urban Outfitters customer. “What’s nice is that you really are creating a new brand,” says Bing Bang designer Anna Sheffield, whose Bee 23 jewelry line debuted for UO last month. “And that brand isn’t ‘for them’—it’s yours. You just figure out where your design philosophy intersects with the Urban philosophy. In my case, they intersect pretty frequently.”
According to Jim Brett, Urban Outfitters’ general merchandise manager, that’s the key to the store’s reinvention of the fashion collaboration. “We keep finding out that the designers we want to work with are already Urban Outfitters shoppers,” he says. “They get it.” Here, Brett talks to Style.com about synchronicity, the international downtown, and why the fast-fashion phenomenon is due for a slowdown.
What inspired Urban Outfitters to get into the fashion collaboration business? I mean, on the one hand, everyone else is doing it, but then again, your store is pursuing these collaborations in a very idiosyncratic way.
We’ve always carried a diversity of product—our brand, outside brands—and every so often we work pieces at a higher price point into that mix. There was a premium denim moment; now, it feels like most of the brands that are aspirational to our customer are coming out of the contemporary market. So we figured that the best way to carve out a place in that market was by bringing some of those brands into the Urban Outfitters fold. It is a really different strategy from what you see at H&M, say—we’re only going after designers whose aesthetics are synchronous with Urban’s, and with whom we share some core values.
Why not just bring those brands into Urban Outfitters by, you know, making buys from their collections?
Well, number one—there’s often a price issue. But beyond that, we know our customer. And we wanted to give some designers we love the opportunity to reach her. Ideas they might have to tone down in order to sell at contemporary, they can do at Urban because our girl is very forward. It’s a downtown sensibility; she’s eclectic. We spend a lot of our time with these designers just sort of articulating that person—this is who the clothes are for. That’s our expertise. We talk to a designer about the product he or she has done that we love, and how it could work for our customer. We want their filter on that, but the concept is, these collections are very targeted. It’s not a diffusion.
That makes sense, but in the case of someone like Samantha Pleet—whose Rapscallion range just debuted at Urban Outfitters—she’s definitely already designing for that girl. I mean, Sam sort of is that girl.
Yeah, and she grew up with Urban in Philly, she shops the store now, and people on our staff were personally buying her stuff and loving it. That’s what I mean by synchronicity. These relationships aren’t a stretch.
Is that how you find the designers you want to work with? You focus group the Urban Outfitters employees?
We find brands in lots of different ways. I mean, we love young, undiscovered designers, designers with a following whose clothes we feel we can adapt for our stores, designers with brands that are established abroad, but don’t have distribution here… We look everywhere. I mean, I just got back from Copenhagen fashion week, and fashion week in Australia. There’s a ton of stuff going on in the international market that fits our downtown POV. The question we’re always asking ourselves is, what are we seeing that inspires us? Who do we love?
And? What are you seeing? Who do you love?
Well, I can tell you some of what we’re working on. We’ve got Andersen & Lauth from Reykjavik shipping a collection for holiday, and we’re working with Neal Sperling and Obesity and Speed, and getting into more accessories. Handbags, shoes.
Will there come a point where you feel like you’ve completed your roster?
We’re not putting a cap on this—we have a big store, we can carry a lot of names. That said, part of the reason we stagger the deliveries is because we don’t want people to feel overwhelmed. I think, you know, we’ll probably keep bringing in new designers as they interest us and see what works, and carry on with the brands that succeed. For me, that’s really what makes these collaborations un-fast-fashiony—there’s not that novelty premium, because we work very hard to create relationships that can last. The collaborations take time to develop, and the focus isn’t on, you know, using these designers to bring one-off shoppers into our stores. Really, it’s about bringing the designers we like into our world.
tags: Urban Outfitters
I have been to Urban Lately and have noticed a change in the quality of garments offered at their stores. Admittedly it hase been years since I have stepped foot in UO but not with out good reason. For a while most of their clothes consisted of a grungy look that fit poorly and for that reason was completely over priced. Now they have seemed to have updated their sense of style to include the tastes of young modern women whose clothing choice may not automatically include designers like chanel and Louis Vuitton et.al. They now offer mid range clothing that is versitile, funtional, likely to last and includes a pinch of funk. I cannot wait until my next pay check roles in because I know that most of it will going to OU to update my look for less than what I normally pay at places like BLoomies to get upper middle range clothing that is nigh on impossible to afford when our country is in a state near the depression seen in the 1930’s. Good luck fellow fashion seekers and remember to look in places where you would least likely find something because you never know what’s around the corner. Happy Hunting!
By zorhadesrt on 10/24/08 at 3:32 pmreason why I am a fan of Urban Outfitter is becasue they are so differnt. I love that their items are only buyable at their store and nowhere else. I think it’s a great idea that he is trying to find designers that bring new ideas to the store, as long as he always keeps the design unique. I agree and love when he says, “Really, it’s about bringing the designers we like into our world”. Reason why is, because if you love a desinger and love ideas, and you see that their ideas are sticking out even if it’s been last seasons, those are the designers you want the world to know about. Keep doing a great job running the company; I am sure it will keep getting better then it already is.
By galvan2819 on 10/30/08 at 3:21 pm