MyTheresa

The Triumph of The Non-Designer: Justin, Alexa and More
Alexa Chung and Justin O’Shea, fashion’s most exciting new designers, are not designers at all, depending on whom you ask.

 

Justin O’Shea, former buying director of MyTheresa and the coolest, most hard-boiled guy in the fashion business, debuted his first collection for luxury menswear label Brioni this month to enormous success: the ultra-cool collection for men and women was sexy, immaculate, and exuded an almost Tom Ford-level of slickness. O’Shea has taken an uncompromisingly “lad” approach to the brand – Brioni logoed beer cans were omnipresent at the event and Metallica fronts the new ad campaign – but in a way that’s sophisticated, self-aware, and almost retro without seeming kitchy. He’s proven himself to be a fantastic creative director, even if he is not a typical choice to helm a luxury label, because he gets brand so completely.

O’Shea’s brilliant debut was the perfect backdrop for Alexa Chung to announce that she is launching her own clothing line in the spring of 2017, to the desperate, raucous joy of young women everywhere. The brand will encompass everything from denim to eveningwear, and follows on the heels of Chung’s multiple collaborations with a wide range of brands – she’s collaborated on design for Marks & Spencer, AG Denim, Madewell, Maje, and cosmetics brand Eyeko; and has served as a brand ambassador for Mulberry, Longchamp, and most recently Gucci, when she temporarily took over the label’s Snapchat. But instead of drawing a parallel between Chung and O’Shea, rock-and-roll, much beloved fashion outsiders, The New York Times wondered if Chung might, with her long-hoped for eponymous line, become Britain’s Tory Burch – a theory predicated upon the fact that neither woman were trained as designers.

Chung and Burch could literally not be more opposite. This comparison is incredibly sexist (O’Shea got no press so insulting), out of touch, and the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard for several reasons, most egregiously so because Tory Burch is anti-fashion in the way that Michael Kors is: it’s what upper middle class women wear when they want to be invisible and embarrassingly nondescript; it’s a giant empire of nothing. Alexa Chung is all about individuality and instincts when it comes to her personal style and the kinds of things she has designed and endorsed in the past. Why on earth would she want to be anything, anything like Tory Burch? In terms of contemporaries, the Times should have likened her, obviously to Justin O’Shea; or to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, who studied to be architects; or Humberto Leon and Carol Kim of Opening Ceremony and now Kenzo, who started as retailers before they were co-creative directors. These “untrained” designers, unlike Tory Burch, create fashion, and not logoed lifestyle brands for people with french manicures. Secondly, Chung has had a string of collaborative design experiences, more than any other public figure, and is incredibly well-situated to take on her own line – she is much better positioned to design than Burch was when she launched Tory Burch on a dark day in 2004.

Grouping Chung and Burch together for being “untrained” is not only bizarre, but simultaneously incredibly out of touch with the direction in which fashion creation is moving: it’s not just the realm of trained designers anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. It will become even less so after the smashing success of the likes of Leon and Kim at Kenzo and O’Shea at Brioni, Kate Moss for Topshop, and even Victoria Beckham’s eponymous line. Truly exceptional fashion is about instinct, which thoughtful and innovative stylists, retailers, bloggers and brand managers have in abundance — perhaps more than some trained designers do.  Personal style and understanding of brand has become the new and most important qualifications for design, and for this Chung and O’Shea are insanely qualified. Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada were not technically trained, and many designers today, including Raf Simons, do not sketch. Bloggers like Vanessa Hong and Elin King, whom I love, and Rumi Neely, whom I used to like as a teen but about whom I am now ambivalent, have all started fashion labels. Olivia Palermo, Erika Bearman, Lauren Santo Domingo, Miroslava Duma, and Maja Wyh should all be next. Some of these women, I’m sure, are afraid of the celebrity-label brushoff, and/or the Rachel Zoe hyped-line-that-isn’t-really-very-good effect; I think Chung’s foray into the arena will help dispel these fears and help further validate a “celebrity” line, when the celebrity in question is qualified.

If anyone, Alexa Chung should have been likened to Elsa Schiaparelli, who was a little offbeat, had many famous friends, and an innate knack for knowing what looked good. Untrained in the traditional sense, Schiaparelli went on to become one of the most iconic designers of the 20th century. This kind of path is one that makes sense for Chung, and should be aspirational to both trained and untrained creators of fashion alike – not a bulky, empty empire. If that’s not clear to the New York Times, I question their relevancy, and  their conception of success in the fashion world.

 

Tommy Hilfiger and the Case for Reissues

holding-mytheresa-tommy

Last week, Tommy Hilfiger and MyTheresa rolled out a capsule collection of 90s-inspired, logo-heavy reissue pieces. All of the nine pieces available have, smartly, been updated “with innovative fabrications, luxe fabrics and modern silhouettes,” including scuba material and longer-line crop tops and sweaters that look chic. sporty, and, even – yes, shockingly – European.

This is brilliant brand strategy for Hilfiger – for the short term. It comes at the perfect timing, at the peak of 90s nostalgia; and the collaboration with MyTheresa gives it a cool, youthful, and Justin O’Shea-approved feel that it wouldn’t have if it were partnered with say, Net-A-Porter, or god forbid, Hilfiger’s old stable, Macy’s. Suki and Immy Waterhouse front the campaign, which is a good, but random choice, as they are not exactly the postergirls for American sportswear – they are much more at home bloodlessly modeling Burberry and Muberry and the like. The collection’s price point is surprisingly high, with the least expensive item, a bandeau top, coming in at €130, which is certainly too high for the 16-21 year-old Instagram users and Waterhouse fans who would be desperate to get their hands on a bit of the 90s that they, albeit briefly, experienced and are now painfully wistful for.

But nostalgia pieces won’t do in the long-term for Hilfiger and it will tempting for him to ride the 90s-00s throwback train for the next two to three years without planning for his long-term brand strategy – which has in desperate need of redefinition for some time now.

The last few years at Tommy Hilfiger have been a schadenfreude nightmare, full of strained efforts to revitalize the label with a string of mismatched cool, young celebrities and try-hard, themed runway shows. Mr. Hilfiger ought to position himself as the Kate Spade of preppy American staples, and not keep trying and failing to be the zeitgeisty-cool designer he once was. Instead of targeting millennials, he should cater to an older crowd, the men and women who grew up wearing his label in the 90s and 2000s, who are looking for something sportier and more fun than JCrew and Brooks Brothers, and less tragic than Tory Burch. There’s certainly room in the marketplace for this kind of label, and lots of people hoping that Hifiger succeeds – he just needs to stop playing the short game and stop resting on the laurels of his once-popular name.

The reissue model for fashion is brilliant, though, and I’m surprised more designers haven’t seized the ‘heritage’ PR and marketing angle that is so ripe for the picking. It’s also an incredible chance for the average shopper to own a real piece of brand history – not a fast fashion take, a knockoff, or a vintage item in middling to poor condition. Fantastic reissue pieces are what fashion consumers want, but labels must be thoughtful about the pieces they choose to reissue. Few items in classic shapes, like the Mark Cross “Grace” overnight bag (a reissue of the suitcase Grace Kelly carries in Rear Window) and the Max Mara 101801 camel coat are perfect examples of reissues done right, while Topshop’s recent archival rollout achieved only middling success because of the wide range of available pieces, apparent randomness of selection (online voters were the culprit – a nice idea in terms of democracy, but not in terms of profit), and un-updated designs. Other major labels need to get in on the reissue game. I can only begin to fathom the kind of hysterics that might break out in the fashion community if Dior decided to reissue a limited release of 1950s and ‘60s cocktail dresses, or if Saint Laurent released some updated accessories from the iconic “destination” collections. People would lose their minds. Snap to it LVMH and Kering – there’s a rabid market out here for your labels’ classics.