This show is produced and hosted by Mark Webber. The show is sponsored by
G three Aparo. The views expressed in the following program are those of the
sponsor and not necessarily the opinion of seven Tenor or iHeartMedia. Who is Mark
Weber. He's a self made business executive here to help you find your success
from the New York City projects to the Avenue Montaigne in Paris. His global
success story in the luxury world of fashion is inspirational. He's gone from clerk
to CEO twice. Mark is classic proof that the American dream is alive and
well, here's your host of Always in Fashion, Mark Weber. Mark Weber
today is the beginning of anything you want. Problem is, you're going to
have to change to get it. Stance the reason. If you wanted it,
you would have had it already doing whatever it is you do except Einstein
defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Nope, take all your expertise, apply it to the problem with challenge.
Without adjusting for the circumstances of the people involved or the time and space,
you'll be back to where you started. You want something you don't have,
change is the key. It could be a simple tweak or a major
ething. Doesn't matter. Nothing changes, if nothing changes my view on the
world. Everyone says they respect change, everyone says they need change. Everybody
says they're willing to embrace change until you ask them to consider changing. There's
too many excuses to count in its simplest terms. People either think they know
more than those directing change, or they make up their minds that you're out
of your mind. There's no way I'm changing the worst, of course,
if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Well, if you've subscribed to
that theory, we'd still be traveling on horseback, communicating via teles, talking
on landlines, voting only at polling booths, getting our news from newspapers except
for the only three major networks NBCCBS and ABC. Who speaking? Who Who
needs cars, let alone airplanes? Who needs cell phones or computers? Who
needs the Internet? Forget it? I like things the way they're done.
No thanks, no change. That's what it would be if you didn't embrace
change. Enough said, I think I've made up my point. Nothing changes,
if nothing changes. On that, how could you not be a parent
without embracing change, understanding the changes in your Charles curriculum or if your children
are older. Today's workplace has changed dramatically. Companies are changing, priorities are
new. Products need to be environmentally sensitive. That's what generates is demanding.
You're an automaker, will you be around twenty years from now? If you
don't get a physician in hybrid or electric cars? Life business you changes,
But nothing changes. If nothing changes, I'm very sad I have to make
a comment on the world at war. Very simply, nothing changes if nothing
changes. Tonight, I've been thinking about the business of change. Some stories,
some lessons, some outcomes, some insights. Joining me the ever changing
lawyer co host and my son Jesse Weber. Hey, there, So first,
let me just say I'm happy that you're not really getting into what's happening
right now. I think everybody's talking about it. I think people are inundated
with it, and I always see this show as kind of a reprieve away
from what's happening. Not to take away from what's happening obviously, but I
think people I hopefully this show is a bit of a break from the horrors
that are happening around the world. Well, let me before we go.
I'm purposely avoiding it because I think there are people more and better equipped to
talk about what's going on than me, and you'll only have to watch what's
happening. It requires no explanation, doesn't require someone staking a position. It
is what it is, and you know what's right or wrong. It's rare
that you see something that black and white, but that's what it is.
I will tell you your position on world events. Usually it's always like to
the point, you know, you allow everybody to draw their cown conclusions.
And That's where I'm at right now. I suppose because more than anything,
I'm an isolationist America for America. But and I said it, I would
prefer America having no enemies. I do believe we could have talked and reasoned
with Putin before the Ukrainian War. It's funny how most people pick it up
with Russia invading. A lot took place before Russia decided to invade. China
should be our closest ally. We have so much much in common with them.
It's all about building a better place for the people in your country.
They want it, we want it, but we need strength. Through strength,
we need leaders who get it, who have a point of view and
know how to negotiate. Now, as they said a little while ago,
the rest of the world, I'm not smart enough. I'm just not enough
of this. I'm a business guy, and tonight I want to discuss business.
Jesse. I am a proponent for acquisitions. I believe when one company
does their homework and decides to acquire another company and merge those two companies together,
synergy is created. The sum of the parts makes the whole stronger.
If you make the right acquisition, your company and the company you purchase will
do so much better joined with a powerful group of companies. With that in
mind, Jesse, you have some news this week, I do. We
want to talk about acquisitions. Well, if you didn't see the news this
week, the Law and Crime Network, which I have been a part of
for the last seven years, an anchor and reporter for the long Crime Network
founded by Dan Abrams, it has been purchased. It has been acquired by
a company called Jelly Smack. Quite the name, right, Yeah, pardon
me for not being jumping up and down with that name, But why don't
you tell us what's about? It's really interesting. They're in the digital content
business. They've been around for basically as long as Long Crime has been around,
and the two things that they really specialize in are a they have a
technology it's both AI artificial intelligence and data, and they can determine how to
amplify a video, how to really create a brand, how to really get
a lot of people to view something. And so they have over the years
created deals with a lot of content creators, a lot of YouTubers and really
taking these people who have strong messages or interesting ideas and basically blew them up
on social media. They've also partnered with a number of different companies to create
their own content online. And they've looked at long Crime as really getting into
the true crime space and it's an incredible, credible deal. We're happy to
be a part of it, and I'm really excited. I'm really excited to
see to build law on crime. And I think the goal is to become
a household name and they might be able to do it. So should I
ask are they going to be able to blow us up? I assume you're
going to talk to them about making always in fashion. Well, they apparently
have a beauty division, and if they have a beauty division. Why not
have a fashion division? Am I right? Well, I'm certainly of beauty.
I am meeting with them next week, so maybe I'll talk to them.
Yeah, you have to tell them yet. You won't be able to
go home at night if you don't at least have a conversation. And then
they'll be like, you're fired, You're annoying, you're gun. No,
No, you gotta how to present yourself. You know, you got a
bunch of important things going on in that network. Tell me again what they
are the audience, what they are at Law and Crime. I am the
host of the Sidebar podcast, which gets a million downloads a week, eleven
million downloads a month. Yeah. I'm also the executive producer and host of
a true crime documentary show called Prime Crime, which is the easiest way to
watch it is on YouTube. It's also an NBC's Peacock. And I'm a
reporter and anchor for the network. So whenever there's a big story going on,
whenever there's a big trial, I'll be on the desk anchoring or in
the field reporting on it. Very cool, very cool. So you got
a lot going on, Jesse. That's impressive. I hope the new company
loves you as much as I do. Well, no one can love me
as much as you do. And by the way, for all of whatever
I do in my career, who's my number one advisor? Who's the best
advisor you? Who better than your father to be your concilieri? But you
know, anyway, we were talking about acquisitions which allowed me to have you
make that announcement of what's going on with Long Crime, which I'm very excited
about. I believe the merging of the two companies, you guys with great
content, them figuring out how to get more people and more elite ears and
more eyeballs, should be great. The biggest acquisition that I was involved with
was the acquisition of Calvin Klein and at the time, Marsh Company PVH was
the largest shirt company in the world, unless, of course, there's some
small company in China making shirts for a billion Chinese people. But from a
marketing point of view and brands, we were huge. We were a great
company. We made a lot of money, but we just didn't grow.
It was a consistent business that every year we had slight increases, so the
company was solid. If it was owned by a private entity, If myself
as president or my boss is CEO at the time. If it was our
company ten million for you, ten million for me, ten million for you,
ten million, we would have had boats and jets, etc. It
would have been amazing, great company. But as a public entity, if
you don't grow rapidly, your stock price doesn't grow. And that's the purpose
of being a public entity. People invest in your company, they expect it
to grow and they want the stock price to rise. Nobody buys companies to
hold their money. They want them money to grow. You can grow through
dividends, but nobody buys stock for dividends. It's too much risk and the
dividend is an eya, so you need to grow. We were looking to
make an acquisition and in the end we decided to buy Calvin Klein. And
what we saw happened with Calvin Klein changed the entirety of a company. It
became what's called a transforming transaction. The growth opportunity in Calvin Kline was so
huge that the world no longer looked at us as a sleepy shirt company that
was very reliable. They looked at us a growth company. We had demonstrated
by buying Calvin Klein, we would grow between fifteen and twenty percent a year
for the foreseeable future. And what in fact happened as we did. We
grew Calvin Klein's licensing business, which included genes, which included fragrances, which
included underwear, huge businesses, and it increased our earnings dramatically. We launched
a men's sportswear collection. We licensed someone to do whimswear, and the company
grew dramatically. And that acquisition was amazing. But without change, what a
great example. The world's best shirt company making tons of money by not growing,
couldn't get arrested on Wall Street to stop languered. It never grew,
It just sat there. You made a change, you bought a company like
Calvin Klein, and the world changed for our company. We became a major
company as it aside ELVMH my second endeavor in life Louis Tittan Mohe at Hennessy,
where I joined a CEO of the Americas, sat on the executive The
in Paris is all about acquisitions. It began with Bernardo and other founder purchasing
the Deor company and pretty much closing it down and saying I wanted to return
dere to what it was. Dior became a licensing network selling Tony Soprano jogging
suits and polyester blended dressherts. But it had one of the world's great French
designer names that had a legacy of history and inventory, a library, and
he saw it and he turned the ore into a massive, successful luxury company.
And by doing that he was able to buy Vitone, Celine Gavanci,
Sephora, Bulgary Tiffany. It was amazing what they've done, and it was
all through acquisitions. The brilliance of the management team had the ability to use
their assets, in this case the cash they were generating, to buy other
companies, and because they knew how to manage companies, because they understood luxury
like no one else, they built this luxury behemoth. And it was all
because Bernard Arnault and his management team embraced change. They recognized that the company
needed to keep changing dramatically to become what it is today, one of the
largest, if not the largest, luxury company in the world, one of
the great growth companies in the world, one of the most famous companies in
the world. Because even the French understood nothing changes. If nothing changes,
be back in a minute. Always in fashion. As one of the world's
most celebrated fashion designers, Carl Lagafeld was renowned for his aspirational and cutting edge
approach to style. His unique vision of Parisian shit comes to America through Carlagofeld
Paris. He has women's collections, men's collections, ready to wear, accessory,
shoes and bags. The fashion house Carlagofeld also if as a range of
watches I wear in premium fragrances. You can explore the Carlagofil collection at Carlagofelparis
dot com. But it's more than that. I, for one, love
to shop. I love going around and seeing what's happening and what catches my
attention, what would make me feel good to wear Now. I don't wear
the women's wear obviously, but I can appreciate it and they look amazing.
If you want to look right, you want to have clothes that fits you
well. You want to look like you're wearing something that's very expensive, that's
exclusive for you and yours. You can find it at very affordable prices at
Macy's. Orcarlagofel dot com Paris. The women's ready to wear fashion is extraordinary
as well as the handbigs and the shoes. I, for one, wear
men's clothes, unlike my appreciation of women's clothes. I'm a modern guy.
I want to look current, I want to look the way I want to
feel. I go out at night, I'm in black and Carlagofel is my
buddy. Calls are great. They fit great, and they have little tweaks
and touches, whether it's a stripe on the sleeve or button at the neck
or on the shoulder. There's a lot of details that go into Carl Lagafel
because he's always been, he always had been one of the world's great designers,
and this legacy and goes on and on. I can't speak enough about
it except to say to you, you want to feel good about yourself.
You want to know that you're dressing properly. You want to clothes that fits
you well. Carl Lagafeld Paris at Macy's Orcarlagafel dot com. Fall is now
upon us, spring is gone, summer is over, and I'm tending to
be a little upset. Except the poone brings new challenges and new differences and
a great new environment for us. To thrive and enjoy. I, for
one, love the change of the season is because of the new fashion,
and I am excited about my favorite brand, Isesot and what they bring to
the party. When I used to work at the company and we were reinventing
Iszod, which had always been a golf and tennis brand, we brought it
to New Heights, new to I thought Isaac would be practical in skiing,
not necessarily for on the slopes, but for eproski. What do people wear
when they're relaxing, when they're in those hotels? What are you doing when
you're at home? What are you wearing to the movies? What are you
wearing to go out at night when you're no longer wearing your spring clothes?
And here we are in full and I can tell you what it is.
Polar flees, French dairy, different kinds of fleeces, color block colors,
sweaters, great, great long sleeve items come into play. And with Isaac,
they were always about color and being colorful. I love what the brand
represents, whether we're talking about color block or solid colors. Always with the
logo, Isaac brings a dimension to sportswear fashion at affordable prices that you can't
find anywhere. And at the same time, it's all color related, from
the woven shirts, from the nit shirts to the matching sweaters or the sweaters
that will look great layering over these shirts. Always matching pants, beginning with
the core color of khaki, working into the navies and the blacks. ISOD
is a spectacular brand, all about colors, and launching in full are the
new fall shades you'll see in the stores. Listen, guys, Isod's a
great brand. It's energetic, it's fun to be around, and it makes
you feel and look your best. And now there's a color palette change and
you get to change with it. ISOD. Come take a look j C.
Penny Cohal's and online ISID. What a history. How much I enjoy
this brand. Welcome back to Always in Fashion. Here's your host, Mark
Webber. I want to talk about selling, because salesmen are all about change.
I'm always tough on salesman always. I'll tell you I had a nightmare
one time. I've woke up and I thought I was a salesman. When
you say that joke, did any salesperson ever get insalted by it? Because
you've said it in front of people before well, if you want to go
by their yeah, but you know I do it. In front of a
seller, I apologize right away. Look for me. There are good sellers,
they're amazing sellers, and there are a lot of horrible sellers that you
shake their hand, you look to make sure your figures are all there,
or you feel greasy. A lot of people say and do anything to make
a sale, and they give the profession a bad reputation. From my point
of view, it's more about style. I like people coming to me and
convincing me to do things. I don't want to be on the other side
selling, trying to make money from selling things. I can't do it,
and I hate it. Doesn't mean I haven't seen brilliant sales, which I
want to talk about in a minute. As a CEO or president or any
position I held along the way, any officer of a company, you have
to sell. You have to sell yourself, You have to sell the concept.
You have to sell the viability of your company and your ideas and your
products. You may not get it paid for that, but it's part of
my job. When I was a CEO, it didn't matter which company.
When I stood up and talked about the company, either to our customers or
to the Wall Street people or the investors or people we needed to lend money
from. Sure, I could pitch the company as well or better than anyone
in the world. But if it came to I have this shirt, I
need you to buy one hundred pieces from me, I can't do it.
I won't do it, and I just can't, which brings me to the
idea that sellers are about change. They're about taking what they own and convincing
you to buy it from them, saying no, they no longer have it
as simple as that. Selling is change, and the approaches to selling are
different all the time. My oldest son, your brother Jared, after being
an attorney for eight years, went into the fashion business and has an extraordinary
job right now with an incredible growth company. I think their annual revenue,
if you extrapolate it to retail sales, is about thirty billion dollars a year,
and ten years ago this company didn't exist. I think your brother there
eight or nine years, so he was there almost at the beginning, and
he's been a party to what his transpirenter It's amazing. So many lessons I
learned along the way, and my son recently visited with Dillard's department stores in
Little Rock, Arkansas, and he met with one of the Dillard's family,
Alex Dillard, who's I don't know his exact title, but he's one of
the family that runs the company. And it just so happened because I know
Alex Stillard and Jared's my son, they end up talking about things at one
point that had to do with me and my company. When I was at
van Usen, I worked at one point for the president of van us and
Phillips van Usen, and his name was Charles J. Smith Chuck Smith.
He came from somewhere in Illinois. He was a former soldier. He had
a command about him. He was one of the world's great marketing and sellers
people that I met who had this multiple skills. He was brilliant. He
came from the Arrow Shirt company, our nemesis. When I joined the company,
venues and represented two and a half percent of the business in the United
States and Arrow twenty six percent. Private label was over fifty percent, and
the rest of the company in the industry shared the spoils, but we had
two and a half percent. We were knowing. And Chuck Smith was the
head of sales for the Arrow Company, and apparently he was with the Dyllan's
brothers. He had a very interesting affectation. He took like this, you
need the fizzle to sell a steak didn't get in his way. He was
an extraordinary guy. He said, you know, you really don't need two
shirt brands. You really only need one. And as Alex did was telling
this to my son, the story changed a bit, but basically what happened
is he told Chuck Smith at the time, I'm dropping Van Using and they
became the single proprietary shirt maker for Dillon's department stores for a period in time
until Chuck Smith joined us. He left Arrow, came to us for a
better horizon, thought he could do better, and he was remarkably. He
became the president and he was a great seller. And then in turn he
went back to the Dillarz family because he had a great relationship with Dillard's department
stores, and he sat down with them again and he said, listen,
I got one of the greatest brands in the industry. You got to buy
from me. And Alex still looked at him and said, I have to
remind you, Chuck, you said, we only need one brand, and
I'm not buying this one from you. Now, what did he forget that?
He said that. I don't know if he forgot it, but he
certainly was held to what he said. You know, for many years I've
told this before. Our company therefore didn't sell Dillard's department stores and use it.
And we tried and tried and tried. We didn't have a relationship,
and we started to do extraordinarily well in the designer shirt business. We owned
Dky Shirts, we owned Holston, we owned Jeffrey Bean. We were again
forced to be reckoned with and we asked with Dillards and our head of marketing
at the time still was Chalk and our head of advertising, guy named Henry
Justice, a great friend, asked for an appointment. We got an appointment.
They gave us a room to set up the night before we would meet
them the next day, and we surprised them. We took over this large
meeting room they had and we turned it into a van using environment. We
brought mannequin's, We brought people who trimmed windows, who knew how to dress
the mannequins, put shirts ties them We brought our advertising, we bought inventory,
we brought fixtures to show them what our shirts would look like in the
actual fixtures, and we made a presentation to Dillard's and the presentation I was
part of it. We were brilliant, and at the end of the meeting,
the Diller's family said to us, we really appreciate your coming. This
was very impressive and we do need to give some thought to what you presented.
Day. Thank you for coming. We left. We felt great about
a couple of days later, we got the call, we really appreciated you
coming. We really thought you guys were impression, but we're going to stick
with Arrow shirts. And we didn't break through the dillets. Hmmm, why
do you think that was just didn't fit. They didn't feel they needed us,
And I never did get that answer until one faithful day at dcyn Why.
I had been with LVMH. I had just launched a moderate price women's
line to compete with Calvin Klein and Michael Kore's. It was called dcann Why.
It was a different color label and it was priced to compete. So
anyway, I launched this new business and Alex Dillard came up to see this
new line because we're making a splash. I said, I've been waiting all
this time to ask you. We came to see you in Little Rock.
We made a venues and presentation that was extraordinary. You gave us the call
that you weren't going to do business with I have to ask you if you
would be gracious enough to tell me what happened and what's your thought of the
presentation. After you guys left, all the buyers, all the merchandises,
all the men, all the women, myself and my brother sat around and
talked of what we saw and we said, you guys were brilliant. You
did an amazing job, and we should do business with you, but we
agreed not to. And when you left, we said we made the wrong
decision. He was not just saying that because he's talking to you, right.
No, people as impressive and in senior positions as that don't make up
stories. They made a decision to stay with Arrow. They thought it was
the right decision, but they thought long term we were better. Maybe.
As it turned out, Arrow faulted. We ended up buying the Arrow Shirt
Company and we had control of it all. But I hadn't heard until that
time what happened, and I loved that selling story. Well, the fact
that he remembered that too. It stuck with him. Of course, you
know this whole show. I tell stories that happened either yesterday or twenty years
ago, some even longer, because they made an impression on me. The
lessons learned don't change, and they are relevant to today and tonight. We're
talking about nothing changes. If it doesn't change, I'm talking about selling and
changes. You know what, I have a story to tell. It's about
change. There was a time that if you owned a brand or you owned
a retail store, the relationship was even you want my brand, you have
to behave a certain way. If you want to be in my store,
you missed the brand, have to behave a certain way. And we made
decisions to do business together. Now, at the time, there were one
hundred two hundred, three hundred independent department stores in the United States. You'd
never heard of them unless you've been around a while. You ever hear of
Birdine's in Florida it was the key department store, and Fly on Earth in
New York. There was Abraham and Strauss, not just Macy's. There was
O'Neill's in Cleveland, Ohio. There was famous bar in the Midwest. There
were stores everywhere, and there all were independent stores built by families who came
to this country started building retail enterprises and built ten stores, fifteen stores,
thirty stores. But there were so many of them. Nieman, Marcus,
Nordstrom, the Belk family, all of these companies were named after families who
started retail businesses. And because there was one hundred or two hundred, if
Macy's in New York didn't want to buy my product, I could sell it
to Abraham and Strauss. If Hess's apartment store in New Jersey didn't want my
product, I could sell it to Bamburgers. And we competed with each other,
and we sold it against each other. And it was a remarkable time.
But something changed, like everything does. Department stores were competing now in
a very vibrant markets place. Ross discount dispartment stores was growing, Target was
growing, TJ Max was growing, Marshalls were growing. So all these off
priced people were taking market share. Then throw in Sears and J. C.
Penny and Walmart, huge huge nationwide companies were taking over and taking more
and more of the open to buy in the business, and things were changing,
so department stores realized they had to consolidate, they had to become bigger.
Dillard's brought up all the independent department stores in the South and the southwest.
Macy's became a national chain, Robinson's May on the West coast, O'Neill's
Lazarus as I mentioned, Burdine's in Florida, and on and on and on.
And what happened was they all consolidated, so it became a handful of
stores rather than hundreds of independent stores. And now, if you're a seller,
or your brand or your designer, your choices went from hundreds from having
the leverage to play one against each other to virtually little, if no leverage
any longer. The deal was no longer even you had Nortstrom, Belk,
Dillard, Macy's. And if I left someone out, I'm glad I don't
work because no one can punish me. But you also had decisions to make
whether or not your brands belonged to JC Penny or Sears or Target for that
matter, And what did you feel about the off price market? Did you
want your products? And tjmac and Rows stores and companies had to start making
decisions about who they wanted to sell. There was still a huge opportunity to
be in the carriage trade the better department stores until they started leveraging their strength.
The first thing department store said, hey, we're big now, we're
national. If we don't exert our leverage over our suppliers, if we don't
get them to agree to terms that are more favorable to us, if we
can't increase our margins, why did we do all of this? And they
did. I hated them, but respected them. I'm sitting there, I'm
making fifty percent markup and Ma walks in now to me and says, basically,
you're going to sell me at this price, which all I could make
now was thirty five percent. Oh and by the way, you want to
sell my stores, you're going to guarantee at the end of the season,
my margins are going to be what we agree on. I can't guarantee your
margins. I'm not in your store. I'm not telling people what to do.
If you don't guarantee my margins, I'm not going to sell you brutal.
All our profits were under attack. What choice did we have? And
the next thing that came was the apartment stores wanted to be in control of
their own destiny. So if the Van Uesenshirt company was in Macy's, and
Macy's ran a promotional agenda that once a month they'd have a twenty five percent
discount sale, and Dillard's department store said, I don't do it once a
month, I do it once a season. At the end of the season,
Dillard's would say, if you're selling Macy's, I can't buy from you.
And Belks had a different point of view, and Northstrom had a different
point of view. So all of a sudd sudden, the windows started closing
and the opportunity to be successful was severely hampering manufacturers. And if you ever
wondered, why do people want to selling outlassas at a discount rather than departments,
we had no choice. By going into your own retail business in the
outlet vendu, the rents were cheap and the ability to open was easier.
This was a growing new segment of business. Because you're the manufacturer, you're
vertical. You could sell it advantageous prices, and the consumer understood the difference
between shopping and a department store, which is generally speaking, regular price and
sometimes on sale, but getting a similar item or maybe the same item for
a deal every day of the week. And these outlet stores ended up all
around the world. There's centers in every major metropolitan area anywhere you go in
the world. Now, and the world changed and new formats opened up,
warehouse clubs, Sam's, Costco, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So in order for manufacturers to thrive, they had to make change.
They had to open their own stores or find new channels of distribution. We
were forced to make important decisions now. As it turns out, when you
look at electronics Jesse, where can you buy cell phones? You ever think
about it? It's an interesting question. So you can buy cell phones at
a lot of places. You can buy them an Apple, you can buy
them at Verizon, you can buy them at at and T. Why Look,
if you're gonna go fishing, you're gonna go fish with the fish swimming.
If you're going to sell products, the ideal situation is sell products where
the consumer is, and the electronics industry per se sells to consumers wherever consumers
are shopping for electronics. Best Buy. All these mom and pop stores selling
an Apple stores, t Mobile, as you just said, some of the
other they sell everywhere, food brands, home brands, aside from a few,
they sell wherever consumers are shopping. That is not the case in luxury
and fashion. If you are in the luxury business, you will sell in
your own stores and a few hand picked luxury department stores, a few like
Nieman, marcus Bergdorf sacksfith Avenue. If you have Vitone, that's all you
sell there. And that's the way the luxury business operates to protect their brand.
If you don't have your own stores, you have to decide where you're
going to sell. But then you have to ask yourself, how do you
feel about selling your brand in some of these distown entities. Does it hurt
your brand if you sell there? And one of my great stories of all
time is with Costco. When I was at d KNY, I needed growth.
I told W M H when I joined them that the brand was bigger
than the business, that the brand per se based on what was done with
the three prior CEOs, and the volume they got to was minuscule to what
I knew it could be. I had been a license for DKYE shirts that
was the quickest most explosive shirt business I ever saw in my life. I
knew how powerful the brand was. I told them we could do it,
and the strategy we're going to put together was to build it in department stores,
build my own outlet stores, and find select channels of distribution that could
sell a lot of product. And we decided to sell Costco jens. Now,
it wasn't an easy decision because the price of Gens in Costco would be
significantly less than Macy's, but it would probably be a slightly different product.
And even if it wasn't, I believed in the theory if people are going
to Costco to buy jeans, or if people are going to a Gene store
on Madison Avenue, or if people are going to Macy's if they're looking for
jeens, why not be there? Why not be the tide of Genes?
And it was a great strategy, and we opened up Costco in a relatively
short period in time, we had a huge twenty five million dollar business at
Costco justin jeans and a few genes tops. Extraordinary profitable business. We were
fishing where the fish was swimming. People at Costco knew the brand, they
liked the jeans that we put them in there. Now between us girls out
there, did you know that Costco sells more wine and spirits than anyone else
in America? Costco sells more champagne than anyone else in America. Now,
LVMH knew this because they have a huge wine and spirits business LV Louis Vuitton,
Moet, Hennessy, Moette, Hennessy, moat Is, Champagne, Hennessy's
Cognac. Believe me, they knew, and we had this incredible business,
incredible overnight. It's so profitable in every season, every year for the eight
years i'm there, our profits are going. And then one day LVMH hired
a concern Boston consulting you to come in and determine whether or not we should
change course and decay. And why, I said to you, nothing changes
if it doesn't change. The only problem is we were changing every day we
were. The agents have changed. Now all of a sudden they want to
change, and the consulting company convinced them that we should no longer be in
Costco. I reported to the managing director of LVMH and he called me one
day and said, look, we're changing the company. We want to take
it more upscale. We want it to be more in line with what LVMH
stands for as a luxury company. We no longer want you in Costco.
I said to them, but it's extraordinarily profitable. Well, the consulting company
showed us that if you took the overall expense of the company and layer it
on your Costco business, it's really not all that profitable. I explained to
him. We had two women handling the business for us, just two people.
What expense are you talking about? The warehouse charges are in there,
my fees are in there. Don't do this, it's too profitable. So
jesse you and me on that trip. We go there to October to give
us strategic plan, and our numbers are down. At the time, these
numbers no longer relevant because it's old news, so I'm not giving away secrets.
Our numbers were down by ten million dollars and the management of lv is
looking at me. So what went wrong with the business? What's going on
here? You told me to get rid of Costco. They were shell shot.
They couldn't believe him. I tried to explain it. You want change,
here's your change. Day later, I get a call, You'll have
to get the Costco business. I work with this woman named Krista Michaelaros.
She's the one who's opened up Costco. She was CEO of the jeans division.
She had been CEO of other companies. I recruited her of the company
she'd loved to work for LVMH. We knew each other from Afar and she
was perfect. And she started building this business and she opened Costco and they
loved her. And she told me when I needed to be at Costco.
She told me which meetings I had to be, what I had to say,
what I needed to do, what they wanted to hear from me,
and on and on and on. She piloted us, brilliant me through this
whole thing. She was devastated when we gave up on the business. She,
like everyone else in the company, didn't understand it because Costco wasn't hurting
our brand. If people wanted to buy your brand, like the electronics business,
why not give it to them. If we were the luxury part of
the company, the Donna Karen collection, it would be different. But TK
was aimed at mass America. Get the call, get the Costco water back.
When I told her She was astounded. She said, I don't know
if I can. But in a matter of three weeks, after a number
of trips to Costco, bringing him back to New York, with me throwing
myself on the sword and telling him I made a mistake, we really want
the business, she resurrected the business. We got a twenty five million dollar
business back, we got our profits back. It was the also remarkable selling
job I ever saw. So here I am a guy admitting that I have
nightmares and waking up from them, that I'm a salesman. Here I am
telling you there's nothing in this world I'd rather be less than a salesman.
But I have great respect for a night where talking change, because in sales
nothing changes. If nothing changes back in a minute, always in fashion.
Spent a lifetime of my career building the van Usen brand, and I am
so pleased that they're back with us now talking about suits. Men were dressing
up again, and it's become cool to wear a suit. Suits can be
worn on multiple occasions in multiple ways. You could wear a suit formally to
go out at night or to an event. You wear a suit to the
office with or without a tie. If you look closely. Now fashion trends
suits are being worn with turtlenecks or mark next. The choices are endless and
every one of them looks right. You could really really look the part.
I believe that packaging yourself is as important does the products you package, and
wearing a suit is one of those things that make men look their best.
Venues and invented a new idea. It's called the cool Flex suit. It's
been engineered with stretch technology, giving you the most comfortable fit and mobility.
It's wrinkle resistant fabric, it's cool moisture wicki. It makes it perfect for
all occasions. As we discussed just now, this new style of looking sharp
while feeling cool and comfortable is amazing, and I'm so excited that the ven
Using company is involved in this new technology and is embracing the whole idea of
dressing up. Let's not forget van Ues and Maine It's name with dress shirts.
It's only proper that the suit business follows strongly in its way. You
can find van Ues in cool Flex Men's stretch suits at jcpenny are online at
jcpenny dot com. Guys, they're great. You should go look at them.
Welcome back to it. Always in fashion, here's your host, Mark
Webber. Nothing changes if nothing changes. The one thing we have to learn
in life that nothing is the same. Ever, if we don't embrace change,
we'd all be riding horses. We'd be stuck to our phones in the
house. We wouldn't have an Internet, we wouldn't have this life we have.
It's all about change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Now, having
said this, I must admit I miss magazines. Magazine advertising was my favorite
form of advertising, if you think about her. Over the course of time.
Television was never really a place to advertise for fashion, luxury and apparel.
There are exceptions in the early days of television. One of the reasons
Van User, my former company, became well known with television advertising before anyone
else would do it. I guess the exception might be Untucked, which became
a TV phenomenon. But by and large, other than fragrance, TV is
not a vehicle for advertising. Always magazines, billboards, in store windows,
a lot of different things that would catch your attention, and I miss magazines.
Now things change, the world changes. I joined LVMH. I knew
a lot about marketing, but I didn't know anything even close to what they
knew. When you think about it, LVMH is like the goalie on a
football team football in this case soccer. He's the only one who sees the
whole field. Some people are looking at him, some people have their backs
to them, but nobody could see everything that's going on except for the goalie
a United States person USA. The catcher on a baseball team. He's the
only one facing the field. Nobody sees what's going on behind them except for
the catcher. LVMH was kind of like that because they operate brands at the
most distinctive brands in the industry. They have accessed everything they sell in every
major geographical region in the world, every city that makes sense, every country
that it makes sense. And they have multiple products from safforiur to newspapers to
all kinds of things. And there are a lot of companies like that,
And therefore, when I showed up and would talk, I had to be
very very careful because they knew a lot more than I did. Didn't make
them smarter than me, but they knew a lot more, and therefore it
became difficult to negotiate and to navigate. I'll never forget. I was the
CEO and chairman of Donna Karen International, and we were about to do a
new campaign LVMH like they orbillinarily would. They wanted us suspend more marketing money
than we had the year before, and they wanted us to launch a campaign
using a viable celebrity. If you look at where celebrities are used by and
large, they are actresses in some places by rare experception. There are athletes.
There are actors, of course. Johnny Depp is the Dior Savage he
has been before his trial with Amber Hurry is still now Chanelle use Brad Pitt.
So there are men, George Clooney, various different things, but women
actresses rule the roost, like Comb is still Julia Roberts, Joy, Taylor,
whatever her name is. What's her name? Jesse oh Anna Taylor Joy,
She's one. I see her in the stores. Don't ask me which
product, by the way, because that's the problem. Do you really associate
these celebrities with the products they endorse? I would venture to say Charlise Throne
is identified with Door, the door, but they use them. And here
we are having a meeting, we're talking about change, and my team and
the LVMH representative are talking about the various different actresses they want to use to
promote DKY. Anne Hathaway. I think Anne Hathaway is my favorite actress.
I love the way she acts, I love the way she looks, I
love the way she dresses. She's very diversified in her roles, but she
was one of them. Emma Stone. ELVIMH guy wanted Emma Stone. My
people wanted emmastone. She's got a bunch of movies coming out. She's gonna
be bigger than life. They knew what her career would look like and I
got it, but I didn't get it, and I took the change route.
I wanted to pick someone from music, and they looked at me like
I had three heads going back, let's say ten years, almost spending millions
of dollars a year to offer to a celebrity to promote your brand, being
the face of the brand and the advertising, picking a music star seemed like
a little out of there. They really really wanted Emma Stone, who,
by the way, I should tell you, I lost my vote and they
picked her and she didn't accept our offer, which was unbelievable. Why because
she knew that Fragrance adds perfume, and Fragrance Company spent a hell a lot
more than fashion people for these involvements, and she was holding out waiting for
Fragrance, and her agent felt if she's going to put her name out there
and be the face of a brand, they were waiting for Fragrance. And
I got blown away and my music star never heard from us, and I
never got to be proven right. Well, wait a second, who did
you want? Some woman? She was blonde, she was tall, she
sang like an angel, but they didn't think music applied. And what was
her name? Oh? Oh, Taylor Swift? Ah? Really yeah?
And I hadn't seen my lvmage counterpart for quite some time, and the last
time I saw him, I reminded him. Do you remember when I got
voted down for Emma Stone versus Taylor's swift? Guy put his head down,
he laughed, But yeah, that didn't go any further. But when I
think about it, now, where do you go to market? And I
had an experience this week that I have to talk about because it was brilliant,
brilliant ABG Authentic Brands Group Authentic as they're known now bought David Beckham's company.
David Beckham still owns a share their partners in the endeavor and a combination
of Cody, the world famous fragrance and beauty company, J C. Penny
who took an exclusive lodge on the Beckham Men's fragrance ABG and David Beckham made
an appearance at j C. Penny this week. And although I'm no longer
important, Jesse's brother Jared is because Jared is the President and Chief brand Officer
of Authentic Brands Group for the fashion luxury retail side and they have the David
Beckham responsibility for the business under his balue work. Now, Jared got to
know David Beckham a bit and he was coming to make an appearance at J
C. Penny at Roosevelt Field in Long Island, and I decided to go,
and let me give you my observations. Everyone there was young, young
and young. Everyone there was incredibly professional. It's not so jac Penny.
I've been in Roosevelt Field before and when I'm there you have to struggle to
find a sales associated. The place was packed with them. They're all dressed
in black. The old J C. Penny logos pinted their dresses, mostly
women, a lot of men packed. I happened to pull over to one
of the women on the fragrance side in the cosmetics business and I said,
you know, I'm usually here there's one or two people around. What's going
on? She said, well, knowing this was going to be a big
event, we bought in a lot of people from the branch stores to be
here today and we're all represented and it was brilliant. J C. Penny
had the chief marketing officer. Her name is Michelle something it escapes me.
I apologize. She was sharp. I asked her where she was from.
Did she live in Texas? Plano, where Jays Penny's base she does?
Where did she come from? She had a series of other jobs that proved
to me she was a season pro. She was in command. She's the
one I went with David Beckham for this event. Brilliant, great great great
David Beckham's people or sharp, understood who he was, understood how to manage
him through this event. They were exceptional. And then of course Cody.
These fragrance and beauty companies really know how to market, really know how to
market, and I was so impressed with everything they did. But you know
what has impressed more than anything, Jesse. What's that? I was impressed
with David Beckham. First of all, he's a great looking guy, dressed
well, charming, smiling, happy to be there, generous with his time.
He arrived early, He took time to sign autographs. He took time
to talk to the people. There were two little children at the event.
He got down on his hunches to talk with them and ask them questions.
He signed. They had two little soccer balls footballs and he signed them and
he made a beautiful like love. David Beckay put his number twenty three.
It was such a nice gesture. And before he went into the main event,
he got back down on his answers to talk to them and asked him
if they had any questions. This guy was a genuine guy. He's a
family man. You could see it. I loved him. Now, when
I tell you what he said to me when I met him, you might
have a reason to believe. That's why I'm telling you. So. My
son, who knows him on a first name basis, hugs you know,
hey, yeah you're doing blah blah blah. They work together, introduces his
wife and then he introduces me and David Beckham looks at me and he says,
now I know where Jared got his good looks. Ah, no,
wonder you're giving him a good review. No, no, no, that's
awesome, that's amazing. Yeah, it was nice. And I said what
I always do when I introduced or someone makes it comment to me about my
looks, my hair for you or Jared, he's the new and approved version.
And we all laughed and it was nice. And then David got up
and was interviewed, spoke to the people and they were at least five hundred
people lined up to sign autographs for and he did graciously spoke to every one
of them. I have an incredible feeling about this guy. By the way,
he's been on a Netflix, a new special done by Netflix. You
want to see a guy a character, go watch that Netflix thing. I
was proud to be there. I was proud of my son. I was
proud to meet this guy who was so charming. I left earlier because I
ran out of charming after talking to a bunch of people, and particularly me,
a recluse doesn't like talking so much, but I ran out of charm.
And on a personal note, while it was a remarkable experience, and
it showed that life changes. I no longer was important, but my son
was. And that's the way it's supposed to be. Nothing changes, if
nothing changes. Good night,