Net-A-Porter head of buying Sasha Sorokin recently sat down with Dion Lee to discuss commerce vs creativity. The conversation was hosted by the Australian Fashion Chamber. Here is an edited extract.
Sasha: I think the most important thing to identify as a designer, from a buyer’s standpoint, is that a design, a collection is one season. It’s very seasonal, it’s a point in time, it’s a creative point in time and that’s very important to remember. A brand is seasonless and that is the majority of what I really want to talk about today.
The brand standpoint that designers need to establish. That is where there’s a lot of work to be done. There are a lot of steps to be taken to get a structure behind what designers are trying to tell a buyer. Because if I love a design, a collection, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the brand is ready or structured or complete.
So it’s a very important part of the process to make sure that the designer thinks of the design but is also considering the relationship between that season and the brand and giving the majority of the love, especially in the early days of your development to the brand side.
Dion: I think it’s a bit of both. I think it’s kind of first and foremost, as Sasha said, really understanding where you see it in that landscape. In terms of other brands and other products as well, I think that there’s always the creative side of how you style the product, but really understanding what the customer is coming to you for and having the opportunity to speak to that customer on a seasonal basis, so making sure they can come back to you and get the piece they’ve got a previous season while pushing them forward and continuing to further their understanding of your brand and push their identity of your product.
Sasha: The first one that jumps to mind is Zimmermann. So Zimmermann, obviously we know the brand here incredibly well – it’s internationally regarded as well both for swim and for ready-to-wear. They’ve been in the business for 23 years, but they’ve got their brand nailed. And that’s something I’ve had many discussions with them about it and it’s something that they really decided to establish a vision for. The vision of your brand is a designer’s north star.
They should always direct themselves there and make sure no matter what they do, what season they are in, it is there. If it’s a good season, bad season, successfully or having challenges, it needs to be consistent in where they put their trust.
Dion: I think that’s about knowing your customer but also knowing the people around you, seeing how people live their lives and what they respond to, how they want to dress, how they want to feel, I think that all plays a big part in it.
Sasha: It’s really all about fleshing out the questions that you would be asking yourself for what that vision is. You can phrase it as the who, what, where, why, when, how moment. Who’s the customer? Where does she live? This is a very important question that comes up all the time, especially here. Is that northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere - beyond the seasonality what are the product needs? Is it the Middle East where she needs some sleeve and some length, is it APAC where suede doesn’t work? What really are the intricacies? Get to know her or the group of her if you can think of a dinner table, what do they need to be wearing, why? How? Etc. Go through that process and you can’t spend too much time on these questions. Really dig in and treat it like you’re giving yourself your own curriculum.
Dion: I think it’s as you said, profiling the customer and understanding their lifestyle or what’s relevant to them, why they’re responding to what they’re responding to – I think that’s a big part of it and the intuition of understanding what people want and what their drivers are, I think that plays a big part in it.
Sasha: I refer to runway shows as the iceberg situation. Because you see a teeny tip and that’s what you see on the runway and then there’s this massive collection below which is the commercial meat of what we’re seeing. I think McQueen – I love that they keep it consistent. They’re not trying to make it something it’s not, so they know they’re not producing it [the runway range], we know they’re not producing it, but the brand has just put its stick in the sand as a brand that dreams and is one of the few houses that really does so to that degree while being a ready-to-wear business as opposed to purely ready-to-wear.
Dion: I think the concept about the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg, you kind of use that to inform the commerciaility within the collection. It’s kind of the starting point for how you flesh out the rest of the categories within a collection. Using something that might be quite experimental but then looking at how you can tone that down and allow the profile or the silhouette of the shape to lead rather than the textile or the technique I suppose. So I think it’s in some pieces the idea is more dominant and in some pieces the end use is more dominant. It’s kind of about making sure there’s a scope from one end to the other.
Sasha: I think that’s where – I’m going to be like, the bad cop in all of this, there’s a lot of work here. So the merchandising factor for me is all about really getting...I call it a body check. Designers need to search their categories. By categories I mean the skirts, the pants, the shorts, the dresses, the knitwear, the tailoring, what kind of tailoring, blazers etc.
They can do the same thing in any kind of non-apparel category. I do the same thing with my jewellery designers in making sure that they have enough there. Once they have exhausted all of those things, I often times do a grid with the designers I work with and put shape across the top and story along the side and you want to fill in all the boxes. It’s actually quite fun and pretty straightforward. To go through that process of making sure they’ve really fleshed out a story that they may have been satisfied with and really pull out a few more pieces, because you never know what is lying behind a little bit of extra work in a story.
Dion: As Sasha said, even with our collections, our runway collection is a very small part of that. I think being an Australian designer, our Australian audience is quite different to our international audience and I think it’s something that as a business we’re still very much working out how you support both, because it is really important that your ideas are getting the editorial but at the same time it’s really important that the commercial ideas are being supported.
I think it’s much broader here, so I think that comes from the market being smaller at the top end, so it means that our commercial product needs to have a lower entry price. There is more of a focus on lifestyle so we have a second line – Dion Lee Line II, which really helps build out the scope of the brand, that if we were just really presenting the runway collections that wouldn’t allow. We have three retail stores now in Australia and that’s had a big impact on how we shape collections and really put the customers feedback into the following seasons.
I think with the runway – or the iceberg – it doesn’t need to be as led by that, but the rest of the collection really, really does. It’s about using information, as much data as you can kind of get your hands on, to really understand who your customer is and make sure your able to grow the options for her on a seasonal basis.
Sasha: Net-A-Porter, the company I work for, buy more of the editorial and the runway than your average store I would think – it just happens to be our business model. We get to have a lot of fun with it and support that product, that tip of the iceberg that may not be bought as much by many retailers. So my experience, in the relationship, is probably a bit more skewed to the editorial and making sure we cover that as well, but from a commercial standpoint in making sure that I can grow the actual business that I’m giving to the designer.
I just had this experience with the Ellery team – there was a gorgeous, very thick Italian wool trench coat in the showroom and I was like, “oh it’s amazing, I love this one”. She was like, “oh it’s $5000” and I was like, “excuse me?” and before I could say where’s the commercial option she was like, “here’s the commercial option”.
So that consideration is very important. It doesn’t mean that you need a commercial option for everything, but if you want it to get love from the customer, you want to make sure that someone who’s not at the very tip of the iceberg – and they exist, so keep producing them, but if you want to have more volume and trust from the buying side, consider that; the commercial little sibling to the hero piece and this is the jargon that I generally use in show rooms.
Dion: I mean the interesting point in regards to that idea of commercial vs. creative...I really believe that they should be really integrated. I think it’s really challenging to design commercial clothes and I know that when I was starting out, it was really about clothes that we were really creative, but that were still relevant and that were still commercial. I think that that’s the challenge for any designer is in that situation is to design something that’s amazing and creative but that some people still really want to wear. I think that’s the way to really overcome that and yeah, still be relevant to your customer but excite them at the same time.
Sasha: We are a particularly runway led company, we generally like 70 per cent of the season in pre-collection and that’s with us being a runway brand, a runway retailer, so it’s hugely important to give all your attention and love to runway, to the pre-collection because that is how you’re going to run your business.
There’s more time on the sales floor of the product – hugely important. The product is generally less risky and expensive from a production standpoint with embellishment to be doing or things like this. You can have the breadth of commercial options there because that’s where the customer is coming into the shop or online throughout the season looking for that simple black pair of pants, for example. But once the runway deliveries start coming in, they’ve ticked that box, so it’s very important, hugely important to have a very meaty pre-collection and as a benchmark I would say 70/30 (per cent) between the deliveries of the season.
Dion: There was a period where we were kind of transitioning, but we’re very much in the northern hemisphere seasons now. I mean, the only season that I have a real problem with is the international fall/winter, which is our domestic spring/summer. That’s always the one that’s more challenging and consequently it just becomes a bigger collection, because you need options that are really relevant to both hemispheres. Resort works internationally, perfectly, it’s kind of the best season for crossover and then pre-fall works, the timing of that is great, it drops May/June which is when it’s cold in Australia so that really works as well. And then the international spring/summer ends up becoming a light Australian autumn/winter.
We often add in a coat or a piece, but I think the heavier pieces, the knitwear, the coating is better positioned in pre-fall because it’s dropping earlier on for our climate. I think there’s advantages to Australia being not too...we don’t have super cold winters, so I think there’s an advantage there. I think every collection should be approached with the concept of transseasonlity. Especially with so many online retailers, it’s really broken down the barriers of ‘a season is a season.’
I think there’s still the perception of seasons, which are really important and you really notice that in the northern hemisphere how it drives change – out with the old and in with the new each season and sometimes I think that’s a bit of a disadvantage in Australia, we don’t have that, “Oh my god, it’s really cold I need to buy this.” It’s kind of rolling and our seasons blend together a little bit more.
Sasha: I can’t emphasise enough how much I agree with Dion. As a buyer I would never think that the collection is ‘oversorted’. If you have wear now and wear later, you’re making a consideration for both hemispheres and in my time here last year, that’s what I noticed most of all and I’ve seen an improvement which is wonderful.
In just having conversations, I mean we did it in Dion’s showroom, we were talking about a puffer coat. I’m from LA and they would wear that in LA because that would be their 50 degree weather coat. But I said well, by all means put that in the cruise collection because northern hemisphere...I’m always asking brands for more ‘wear now’ moments and pre-spring, resort, it’s going to live on the floor until it goes on sale in summertime, so most designers think, “okay that’s spring, let’s get lightweight fabric.”
It’s shipping in October, it’s just getting cold, so my entire company has really been pushing for the ‘wear now’ factor to be offered as well. It’s up to us to figure out how much of it we should buy but we want to be able to buy the product which means you have to offer the product. So a puffer coat like that, I wouldn’t be concerned if I saw it in a cruise delivery because I would know that we’re thinking the same thing – and that’s even just within one climate consideration. You have the added advantage of having multiple hemispheres to consider so that will be pushing you to do the work as well.
Dion: Yeah, it’s always winter somewhere, it’s always summer somewhere.
Sasha: I would also say as feedback to some Australian designers – keep an edit on the runway. I trust you’ve got the commercial there, I don’t want to see it on the runway, I want to see that tip of the iceberg. So I know there’s a lot of monobrand retail here which is great because that pushes brands to think about what we’ve been discussing today, but if you’re doing a runway, keep it concise, keep it one vision, and you absolutely do it Dion, Michael Lo Sordo did a perfect job of it. He just had one vision that was quite clean and really quite emotional and yeah, that would be my feedback