In Fashion Part 26

450 West Fifteenth Street, No. 604, New York City

(212) 590-5100.

Karla Otto, Inc. Clients include Pucci, Marni, Lucien Pellat Finet, Hussein Chalayan Rochas Victor, and Rolf. Offices in New York, Milan, and London.

Via dell'Annunciata 2, 20122 Milan

Telephone 39-02-6556981; fax: 89010179

E-mail

545 West Twenty-fifth Street, New York City

Telephone (212) 2558588

Kevin Krier & a.s.sociates. Long-term production and PR agency with clients like Halston, Hugo Boss, and Ellen Tracy.

84 Wooster Street, Manhattan

Telephone (212) 431-0550

PR Consulting. Company founded and run by the intense Pierre Rougier. Clients include Narciso Rodriguez, Balenciaga, Proenza Schouler, Pierre Hardy, Dries Van Noten, and L'Wren Scott. Offices on Bond Street, in Manhattan, and in Paris.

www.prconsulting.net

Staff USA Inc. Representing (often in both sales and PR) supercool clients like Dsquared, Martin Margiella, and Sophia Kokosalaki.

220 West Nineteenth Street, New York City

Telephone (646) 613-8457

Can You Handle It?

PR gets blamed for everything, including when: The coffee is cold.

The ceiling falls down on editors' heads at your fashion show.

The strawberries aren't fresh.

The flowers had too many colors.

We should've done Charlie Rose.

Madonna didn't show up.

Because Madonna didn't show up, Gwyneth didn't show up either.

You don't win a CFDA award.

Kate Winslet doesn't wear our dress at the Oscars.

Vogue did only one spread on your fall collection.

Vogue spent only twenty minutes previewing the collection.

Anna doesn't show.

Style.com didn't review the show.

Art and Commerce

In life, we understand the natural divide that separates generations-those who understand the new digital world, for example, versus those who don't. In school and in life, we learn about the natural tensions that exist between big inst.i.tutions, like church and state.

In fashion, there is a fundamental tension between the art of fashion-which celebrates creativity, experimentation with new materials, breaking new ground on every front, and even redefining the most basic notions of clothing's form and function-and commerce-the business of making money, selling clothes, and paying your vendors and employees. Whatever your role at a fashion brand, make it your goal to better understand the other side. If you are in finance or accounting or sales, say, try to embrace the alien design side of things, where creating newness endlessly is the mission. If you are on the creative side, open your mind to the dog-eat-dog world of selling to stores. Make a friend in finance. Ask what he or she is doing all day. Bring him or her a cappuccino one morning. It is these kinds of surprising relationships that make life a lot more fun. And, in the end, it is the people who get both the art and commerce of fashion who become its leaders.

TOP FASHION HEADHUNTERS.

Floriane de Saint-Pierre (Paris, Milan), www.fspsa.com Karen Harvey (NYC, London), www.karenharveyconsulting.com Heads!, executive consultancy (Munich, Frankfort, Zurich), www.headsgroup.com Maxine Martens (NYC), www.maxinemartens.com Herbert Mines (NYC), www.herbertmines.com

Q&A with Former Armani COO Roberto Pesaro

Q. On the business side, what are the qualities that separate top business talent in fashion from top talent in other industries? A. "In fashion, there is a unique equilibrium: You must be able to recognize and respect the fact that, in the balance of creativity and business, creativity always trumps. The brand and the creativity applied to the brand by the one person whose name is synonymous with the brand is the brand's essence and, ultimately, its only real a.s.set.

"Even at the risk of losing financial gains, you must be able to accept that the brand and the energy fueling the brand must always be considered the key or dominant side of the equation. Any trade-off, where financial and commercial decisions take precedence over the protection of the integrity of the brand, and you weaken the brand."

In other words, fashion companies are really bad at verbalizing things like mission statements, or the DNA of brands and delineating instances where design should overrule business and vice versa. Things are just understood. Or, intuited. Or not. Trickier yet, these non-articulated basics change with the times. That's why the existence of a living, breathing designer usually makes for the most dynamic and exciting as well as frustrating and inefficient of fashion ent.i.ties.

CAREER GPS.

If you want to be in design, don't start in sales, human resources, public relations, production, or accounting. Those would be dead ends for a designer.

However, if you want to be in sales, it could be very useful to start in another department-design or production-to get the big picture of the brand. Even if PR is not your ultimate goal, it could be a great career.

YO, BOSS: DON'T KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE!

Remember the story of the goose that laid the golden egg? Fashion is a golden egg situation. Just note what often happens when investment companies buy fashion houses, which has been the case at some of the world's most brilliant fashion brands (like Valentino, Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, and Jil Sander). The founding designer exits the company, and a new creative team is put in place, which, by definition, is not as visionary, driven, or powerful. Ironically, the "luxe" and fashion magic that the investment team was so hungry to lap up and parade about is neither appreciated nor understood by them. The new management put in place often does not "get" fashion and tries to "streamline" the process. Brands exposed to linear-thinking, nonbrand believers can live on for decades, but their mojo, cool, value, and mystique are continually, steadily evaporating.

"If business people start making commercial decisions that do not protect the integrity of the brand, you will eventually destroy the brand," continues Pesaro. "With coffee and toothpaste, you do not protect the brand to this degree. In the fashion industry, you have to protect this intangible. In everyday decisions-even at the cost of losing commercial opportunities-you must protect that brand.

"This is also what gives fashion the incredible advantage over nonbranded products. Why can some companies charge hundreds of dollars for a pair of socks or a T-shirt and another company charge only a few dollars for their socks or T-shirt? Fashion companies have this unfair advantage. The brand and the brand personality are really the essential thing distinguishing the brand.

"When Armani purchased up all the shoe companies around Venice, the people who worked at these companies had excellent shoe experience but not brand experience. For them it was a culture shock. They understood product, but not image."

Q. Based on your experience in fashion, do you think people are either born with the "fashion gene" or not? A. "People on the business side of fashion are not necessarily born with a fashion gene. It is just an intellectual understanding of the industry. If you are in any responsible role in the company, you need to understand the economics of fashion. And to be able to adapt your thinking to the fashion industry's brand-centric view of the world."

Q. Is it an a.s.set in fashion to hold a MBA degree? Are more MBAs entering the ranks of fashion management? A. "Being an MBA isn't adding a great advantage. Or, rather, perhaps it's an advantage, but it is not recognized as an advantage. As soon as possible, you must build a CV that shows that you have been with-even for a summer-Chanel, say, or any other large, immediately recognized, global luxury brand."

Unlike other businesses, in fashion you don't get an MBA, go work at McKinsey & Company, then get offered a big job at Prada, D&G, or Hermes. That doesn't happen. The tools you get from an MBA would be useful in the fashion industry if the fashion industry were more developed than it is, insists Pesaro. "The nature of this industry is that it has been more of a crafts enterprise. The fashion industry is somehow behind in many basic areas-in logistics, budgeting, financial controls, in human resources-in all normal areas of modern business."

RUNNING THE STORE: RETAIL ECONOMICS FOR BIG BRANDS.

You've decided that your entree into fashion is retail sales. You're ambitious so you'll use your job at Victoria's Secret to upgrade to Banana Republic, then Max Mara, and, eventually, to Louis Vuitton, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, or Chanel. Then you'll use your cunning and good energy to begin climbing the ladder within that luxury brand in retail management, one of the fastest-growing and most important areas of the fashion business. Understanding a bit about this business, particularly how companies view their stores, will separate you from the pack. Robert Pesaro, former Armani executive, explains: Stores for brands are a tough business, especially given that the people selecting the location and the size of the stores don't typically understand the economics of those decisions. If the brand is wrong about the size of a store, either too big or too small, or are wrong about the city or the neighborhood, its location, if they negotiate a lease that is disproportionately expensive for the sales you will earn in that location-if they make a wrong decision on any of these factors, it will be very, very hard to make money.

So often, the prestige of a location-say, Madison Avenue in New York City, Monte Napoleano in Milan, Sloane Street in London-unfairly overshadows other considerations. Of course, compet.i.tion is tough, and communications in a world where so many brands are fighting for s.p.a.ce in many various media, retail must be done right. And done right the first time.

If a small company opens one store on Madison Avenue and one store on Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris, it'll be killed. Only a big brand with hundreds of stores and a serious infrastructure can compete in these locations. It is easy for a company to become disenchanted with stand-alone retail stores but, in the long term, to be successful, it is a brand's backbone.

Q. Why does it seem from the outside that fashion functions a bit like a high school clique? A. "Fashion is a very incestuous industry. Companies try to steal people from compet.i.tors. People constantly change their jobs within the industry.

"You have to be part of it to move up in it. There is very little outside influence in fashion. It is inward looking, and it is, in fact, a very small world. Management tries to hire people who already have experience in the industry from companies that are respected and possibly in compet.i.tion with their own brand. There is huge value a.s.sociated with already-existing connections. Because of that, the headhunters are working almost exclusively within a closely defined parameter."