In Fashion Part 27

FASHION ADVERTISING.

Major brands often create their own advertising internally to protect their image. The following agencies have thrived partially because they function almost like internal agencies for their key fashion houses: AR New York: Started by ex-Vogue creatives Alex Gonzalez and Raul Martinez, this cool agency counts among its clients Banana Republic, Jimmy Choo, Elie Tahari, and Jones New York (www.arnewyork.com).

Baron & Baron: Founded and creatively managed by the prodigiously talented Fabien Baron, Baron & Baron is longtime home to fashion accounts like Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, and Burberry, as well as Balenciaga, Michael Kors, and Miu Miu (www.baron-baron.com).

Laird+Partners: Trey Laird, formerly in-house creative head for Gap, now oversees that brand's advertising as well as the advertising for Donna Karan, DKNY, Juicy Couture, and Nautica (www.lairdandpartners.com).

Lloyd and Company: Doug Lloyd worked with Tom Ford in the highly successful mid-1990s Gucci renaissance, and retains that brand as a key client. Others include Jil Sander, Yves Saint Laurent, Estee Lauder, and Max Mara (www.lloydandco.com).

Q. How did you get your Armani post? A. "The CEO with whom I had a previous working relationship hired me at Armani. There are a lot of these situations."

Q. What's the most promising fashion career path that a person could follow? A. "Retail management, which is becoming the most important channel in fashion. And only people who have come up the ranks, who understand the discipline, and have run their own stores can eventually succeed. This is an exciting career. For a brand to be good at its own standalone stores is the equivalent of holding one's destiny in one's own hands: You decide what product to sell at what price and to what extent you should sell to outsiders, like department stores."

Q. Why are department stores a "necessary evil" for fashion brands?

A. "Selling clothes and accessories to Saks Fifth Avenue gives young companies the advantages of bigger exposure and distribution. At an established company, however, the opposite might be true since, in a wholesale or franchise setting, you lose control of the situation: People who do not work for the brand are making decisions about how the brand will be presented, whether it is easily found, how customers will be treated, and when is the appropriate time to put the collection on sale, as well as which other brands you will live alongside on the selling floor. You give up creative control. This situation can tip the balance in favor of commercial over the protection of the brand."

Q. Which companies do the best job of balancing the corporate side of the business (structure, finance, revenue flow, profits, guarding of brand image, retail strategy, licensing, and personnel) with the creative side (designing an innovative, newsworthy product, maintaining the quality of the product, injecting excitement into the advertising image, establishing an intriguing consumer dialog, and creating a unique retail vibe)? A. Armani is not bad-even if a dictatorship. At end of the day at Armani, the business decisions privilege the creative side, as it should. The excitement, of course, is all there.

"Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, and Gucci, and most of the successful fashion companies have been successful because they also favor the image side of the brand. It's one of the things that most successful companies do get.

"Beyond the actual collections, there's the panamontata, the image and public voice of a brand-the fashion shows, the actors' wearing the clothes, the exclusive events, the ability to get people to be excited about a brand-that all strong fashion brands understand."

RING THE BELL, RALPH.

You can almost count on one hand the number of publicly traded fashion companies. Prada has long hinted it may do an IPO (initial public offering) and be traded on the stock market. At a public company such as Gucci, Polo Ralph Lauren, or Liz Claiborne (part of the Jones Apparel Group), you will be driven to live more in the short term, with an eye toward quarterly results. The pressure is palpably more relaxed in a private company, where the team is focused more on midterm results.

MONEY SPENT ON IMAGE.

In a licensed business: at least 20 percent of budget.

In your own brand: at least 8 to 10 percent.

Q. Is there a difference in the profile, experience, and education of retail talent versus brand talent? Is switching from side to side accepted and seamless? A. "Retail people hardly ever acquire the complete brand talent or vision. Even if eventually they reach the corporate level. Their mentality is that they are hired guns and they live by commission.

"Brand people are capable of existing in this all-important image and communication arena. Where you don't need to be an MBA but where you need to understand the DNA of the brand."

Getting the Big-Business Picture at a Fashion House

There has long been a struggle between the shoe and bag brands that want to be taken seriously for clothing, and, the reverse, clothing houses who want to create signature bags and shoes. Very few are successful in both because there is a DNA for bags and a separate DNA for clothing. The "perfect" balance, in terms of revenues, would be:

Shoes and handbags: 40 percent

Apparel: 60 percent

The companies that started out in bags or shoes, like Gucci, Ferragamo, Coach, and Prada, have made enormous efforts with only limited success to make it in the world of apparel. Conversely, companies known for their apparel, like Polo Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Armani, Donna Karan, struggle to be known for shoes and bags, where profit margins are higher. Either way, making it on the "other side" isn't easy.

PROFILE.

BILLY DALEY Worldwide Director of Public Relations, Events, and Advertising, Bottega Veneta "You're interviewing Billy?" one fashion editor gushed to me. "He's my best friend. We practically live together." That I heard this line spoken numerous times over the process of writing this book tells me that the fast-talking, fast-thinking, Hollywood-handsome Billy Daley really is the most superb public relations guy everyone says he is. Palling around with fashion editors, knowing what looks they want practically before they actually even describe them, is just one aspect of his hard-to-define, on-the-firing-line job. On a daily basis, he keeps his Italian Gucci Group-owned brand informed of happenings in the fashion, retail, and celebrity worlds. Billy runs the label's PR department that is charged with the responsibility of sending out the appropriate bags, shoes, and dresses to be shot by magazines and newspapers. He also writes the press releases for the label (writing, by the way, is the most essential skill in PR)-usually after he's had his coffee while reading a stack of dailies, but still long before anyone else has shown up for work. Ironic that a guy named Billy Daley lives for the dailies and has read them all before anyone else has shown up for his or her daily day at work.

BACKGROUND.

Born in Boston, raised in Wayland, Ma.s.sachusetts, Billy is the youngest of four children of an investment banker father and a homemaker mother in a traditional Irish Catholic family.

"My childhood dream ranged from being an actor to owning a bar. Fashion as a career never crossed my mind. But when I got to New York, I sort of ran with the idea."

EDUCATION.

Billy attended kindergarten through twelfth grade at the public school in Wayland, after which he had one year of additional studies at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. Afterward, Billy entered Lake Forest College (LFC) in Lake Forest, Illinois, four years later graduating with a double major in French and international relations.

BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE.

"Since I was not an amazing student, my time at Gould was set up so that I would learn to be more prepared for college and be independent. I learned how to do my homework, study, and 'prepare for things.' The school had so many facets beyond education: For the first time in my life I went camping, pressed cider, sheared sheep-a real outdoor moment. I even completed an eight-day winter mountaineering course with Outward Bound. Gould was two miles from Sunday River Ski Resort, so I skied every day after school that winter. It was truly a special school with a very unique approach to learning. Given that I never really excelled at school, it was a great place to learn."

EXTRACURRICULAR FORESTER.

"I did a newspaper column for the college paper. It was called 'In The Know,' and it was about film, fashion, TV, and trends. And I had a radio show. I was a shape shifter."

BILLY, NOT BILL.

"I have always been Billy-my father is 'Big Bill,' and I am 'Little Billy,' yet he is five foot nine, and I am six foot one. When people call me 'Bill,' I correct them right away: I like my Y."

WHAT THE C IN WILLIAM C. DALEY STANDS FOR.

Cushing, as in Cardinal Cushing, who married his parents and baptized his older siblings. "Many fashion folks think I must be related to Babe Cushing of the Cushing Sisters-but, alas, that's not the case. Cardinal Cushing died the year I was born [1970], and my parents wanted to honor him by giving me Cushing as a middle name."

JOINING J. CREW.

The summer after his freshman year at LFC, Billy took a job at the J. Crew store in the Atrium Mall in Chestnut Hill, Ma.s.sachusetts, and he would continue to work there over summers and holidays throughout college.

"I so wanted to work at J. Crew. My mom knew a manager, and that's how I got my job. It was in Loss Prevention, but I was so busy checking myself out in the mirror to see if I had enough layers that I didn't do too much to prevent shoplifting."

MORE J. CREW.

"When I graduated from college, I wasn't recruited by the United Nations, so I went back to J. Crew. I didn't know what else to do. I liked the energy and environment there-though I really didn't love selling clothes."

NEXT STOP, EMPORIO ARMANI ON NEWBURY.

"I waited on this woman at J. Crew, who was wacky and cool, and we got along. She asked me 'Do you like Armani?' I said 'Wow.' She gave me the manager's number at the new Emporio Armani store on Newbury Street, where I wound up getting hired. They kept me on the jeans floor."

FLICKERS OF A FASHION FUTURE.

"A girlfriend asked me if I wanted to move to New York. I came for a weekend and ran into my friend Matthew Hunt. We'd gone to college together. He was working at Isaac Mizrahi. He told me he had liked my column at school and thought it was funny. He told me I should get into fashion."

ARMANI? VERSACE?.

"When I moved to New York, I was naive and thought that Armani would simply transfer me to one of the label's NYC stores. But Armani said I couldn't just expect to get a job there. So I walked up and down Madison Avenue with my resume. I ended up getting a job at the Versace men's shop."

SHOWROOM VOLUNTEER.

"Right before I started at Versace, Matthew asked if I could come down to Isaac Mizrahi's showroom and help stuff envelopes for the show. At the end of the day, Dawn Brown, who was the director of PR, asked me if I could come back the next day."

THIS IS A JOB?.

"Then I find myself backstage at Isaac's show, drinking champagne, calling Shalom and Amber to get in their places for the lineup. Why didn't anyone tell me that this was a job?"

ISAAC INTERNSHIP.

There wasn't a paying job for Billy at Isaac Mizrahi at that point, but he was offered an internship. "I went in on my days off. I cleaned up the showroom, compiled the press books. I was a twenty-four-year-old college grad doing coffee runs and interning for free. I didn't ever think I would be hired, but I was 'gaining experience and paying my dues'-two phrases I heard over and over."

ISAAC'S COFFEE ORDER Billy had it written on a Post-it and repeated to himself: A grande decaf skim latte, no foam, flat lid. "I only got it wrong once."

BILLY'S COFFEE ORDER?

Milk and two Splenda. "The funny thing is I get my own coffee, and always have. If someone gets my coffee now, I buy him or her coffee in exchange. 'I buy-you fly.'"

BILLY'S NUMBERS AT VERSACE "I hated selling clothes. I would do the windows, fix the displays, update press books-ANYTHING but sell the clothes. The manager, Dita, who was Romanian, came over to talk to me. Monday and Tuesday, I'd sold nothing, she reminded me. Wednesday, I was at Isaac's, and so far on Thursday, I'd sold nothing. She wasn't going to fire me, but she wasn't happy. She said, 'Belee, you need to sell something so you can eat and pay rent. A tie? A fragrance?' Two minutes later, Elton John walked in with David Furnish and dropped $30,000 with me. All Dita could say was: 'You are a lucky mother f.u.c.ker.' I went back to fixing the windows. I had made my month's goal in thirty minutes."

IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with a female friend. We slept on twin beds with a tapestry between the beds for privacy. I had less money, but it seems like I went out more, and everything was new and fun. I was still wearing my plaid shirts, baggy khakis, and blucher mocs."

LUNCH.

"After interning for a year, Nina Santisi [Isaac's right-hand person; the producer of Unzipped, the Douglas Keeve doc.u.mentary on Isaac; and longtime vice president of PR] said, 'Hi hon, what are you doing for lunch today?' There was a lot going on. The film. A secondary line. An eyewear launch-Isaac was hot, hot, hot. She offered me the job of PR coordinator."

DELIGHT-MARE.

"I wanted the job, but was projected to make 30 percent more at Versace. Dawn said to me: 'What are you thinking? You need to take this job. You can expense cabs, lunches, maybe some dinners. We'll make it work.' I took the job scared s.h.i.tless that I couldn't handle my bills."

WHAT I LEARNED FROM ISAAC.

"You have to respect the cloth. And that fashion PR is a profession, and a pretty cool one at that."

LOVING IT.

"Oh, my gosh! This was fantastic. I learned about fabrics and about techniques. I learned about organza, gazar, taffeta, cotton pique, soutage. I'd get yelled at for calling things by the wrong terms. It wasn't just a pretty dress anymore-they were clothes-'important' clothes. It was all new and exciting.

"I held showroom appointments with Grace Coddington [creative director at Vogue] and dressed Gillian Anderson from The X Files for the Emmys. I was over the moon with happiness-working twelve hours a day and living for it. My friends in banking were total nine-to-five kinds of workers, and they didn't understand why I worked so long and hard. But I didn't mind-I was all 'Well, you're not going to fashion shows or magazine parties, are you?' At the time I didn't realize what a punk I was for thinking that was what it was all about."

LIVING IT.

"Amy Spindler [the late New York Times fashion critic] gave Isaac a bad review for the first real show I'd worked on [spring 2006], and I fell apart. Dawn Brown told me: 'I can't deal with Isaac crying and you crying.' Dawn is a harda.s.s, but I learned so much from her. Talk about taking your job personally? It was not like I had designed the clothes, but I was that pa.s.sionate. I was living a dream that I never really knew I'd had."

BEING RECRUITED.

"At Isaac, I'd been promoted from PR coordinator to PR manager at the same time I started being scouted by companies like Polo and Prada. After some bad business and the closure of divisions, we all saw the writing was on the wall for Isaac."

GOING TO THE GAP.

Billy was recruited by Gap to be the senior manager of global public relations. "Three weeks into it, I hated it. I had gone from freeform to being 'in a box' at a big corporation. I started in June and started to get antsy in July. I went from pulling for major fashion stories for Vogue and Bazaar to pulling for 'dressed to grill' stories for Family Life magazine."

Billy managed to stick it out at the Gap for ten months before accepting a job with Dolce & Gabbana as the senior manager of special events and celebrity dressing.

FROM CORPORATE TO c.o.c.kOO.

"Dolce sent me to Milan to do the seating for the shows because I knew everyone. But the company was in chaos-there was no president and there was a high turnover in New York. They were overdoing evening gowns and expecting Gwyneth Paltrow to wear a six-inch fur miniskirt. Italians are tough, but this was c.o.c.koo town. At one point I was even doing their trunk shows [a sales or retail function, not PR]."

On the upside, Billy got more direct exposure to working the celebrity side of fashion PR and to doing business in Europe.

GETTING PUSHED OUT = BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

At six feet one inch tall, Billy normally weighs 175 to 180 pounds. Under the stress of an untenable job situation, his weight dropped to 165. "I was miserable. I wanted to jump, but I got pushed. I signed off on something without Milan's authorization and was forced to resign. It was like I had peed on the Christmas dinner table.

"I was out of work for four to five weeks. It was an eternity for me. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me because this is when I learned to appreciate my friends and see my private life as separate from my work life and the PR me."

KCD.

"They asked me to do resort appointments for Chloe, as a freelance project, when Stella McCartney was still there. I was hired a month later. I started working on the production side of the business with Julie Mannion, as the senior manager of production-doing castings, creative direction, planning events, and working backstage at fashion shows in New York, Milan, and Paris. After a while, I'd find myself drifting over to the PR side of things. While I was working on budgets and custom furniture made for a huge event, I found myself jumping in to help people write better press releases.