In Fashion Part 28

"At one point, Ed [Filipowski, who together with Julie are the fashion firm's partners] asked me what was wrong. I told him that I loved the company, but I hated what I was doing. Ed and Julie had made a huge investment in me in terms of salary and compensation, and I said that I was probably not returning their investment in my production capacity."

ESSAY a.s.sIGNMENT: "WHAT I LIKE ABOUT PR"

"Ed and Julie made me write an essay about what I like about PR. Then they sat me down and told me I'd be the first person who has ever gone from production to PR in the history of KCD and that they were putting me on Versace."

THE NEXT 6.5 YEARS.

"I got the marquee account. It was daunting and terrifying and amazing. I worked on Versace for three years as the North American press representative for all things Versace-women's, men's accessories. I even got to work at the Couture in Paris-it was amazing."

VERSACE (ANON).

"No one could be less Versace than me. It was so far from what I was. But I believed in it. It was an amazing vision. Donatella is a tremendously generous woman, and no matter what was going on at the time, she made a point to be friendly and kind to me. It was a challenging time for her and the company, but when you believe in something, it is easy to work hard."

KCD = FASHION GRAD SCHOOL.

"If I equate my time at Isaac with 'fashion college,' then my time at KCD was my master's. It was the first time I realized that fashion PR was more than just sending the samples out to shoots. It was about writing strategies and thinking proactively, planning events with a seamless flow-we excelled at putting together the right invitation list, making sure that events had prepress and postpress.

"Ed and Julie made sure everything went well. Yes, we were wearing all KCD black, hustling, doing all of the KCD procedures. But in the end, Ed gave me tremendous freedom. Once I got my feet solid, he would let me run with it. He trusted me to figure it out. But both of them taught me so much about details that I still carry with me today."

MICHAEL KORS.

"I got a call to come in to interview to be the vice president of global communications for Michael Kors-and I freaked. I had always admired Michael's designs and his take on 'American sportswear.' He was funny and smart and a no-nonsense guy. Similarly, the clothes were chic and to the point. Never fussy, silly, or extraneous.

"Michael is a very intense, driven man. He works very hard and expects those around him to work just as hard. I have always thought I was hard working, but I have never worked as hard as I worked for Michael. I worked there four years and the brand tripled in size."

MOVE TO BOTTEGA VENETA.

"The universe gave me a push. I'd worked with Tomas (Bottega designer Tomas Maier) on a show when I was at KCD. It was a role that evolved once I became available. The Gucci Group is very focused and strategic. It's daunting learning a new corporate language and dealing with luxury in this world."

BILLY DALEY'S DAILY BIG DEAL The crises never stopped crossing Billy's desk. One blow-up involved a Michael Kors sheath dress that had been made for Mich.e.l.le Obama, but was incorrectly identified as Azzedine Alaia because Ikram Goldman, the Chicago-based store owner who acts as the gatekeeper to Mich.e.l.le Obama's closet had so dramatically altered the silhouette of the dress, that it was mistakenly credited to Alaia by the White House press secretary.

PR BFF "I don't confuse being the PR person with being the designer's or the CEO's BFF. He's my boss. I report to him. Sometimes I can do Dean Martin to his Jerry Lewis when we're with editors-he tells the best stories. I set them up for him. But it's a business relationship. I never forget that."

BILLY'S RULES OF FASHION PR "PR is not hard. It is about common sense and being a decent person. Most of all it's about cultivating relationships and maintaining them. Don't bulls.h.i.t. Call people back. Be direct. Write a good thank-you note."

SWANS VERSUS BEES.

In hiring PR people, "Designers usually want a look, and I want someone with pa.s.sion. Someone who needs to read WWD every day. Someone who will pick up the phone and call editors to resolve an issue instead of waiting for an e-mail to come in. It's hard to find the right people. There are people who are all about task completion, and there are people who can do PR while thinking about 'what can drive the business.' I have never been above doing grunt work-I even still pack samples and clean up the showroom if need be. My team needs to be able to 'get dirty' because there aren't enough staff for people to be sitting at the desks waiting for the menial tasks to get done."

MANTRA.

"Keep moving forward. Grin and smile."

WORST TRAIT.

"Sometimes I have a terrible temper. When I have an outburst, I flog myself the minute it's over. It's like there is a surveillance video on loop in my mind that plays it over and over. I see for myself that I was an idiot. I always take the time to acknowledge the outburst and apologize because it's my mistake. Then I address the issue and try to explain the reason for the outburst."

FASHION PR.

"I love what I do. I can't imagine what else I would do. But talking about dresses does not define me."

FAST-TRACK KIDS.

"They work for a year and want to be a PR director. They don't understand the concept 'You are not ready.' It's this att.i.tude: 'Can you believe? She's like twenty-eight, and she's still a PR manager?' At twenty-four, I wasn't paid, got coffee, and worked eight to eight. I still work eight to eight. They [interns and a.s.sistants] want to come to meetings with Michael before they know what collate means."

BILLY'S SECRET WEAPON "I got in this habit of getting to work early, on average between 7:45 and 8 a.m. It started because I lived on the Upper East Side and I didn't like to deal with the crowded 6 train at 9 a.m. So I'd have my coffee at my desk-literally waking up there-read all the papers, return faxes, use the free 800 number long-distance line to call my mother. That habit has stuck with me. It's something that has helped me. I can get focused and map out my day.

"Once it's 9:20 a.m., the phone goes, the e-mails come in fast and furious, and it's a full-on chaotic day. But from 8 a.m. until 9:15, it's for me-not for anyone else."

HOW CAN YOU READ EVERYTHING?.

"You learn how to skim. I read or skim WWD, the Times, the Post, and Daily News every day and a bunch of fashion news websites and blogs."

SHOULD KIDS STUDY PR OR COMMUNICATIONS IN COLLEGE?.

"That's more of a giant agency thing. When you're inhouse PR, you don't send a release for a shoe. We send the shoe."

PR INTERNS.

"Doing editorial sample pulls and schlepping bags is part of the job. Some PR kids don't get that it's not a good idea to send a dress to a magazine on a wire dry-cleaning hanger. And that there should be a working zipper and no stains. They don't know to use a Kors flocked hanger, a clean garment bag, and a label. It's all about how the magazines perceive the garment-if it is sent with care and presented beautifully, then it will be treated with the same respect (hopefully). But if we send things out haphazardly, we send the message that we do not value this dress."

JOB SATISFACTION.

"When people say thank you. I don't need an Hermes coin purse or Miho flowers. A simple thank-you. Because people rarely take the time to look back and reflect. And when someone does take the time to acknowledge, it is very, very nice.

"Knowing that a bag sold really well because of a magazine credit puts the process into a business perspective. We see Michael Kors as the next great American brand, so we need to make sure that every press effort achieves a specific purpose, whether it be a branding opportunity or a sales opportunity. Or hopefully it will be both."

SITTING AT THE MONKEY BAR WITH SIMON AND YASMIN LE BON, JESSICA ALBA, AND BLAKE LIVELY.

"Yeah, that kind of stuff is fun. A random surprise and wacky bonus, but I never forget that it's work. These celebrities are not 'friends'-they are business a.s.sociates, and creating good relationships with them clearly helps, but one needs to keep it all in perspective."

PR : EXPENSE, NOT REVENUE.

"The way PR is viewed is that we spend money and don't make money. It's a hard job because whatever you do-a spread in Vogue, Mich.e.l.le Obama's and Cameron Diaz's wearing Kors-it's never enough and it's never over. One is only as good as his or her last hit, so it's a cycle, and it gets daunting and tiring. But being driven and pa.s.sionate will help you get through the tough times."

"BILLY DALEY IS A GOOD PR"

"When I heard through a friend that Anna Wintour had said something complimentary about me, I was on a high for about an hour. Then I moved on because praise is nice and in PR your reputation means a lot, but the work you do means more."

EGO CHECK.

"In an Irish Catholic family, you're not allowed to have an ego. When I call my mom and tell her how tired I am or how much I had to travel, she teases me, saying, 'Poor you, going to fashion shows, poor you, partying late with Tom Brady and Giselle. That must be very hard.'

"To my face, they seem to be not impressed, but I know my dad revels in the fact that I came here on my own and figured it out. My dad's never had to get me a job. But he knows what I am doing and pays attention. He will even say, 'I saw that girl in that dress-what's up with that?' But the translation of that is more like, 'I saw your work in the press and it was good.'"

BILLY DALEY PR?.

"Start my own agency? No. I quite like knowing that there is a 401(k) and that the copier will be fixed without my intervention. I like getting up and going someplace. I like working on one brand and all of the things that go on with that. To be honest I am not sure I have the business ac.u.men to do it, and I don't like the idea of going out to hustle clients. I think when I am done, I will open up a wine bar or a flower shop, or, who knows, I'll be sixty-five, still be stressing about not having enough front-row seats at a fashion show."

WEEKEND DETOX.

"I can't talk about dresses, credits, or Prada over the weekend. I like to check out for a bit and try to carve out a balance. Sure, I might have a stack of magazines to read or I'll stop by new stores who are carrying our line. I don't need to go to the SoHo House or the 'hot' new restaurant on Friday night drinking martinis with the fashion pack. My ideal night? A great dinner with good wine and good friends-and if it happens on my patio, even better."

The Business of Color

Those deep purple tulips catching your eye? They don't just happen to grow that way. There's a clever botanist in a Dutch lab who developed this shade with the knowledge that it is the precise hue that will send positively powerful stimuli to your early-twenty-first-century brain at this precise season, encouraging you to admire them.

Similarly, there are branded fashion shades that unfailingly trigger a great warm rush of happiness: Tiffany blue telegraphs great gifts! Chanel black and white telegraphs chic; Fendi yellow signals Lagerfeld via Rome and all the combustible exuberance inherent in that combo; Hermes orange communicates a stratospherically high level of luxury, above all other brands. These colors didn't just happen either. Clever business people long ago settled on these specific hues to help symbolize and trigger instant recognition of their brands. Valentino red does the same. "Owning" one's own standard shade that withstands the pa.s.sage of time is a rare and lofty achievement.

Everywhere you look, colors are being selected for you. Ask a graphic designer friend or an art teacher to show you the Pantone book, which is composed of the endless number of standardized Pantone colors. The book consists of small "pages" that are perforated so that a square sample of each individual color may be torn out as a "chip" for easy reference or attached to a visual to use as a guide in production, color correction, and printing. Flip through it and notice which colors have the most little color squares missing from its pages. You are holding a record of the story of color in life and in fashion. You are also holding the last physical remnant of designing pages by hand, precomputer era.

CODE NAME "PINK PURSE"

It's the outrageous, courageous color chosen for ads and media imagery, but the producer and agency know full well that they will not sell a lot of them. Regardless if it's orange, purple, or chartreuse, color specialists call the image color the pink purse.

Like fashion itself, color doesn't stand still. Individual shades travel through complicated phases. A "new" color emerges, call it apple green. At first, it feels foreign and weird, then, in time, your eye adjusts, and you identify this color with things edgy and cool. As more time pa.s.ses, this green is accepted as "in fashion," and you eagerly pay full price for a J. Crew apple green spring raincoat. Within two or three years, however, you lose the positive a.s.sociation with this once "hot" green. Pushed farther and farther to the back of your closet, the raincoat begins to feel more "gag me" than "buy me." When your little sister tries to borrow it, you disown all responsibility, sneering: "You're not going out in that perky green, are you? You'll look like a leek!"

Color is a compelling, defining force in our lives. To be in fashion, you have to understand color and feel intrigued by its possibilities. Fashionistas get that there's a color strategy behind the vibrant violet-blue Ralph Lauren uses in this fall's cabled cashmere jumper (maybe he's even named it, something aspirational like "Windsor"). It so inspires you that you save your money to buy the cardigan at full price. You know that Windsor didn't exist last season, and you sense it's the only thing you really need to make you feel this season. In fashion, so to speak.

As with the tulips, there's an equally potent color strategy at work behind the jumper cables your dad picked up at Kmart last winter to stick in your trunk in case your car wouldn't start one winter morning. Not surprisingly, Windsor didn't beat out red and black. Someday, however, it might. If you look at the most successful brands in our orbit-Apple, Target, Volkswagen, IKEA-all of these companies grasp the power and magic of color far better than their compet.i.tors. And Chrysler's new electric GEM car is cleverly trading off Apple's color success: It comes with its own iPod docking station and is actually being produced in the exact shade range of Apple's iPod.

Some forward-thinking experts, including Leslie Harrington, Ph.D., the head of the Color a.s.sociation, believe that there's a bright future for young people in the field of color. "So many professions now are developing specializations. Color has been seen as just part of what designers do. But that's becoming more difficult to do."

In the past, Harrington explains, color was considered to be a purely intuitive decision. Today, however, there is a blending of well-informed "intuition" with actual research and understanding of consumer behavior intermeshed with a company's image, branding goals, and strategies. "When we do color forecasting, we are mining social, political, and global forces. It is becoming so much more complicated out there."

People who do color forecasting independently realize the time and resources it takes. Others, including companies as diverse as Calvin Klein, Inc., large textile mills, and Burton s...o...b..ards commit the resources to join forecasting services like the Color a.s.sociation for the answer.

GETTING IT RIGHT: COLOR CASE STUDIES.

1. BURTON CARES ABOUT COLOR.

This groovy Vermont-based s...o...b..ard maker combs through color forecasts not as an end solution but for inspiration so that they can do the countertrend. Subversive and spot on for their counterculture high-alt.i.tude tribe.

2. APPLE VERSUS IBM.

Apple broke the color taboo in technology. "I have a feeling that they stumbled upon it," muses Harrington. "They realized that the norm was no color. Their whole platform was computers for the home, whereas IBM was office environments. Apple launched the iPod in five colors and probably said to themselves, 'Wow, that worked, let's do it again!' You can tell that worked for them because they went from five to eleven colors." The sad reality is that most companies would've nixed the concept from the start, saying that it would be impossible to manage so many stock-keeping units (SKUs).

3. VW VERSUS HONDA.

When VW reintroduced the Beetle in the United States, they put it in that weird green in the advertising. "They knew they wouldn't sell that green bug. But if you think about the person who does buy a Beetle, he or she has quirkier color sense than most people. Rather than try to appeal to the ma.s.ses, they zoomed in on this audience to the nth degree with the colors and the place to stick a cut flower (more color). Then they were surprised that they did sell some of those green guys too."

Why Business Types Need Color

For designers, color is an intuitive, subconscious element of their work. Something fundamental, yet inseparable from the whole. You, as forward-thinking sellers and future fashion executives, understand that color is a most powerful branding and selling tool; and you will seek to separate it out and build beautiful strategies around it. To bring color to life. But, how best to do this without losing your shirt? Learn from those companies who've done it best (see case studies above) and educate yourself on services that provide color intelligence.

"Color will separate the business winners from the losers," says Leslie Harrington. "It already is. This is about business. This is about compet.i.tive and strategic advantage, reputation, and brand value in the eyes of the consumer. If you get color wrong, you lose."

Forecasting the Shades of Our Lives

"We forecast twenty-four months ahead," explains Leslie Harrington of the Color a.s.sociation, the oldest and most prestigious color-predicting organization on the planet. "The seafoam green in our palette for spring 2013? It was decided in spring 2011."

How Color Is Predicted

"We select a group of designers to make up our fashion committee. They represent a mix of well-known and unknown designers. We also look to balance people who work in designer fashion with those who work in ma.s.s or in more specialized footwear, activewear, and accessories areas to produce a real cross-cut of the marketplace. They bring to the table what they think is going on-usually not something they've already sent to production but what they're working on. Sometimes they all show up with the same electric blue. We try to determine where that is coming from. Other times, they have nothing that matches so we explore the reasons behind that.

"At the same time, we are watching the runway shows. We can track that same electric blue color Nicole Miller used on her runway for fall, then watch as Vogue uses it in its pages. If that does start to happen, we usually build on it going forward. It's always intuitive and very creative. It's the same way many designers work. When there's no action like that with another color in our palette, we also try to understand why."

Why Color Scares Companies