Transcript - Andrew Jassin
Season 3, Episode 2
Conversation with Andrew Jassin, Founder/Managing Director, Jassin Consulting Group
Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution, a unique podcast that features in-depth conversations with guest experts in omnichannel retailing, with myriad perspectives: technology, consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to current sociopolitical issues and challenges and their implications on fashion retail, as well as opportunities to innovate and rethink retail's future.
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Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both are Assistant Professors in the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design.
Christopher Lacy: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of Retail Revolution podcast. I'm a very excited to introduce our next guest. He is a fashion industry leader, founder, and managing director of the Jassin Consulting Group. Mr. Jassin is celebrating his 27th year owning and operating management consulting firms, providing licensing consulting services and the associated management of intellectual property for brand expansion for both the licensors, licensees and retailers.
He has extensive experience working on M&A transactions and the associated creation of strategic alliances, development and implementation of business strategies. I'm very happy to welcome Mr. Andy Jassin.
Hello, Andy, how are you today?
Andrew Jassin: I'm fine. Good morning. How are you, Chris? I'm very, we're allowing me to be here.
Christopher Lacy: Thank you for saying yes.
Andy, could you tell our listeners about you and really your career trajectory and how you ended up becoming a fashion industry leader.
Andrew Jassin: My story starts a long time ago. When I got out of the army and finished college, I was looking for a career in an industry where I thought that I can use communication skills appropriately. And looked around and somebody introduced me to people in the garment center. And I am going to use that word twice. I hate that word garment center. And I struggled for years to change that word into the apparel industry, which I think we've successfully done.
I took a job as a trainee quote unquote, and that's what things were called in the early 1970s, with a company that was manufacturing apparel, which today would be called private label, but really manufacturing for a wide variety of companies.
And while there for a couple of years, I observed processes from design, manufacturing, sales, and distribution, though the titles of those areas might've been quite different at the time. As probably many young executives of the time, l was recruited quickly within two years, to join another company. And in that company, I took a role of an assistant of sales for part of the country.
And again, I went about my business, learning about the process, how people develop relationships with customers, what customers were wanting. And what was interesting at that time, there were 2,400 department store groups in the country. Some affiliated with larger organizations, like Federated or Allied, or merchantile stores. And each of those groups had core competencies in a specific market, regionally. The country was regionalized and buying patterns and buying habits were quite different.
Within a couple of years, I got recruited again by a company to become a general manager of a women's sportswear company. And this was the beginning of the branded apparel business. This is like 1978 or so. And the major brands in America were Jonathan Logan, and Act Three. And at that time, a young comer, who began a business named Anne Klein. She's probably one of the few early-stage American branded design firms. And while learning my craft, I began to spend more time with the designers and the actual production people, which I found intriguing. Selling was a personality product as well as a physical product that you were able to put in front of somebody and be able to create a sale. But design and production were intriguing. It was more of a science, if there was a science, to the business at the time.
And again, I spent some time learning my craft, spending time with lots of people within this company and eventually got recruited again. And I was recruited by a Donald Fisher who was the owner and chairman of The Gap stores at the time. And he recruited me to be the president of a wholesale division, which The Gap owned. And it happened to be a jeans company. And, though I didn't know anything about jeans other than wearing them, I had a chance to understand the product and the development of jeans. And it was a brand, and the brand was associated with a group of British retail stores, called the Genius Machine. And they had a distribution agreement with Levi Strauss, which was the cornerstone of The Gap business.
Within a very short time, The Gap signed a exclusive license with Ralph Lauren. This was Ralph Lauren's second or third endeavor at licensing. And it became a brand called Ralph Lauren Westernwear and Polo Westernwear. So, it was both men's and women's apparel. Up until then really most of my career had been spent in the women's apparel business and all of a sudden, I'm given the reigns of looking at this opportunity to develop a Ralph Lauren product line. And because Ralph at the time had a very strong presence with Bloomingdale's, especially with the then chairman Marvin Traub; we had a bit of a platform to begin the business.
Like the stock market, everything doesn't go straight up. What happened was the people in charge of production of the Ralph Lauren product, and within the construct of the license with Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren had all the rights to the sizing and the scaling and the oversight. And as it turned out, the garments were very small and they fit a very specific customer.
But that wasn't the intent of The Gap. And what happened was at the end of probably two years into the deal, it wasn't really working out well.
Christopher Lacy: Hmhm.
Andrew Jassin: So, I had to learn about licensing and how to deal with licenses that were going well, and licenses that were not going well. And the end of that story was we sold that license to another company called Biederman Industries.
I got recruited at that moment by Jones apparel group, by who I consider to be all of the great mentors in the fashion business. A man named Sidney Kimmel, who was the chairman of Jones Apparel Group. And I became a divisional president of what was then called a contemporary sportswear business, which we built and ran for a period of about five years. And successfully at that point, sold the company, or flipped the company, to exchange it for another trademark. Once again, in the path to success, I got recruited and was offered an opportunity by a company called Biederman Industries, which was the company that bought the Ralph Lauren womenswear business for a period of time.
And I joined them to take over the realm of possibilities of building the Karl Lagerfeld business. It's a little bit before Karl began working for Chanel. But here again, it's an educational process of learning what exclusivity is, semi-exclusivity, or non-exclusivity. Biederman had thought they had signed an exclusive deal with Karl to produce an apparel product line. And then very much within a period of six months, Karl was hired by Chanel to do the same thing. And whilst all this was going on, he was designing for three or four other companies making different products, Chloe and Fendi, and one or two others. This became an interesting conundrum for me as a now senior director executive in the fashion business with lots of employees that I was responsible for; it was hard to really develop a brand when it was confused.
Is Karl Lagerfeld his own business? Is Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel? Or Fendi? And, as things sometimes work out, we couldn't solve that problem. And obviously the end of the success on that until his demise, unfortunately, recently was Karl became the face of Chanel, revitalizing it, working under his trademark.
When all of this was occurring, I realized I wanted to be more controlled of my life and to make a bigger difference. And to be able to contribute in a way into now the fashion industry. So, one of my mentors was a well known accountant who was Ralph Lauren's accountant. His name was Arnold Cohen, and he was the principal in an accounting firm, named Mahoney Cohen, which serviced probably the creme de la creme of the apparel brands in America and the apparel designers. He happened to be our accountant as well as friend of mine. And he suggested, why don't I start consulting group. Now, at that time when people said they were consultant in the fashion business, it really meant they were between jobs. And sometimes they say it today.
Christopher Lacy: I say that today!
Andrew Jassin: Yeah. So, you know, when I heard the word, why don't you start a consulting practice, the only consulting practices I can think of where companies like McKinsie or Bain. And I certainly wasn't going to be starting the next competitive company for them. A very good friend of mine, a lawyer, at the same moment introduced me to a former president of Bankers Trust, one of the financing groups that handled apparel companies. And he had turned 65 and he was asked to retire by his company. And as if by wizardry, another gentleman who had been a head of production for Phillips van Heusen, reached the ripe old age of 65. And he too was asked to retire. And the three of us got together and we formed a consulting group.
Under the great relationships of our accountant friend and our law friend, we were introduced to three companies who were in need of someone else to talk to. And I think that's part of the consulting world is bringing an extra set of eyes or extra ears to a table with different learned solutions that have practicality. So, by luck, we started our consulting group and immediately we had assignments with three or four, very large apparel companies, one of them being a conglomerate. And the assignments were very varied. One was to look at their licenses and look for opportunities to extend their businesses. Another assignment was to liquidate an old company for the benefit of a bank. A third assignment was to look at an organization and how the individuals worked on a reporting schedule to each other, and how they interfaced. And the last was the sale of a profitable company. And again, as luck would have it, because we were trained to be good business people and now consultants, we were able to succeed in each of those programs. And that was really the birth of my career as a consultant, well over 25 years ago.
And, as things happened, I sold that practice to one of my former partners and then 20 years ago, or so, started Jassin Consulting Group, which is also called Strategic Consulting Alliance. And have had the fortune over the years to be able to meet a lot of smart, well positioned people who helped build my practice.
And there's an anecdotal story. I think I've told it, in the past, about a meeting I had with a legendary woman merchant named Rose Wells, who was passed away a long time ago. She was truly a consultant to Bloomingdale's and a retailer that's no longer around in New York called Orbach's and Wannamakers. She was the quintessential merchant: gray hair, curly, thick glasses, a Chanel jacket, and what we call space shoes, those thick shoes that people used to wear that had bad feet. And the reason she wore them is she walked at about 30 miles an hour from place to place observing things. And she did something for me, which really set my career both as an apparel executive, as well as a consultant. On a business trip with her, she gave me a book. And it was a Moroccan leather book with empty pages. And she wrote a note and said the title of your book, which I've yet to write and I've been writing, is going to be called, "You'll Know It When You See It." I said, what is this about? And I opened up the front of this piece; in the note says, "Dear Andy, you're going to be successful. You will succeed. Your job is to fill up each of these blank pages with something that you observe, something you hear and something you believe. And every now and then go back and refer to it. And that's going to be your Bible of how you begin to work as a consultant in the fashion business."
So, it's a story about Rose Wells. And I think it's a story that works for everybody. Be a good observer, be a good listener, write it down. But, also surround yourself with people that are able to help you make better decisions. And that's what consulting's about.
So, I'm sorry to be a little long winded, but that takes us to where we are. Our practice has several different silos. One of the silos, as in the introduction, is working on branding and licensing and helping people either extend their intellectual property, their brand, or find the brand vis-a-vis a license or joint venture or partnership.
The next cornerstone of our practice is pure consulting. Helping people understand where they are, and to acquire information or acquire relationships with other problem-solvers or help them to fill the quarters in the box, not to think out of the box yet, but thinking in the box. The last silos are mergers and acquisitions or crisis management, which are not that far apart, and helping people solve the day-to-day conundrums of running a business. That's what our practice does.
And over the years we've been blessed to work with some of the greatest and most legendary brands and people in the fashion business from, as I said, Rose Wells and Marvin Traub the former chairman of Bloomingdale's, to Gloria Gelfand, one of the legendary doyennes of the fashion business, was one of my colleagues before she passed away; down to the retailers of today. Not so quite legendary, but important in their own rights.
We've been able to establish a ability to have people focus on their businesses. And what's very important, no matter what they do in the fashion business, and we represent companies in the jewelry industry, obviously the apparel and footwear industries, home goods industries, and accessory industries; other than the technical knowledge of how to run production and distribution and logistics and marketing, there are three things that are common, and most important that they all must deal with today. One is having a great product. That great product, whether it's focused on Walmart and Target or Bergdorf Goodman, is essential because that's the linchpin of why people buy it again. The next, they must have a great story. Whether the story is about great design, sustainability, travel, usefulness, and utility, they must have a great story. Because stories are important today. And more so today than ever before, the last component, is have a great storyteller. Whether the storyteller be a brand ambassador or a blogger or a face that's familiar, it's very important for using whatever tools of social media and marketing to be able to capture customers. Because the only way a brand succeeds is by that brand, who they think the owner is, managing it properly or managing a process or communicating. But really brands are owned by consumers. They make a decision to buy that brand or that product over and over again. And that's exactly what separates a product from a brand. It's the thoughtful process that we experience in connecting consumers to the concept and the execution. So, that's the long winded, but that's, that's where we are.
Christopher Lacy: No, no, I think that's amazing. And there's so much to unpack there and I love that you took us through all those parts.
The first thing I'd want to ask you about that pops into my head is when you talked about licensing; and this is something we really haven't talk too much about on the show.
I was born in 80. And I remember Liz Claiborne being licensed and CK, that was a license. And it felt like there were so many American designers that were licensed. And you didn't really see that with European fashion brands. And maybe you just probably didn't notice it because at that time I was so young. But does it hurt a brand sometimes to do this licensing path, rather than keeping all of your brand image to yourself?
Andrew Jassin: Chris, that's a good question. So, the most important thing about licensing is the consistency of the statement, of the consistency of the imagery, and the consistency of the messaging.
So, companies that are successful in licensing, don't really throw up a flag and tell the consumers it's a license. It should be seamless looking.
Christopher Lacy: Hmm.
Andrew Jassin: There should be a concept and a statement that's seamless for everyone to see. So, the reason that a license even exists is the brand owner, or the brand manager thinks a category could be significant, or somebody that is a potential licensee, would approach that brand and say, I have an idea, the germ of an idea for Liz Clayborne would be to have shoes. Well, Liz Claiborne, wasn't a footwear company. It was an apparel company.
Christopher Lacy: Hmhm.
Andrew Jassin: And because of its relationship with the retail communities in the eighties, in the late seventies, and in the early nineties, Liz Clayborne had a relationship vis-a-vis the retailers. So, if they, as a company would say to the retailer partner, we'd like you to talk to our potential shoe licensee. It would open up at least the dialogue. And hopefully that licensee had their own relationships to be able to build a business.
The purpose of licensing is to extend the business and extend the products. And the reason, in general, a license is even contemplated is because the expertise in those categories is not owned by that company. And they need to find that partner; and a true license is a partnership.
The European designers were far more clever when they did their licensing. And remember, the concept of Europe, the six or seven major markets from Italy to France, to England, to Northern Europe and Germany, are very closely aligned and they didn't rely on department stores quite as much.
Christopher Lacy: Right.
Andrew Jassin: Oftentimes, the licensee really was a partnership where Giorgio Armani's shoe license, which he eventually bought over, was sold in the same sales office that our Armani apparel was sold in. So, the retail buyer would be able to walk into somebody's showroom in Milan or Paris or London and see the whole array of wares. But each of those separate categories was invested in by, and manufactured by, a licensee. Over the years, it became interesting because many of the major licensors, like Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani, as they expanded and became bigger companies, they took in their licensing partnerships, businesses, or bought them and ran them themselves.
On the other hand, Calvin Klein, which is owned by Phillips van Heusen , licenses almost everything out, other than their men's and women's jeans and underwear and swimwear. So, it's a decision that companies make. But again, back to the beginning, it's the clearness of message that a licensor must have that coincides with the licensee. So, usually a licensee pays the license or a fee for marketing, advertising, promotion, and today, social media.
Christopher Lacy: Thank you so much. that takes us perfectly into the next portion of what I'd want to ask you about, because with a licensing agreement, there's also the ability to have someone who's dealing with the production and that part of your supply chain. So, you don't really have to worry about those things.
You recently wrote an article called, "Fashion is Change." And I'm just going to read a portion of what you wrote, because I love what you're saying here. You say, "the relationships between suppliers and retail customers must be rethought. Suppliers must now seek alternatives to the old way of doing business. The existing vendor-to-retail system has been challenging ,often by one-sided conditions set forth by retailers and governance from arbitrary performance rules, which are often punitive to the supply side."
So, that's a powerful statement and being someone in the retail industry for 23 years, I've had that thought a lot.
So, I would love to hear you expand on that a bit more for our listeners, because we do talk about supply chain and retailers and these old systems that we have. How do you think we can reinvent this?
Andrew Jassin: I think part of the reinvention has been through the revolution and evolutionary change to social media where younger brands are being born that are not reliant upon department stores for presenting product to consumers.
At the same time, up until Covid we saw the immediacy of department stores losing relevance to most of the suppliers, primarily because the cost of doing business with department stores, it's heavily weighted against most of the suppliers, meaning that when something doesn't sell, as you suggested, they ask for markdown money, or performance guarantees. And it's hardly possible to know how something should be performing.
You know, I think I said in that article that it's a game of pay to play with little consideration of the costs. Well, obviously, there is a final margin that somebody will make; people are in fashion because they like it, but you also want to make a profit. And what's happened is the rules of how companies did business with department stores were unwritten, but very very much guided by department stores demands. So, at the end of the season, department stores asked for markdown money, or they asked for advertising money, which they never spent. And oftentimes would, I'm going to use the word, badly coerce or blackmail the suppliers; that if they didn't abide by their requests, they may not get orders.
So, I think what we've seen happen is department stores have just gone through monumental revolutions with the closing and bankruptcies of many, and the downsizing of others, that the suppliers are rethinking what they need to do. Having less inventory today is very important. So, what used to happen, a manufacturer would produce in Asia at factories and buy and more than they really needed and wound up closing-out a lot of the product to discount retailers.
I think because of the consideration going on and looking at newer brands, smaller brands more volatile markets. When I say that, I'm talking about dealing with younger consumers who are just making their new brand choices. Selling less is good. Saying, we're out of style or out of stock, it's not unusual to go by certain retailers like Supreme downtown and saying "we're sold out." That's a good thing to say.
Christopher Lacy: Right?
Andrew Jassin: So, we're in a moment of, I think less is more. Selling product will produce better results even though, retailers like TJ Maxx and Burlington and Ross stores are having a wonderful time because of the numbers of units available. And because when they buy something, they don't ask for markdown money. I think we're going to see the change really become fast and furious with smaller companies using all the modern technology and tools to redevelop, redeploy their assets into direct consumer experience, using social media, direct to consumer marketing and, build their businesses that way.
Christopher Lacy: You know, when you said, let's pull back stock, the luxury industry, I think understood this. And then there became this push of beating last year's numbers and, these crazy goals that would get put out to stores. And for the company to hit double digit increases every single year. And before it was about there being this limited supply of product. And so when you sold out, you sold out and that was fine. Then we got into this mindset of that worked last season. Let's buy a double that again, and then let's increase the sales projection by double digits and everyone needs to make it. And so we continually ran at that rate. From your standpoint, and you're seeing it like an owl, right? You get to see every single thing that's happening as a consultant to all these brands. Why do you think we still hold onto these archaic processes of business? and haven't moved towards this different mindset, like you just said, where less really is more. We can do a lot more with less. We can be more nimble, and just more sustainable.
Andrew Jassin: Well, there's a whole bunch of, interesting points that come out of that question, Chris. And I think, let me start with the fact that I think every company that's going to be in business and succeed is rethinking the product, the sourcing, the distribution, and the processes needed for each. as I said in my article, fashion is about change, and there are very few industries which experienced the change needs as fashion. Especially being that we have five seasons a year. We have different loads of presenting. The old way of doing business, think that some companies are struggling as dinosaurs and we'll continue to do that. But if companies haven't moved into the digital space, and have discovered the best way to present and talk to the end consumers, then they'll fail. And it is being redundant because failures not unacceptable if you're putting up assets and time and having employees. So, this is a, re-think of the environment. You said a word that was interesting in the question, sustainability. Sustainability, the green movement, probably is something that is on everyone's mind. More so in millennials minds, and probably gen Z folks and gen Y folks. But will eventually be something that we all have to deal with, you know, primarily because much to date on sustainability is focused upon eco-friendly textiles. But that's really a small piece of what sustainability is about because, It's about the processes that go around sustainability. It's the manufacturing. It's the issues about what happens in the environment when you wash the products and then dye stuffs. And then the final piece of it, I understand from a recent ar ticle I read that we're buying probably 60% more apparel, per individual, today than people bought 20 years ago. But 70% or so of the world's apparel winds up in either flames or landfills.
Christopher Lacy: Hmhm.
Andrew Jassin: So, sustainability is more than just production. It's what happens to the stuff. So, I think all of this goes into the cocktail shaker and you've come out and you want to put the ingredients together and come out with something that, you know what it looks like each time. Well, I think we're working on that as an industry. I think there are a lot of smart folks that on the technology side, and the investment side, that are looking to figure out the end solutions. But one of them is the word "less is more." I think "less is more" is going to be important for companies and how do they get there?
There's an interesting quote from Stella McCartney in, I think it was in an interview she had over the spring. She said, buy less and care more, you know? And I think that's something that people are beginning to embrace if not think about on a consistent basis. So, I think that ties in a little bit of the loose ends of how people are going to deal in the future with the system, the fashion system.
Christopher Lacy: I agree with you. And I think, talked earlier about social media and its importance. And I think we had this uptake of people wanting that moment of being able to look really cool in something that may not have been from the exact designer, but it looks really close to what the designer created, that normally would've cost $2,000 or $1,500, or whatever that looks like. And so, it gave fast fashion this place. And we, did, that and that's what happened. And so you had people buying far more clothing to project an image. And to change their image constantly. And to your point, we will see, I mean, this pivot, you see it happening when we look at secondhand clothing. I'm amazed at the number of young people that are in vintage shops wanting to buy these vintage clothing pieces and cherish what it's about. And so therefore it becomes where we're buying into quality again and not about the quantity of how many different outfits can I wear. It's more about how many different ways can I wear this piece. And I was thinking about Donna, Karen with that, because her whole thing was functional systems of dressing. And using one top and how many different ways could it be used. And things like that. Really well thought out from a designer perspective. And to your point, I think that less is more mentality is really going to have an uptake. And there's an opportunity for brands to really look at how can they use second hand clothing at their benefit?
So for you, what does retail's successful future look like?
Andrew Jassin: I think obviously it's gonna still have the, uh, three stools of: one being the brick and mortar piece. I think people like that experience, but it has to change. And we'll talk about that in a minute. I think obviously the online businesses of developing direct to consumer product to consumer, remains to be the largest growth area. And last is the embracing of different types of bloggers, ambassadors and marketing tools that people use to continuously visit that brand. I think all three are much greater related than people give credit for. I think the brick and mortar piece is essential. But, going back, how many stores does a brand really need in any city?
And I think what happens is we diffused the experience trying to cater to brands for example, in New York and 25 stores of a single brand that was a time in the eighties. We don't need to do that. it costs a lot of money to run most stores. I think social media is by far going to be the key to brands, communicating what they're about to communities of consumers. We'll come back to the word community a minute. Direct to consumer online businesses. It's not a challenge. Each reality, every company that's going to be successful in any consumer product, especially fashion products, must master, must develop, implement strategies to make that business work. And it's not a matter of just putting a product on somebody's website and hoping it sells. It's a matter of cultivating and building a relationship to educate and to deliver something.
We are living in this magic world of Amazon boxes in front of everybody's doorway, you know, somebody goes online, it comes someplace in the next 24 hours. It is amazing. But a lot of fashion companies thought they developed online businesses by using other people's websites. That's okay, but that's not really the way it's going to be in the future. You have to really have your own website. You have to be able to talk about your brand and make that demand consistent. So, I think those are the components of the future. And I think it's really important to be able to do that. You gotta deliver experience, you gotta deliver satisfaction and you got to deliver on time at the right price.
I mentioned the word of a community, a moment to go, and something strikes me that remains to be magic. There are communities of consumers that talk to each other, they talk to about brands. They communicate back and forth. People will extol the virtues or tell you something that they hate. And I think we've seen the birth of brands because of social media that have been remarkable. There's a relatively new brand called Parachute in the home furnishing industry.
Christopher Lacy: I love Parachute.
Andrew Jassin: Which started off online and now there's stores. She did a remarkable job.
Love Shack Fancy, a very interesting segment of the fashion business, became an online business and now it's a brick and mortar business. And we can talk about brands like Supreme the same way. So, having a story to tell and being able to cultivate that story in creating a new experience to a specific community of end-users is really going to be the magic in the box.
Christopher Lacy: Well, I think you hit on something that's great, which is telling a story and community. And it brings me to a word that I think is used just as much as the word sustainability which is a catchall, like people say sustainability and you could ask like, well, what do you mean by sustainability? Like what part? How do you see it?
The other word for that for me is authenticity. And I want to ask you, when you hear it, when you hear the word authentic and you think of a brand, what does that really mean? Especially because you brought up community and I think this is an important conversation to have.
Andrew Jassin: So I think that there are interpretations of how people would see it. But to me authentic means it was conceived by a group or a person that lays claim to the end results. You know, somebody that's done something that's remarkable.
So, Nike and what they did to create, not the designs, or the named athletes, but their technology in the heel of the shoe, the Air product. When I think of companies like Donna, Karen, when she developed a body suit and that was a revolutionary concept and that's how she really started her business from a buy suit.
It was something that was authentic. When I think about the evolution of the men's suit business, Giorgio Armani created a low gorge on the lapel, and that was authentic, or Saint Laurent did a rope shoulder. We think of Theory bringing in women's striped trousers in synthetic fabrics when everyone was thinking of only natural fibers. We think about the jeans industry today, which is using stretch fabrics along with cotton. Those brands that developed something of a concept, to me would be the authentic cornerstones. That's one part of fashion that's easily identifiable because the marketing people have done a good job of talking about that technology and the knowhow.
The other piece is there's also fashion, right. And trend, right. Where people can copy authentic immediately.
Christopher Lacy: Hmm.
Andrew Jassin: In the success of. Zara and the success of H&M, and the successes of retailers that live that world of quick reading, quick turn, like Uniqlo. They are authentic also in the fact that they're able to do what they do, but it's not authentic in the point of invention.
Christopher Lacy: Hmm.
Andrew Jassin: So, we have two different parts of that word, authentic. When I think of companies in certain categories that make a product line that has an end use in outdoor sports. Those are very much authentic companies.
Ralph Lauren is, I think, because he's developed a lifestyle that you walk into the store, you know, where you are immediately.
There's no question, you know, from his glassware to his, his shoes. You know what it is. You know what to expect. You may not like it, but you know what to expect. And that's part of what I think is the authentic story.
Christopher Lacy: That's my favorite part of authenticity, is if I can walk into any place and engage with it any where in the world, and I feel the same emotion. Then I'm like, they got it right. And that, spans across fashion, that's spans across technology stores, whatever it is, if there's that moment that you walk in, you're like they got it right. And they understand who they are and what they're about and how that translates to the employee and the customer. Right?
And I always think about Vans. built in a subculture of skate culture and really creating a full apparel line from sneakers, bridging together this concept of music with skate culture, because that's where its base is. And then saying, well, we're going to do a store, but we're also going to do skate parks because we want people to come together and we want to build this community. When we look at the future of retail people, yes , to your point, absolutely want brick and mortar stores, but they also want the brick and mortar store to be more than it ever was before, because they know where they can go to get the products, but they don't know where they can go to get your branded experience. That can only happen in your space. You wrapping that in the way you did is perfect.
So, my last question for you. Is when you look out at the landscape, and you considering what's going on with COVID-19 and you consider what's happening with civil unrest globally, Is your view of the retail industry a little grim, or are you also optimistic because you see opportunity being birthed in places?
Andrew Jassin: Well, I guess it'd be a little bit schizophrenic I see a little dimly and I see it with bright future. So, let me take the bright part.
Christopher Lacy: Okay.
Andrew Jassin: I I think the convergence of information, media, music, food becomes a casbah and a souk where people can go shopping in the future.
I'm not sure exactly what it's gonna look like, but it's not going to be a three-level mall or a five level store, or six level store, where people have to go upstairs. People hate that people want to go horizontally.
Christopher Lacy: Hmhm.
Andrew Jassin: I think that not withstanding the civil unrest that's going on, and the hopefulness that COVID disappears quickly, is the people will continue to shop and they'll continue to eat and they'll continue to listen to music of their choice and whether they work out in a gym or the state board, or they ride their bike, or their Peloton at home, people want to be entertained. And want experience.
I think retail is going to shift towards an overall, feel good, you can eat, you can hear some music and you can buy this somehow. And maybe it's just, in a horizontal street mall, or maybe it's within a very cleverly designed retailing environment where someone gets that. And there are things like that they do exist, but I think that's what people are going to want to shop.
I think that the need to change is now being forced upon everybody. Evolution is one thing. Revolution is something else. And I think that with the breakdown in the traditional department store and the lack of desire for younger, smarter people to want to sell and risk their money with the unknown, the department store, they get to look for different means of selling that product, describing their product.
I'm at the beach during the summer as a most of us. And I see food trucks. And I now see some trucks selling cool apparel at the beach. Now, if somebody told me 10 years ago, I would want to go to my favorite food truck to have lunch rather than a restaurant. I would have thought they were crazy. But I have my choice of a lobster truck, a delicatessen truck, a taqueria truck, or a seafood truck at the beach. And the food's great.
And if I look down at the other truck, I'm seeing somebody s contemporary jewelry and accessories. Bringing retail to the beach resort. Well, that's going to change. It's going to be something that we embrace.
What I do see on the negative side. And I'm hearing from some of my European retail clients is they're very fearful about reopening their stores in center cities in America, because they're not being protected. And the fear of the unknown for them is that if they have a store, do they risk that store being looted? And who are shopping in those streets today? They're not going to see the traffic and the overhead is just running while nothing is going on. I see that as one of the, gloomy spots of what's going on.
Christopher Lacy: Hmhm.
Andrew Jassin: The other part of it, what we're hearing is that so many of our manufacturing friends are thinking about changing their business model without having a real plan. You know, it's changes now being foisted upon everybody, but they're going to need a plan, someone to write a plan that includes logistics and communication. But the most important thing is how to approach any of these consumer groups that are important. I think retailers have done a better job being wholesalers because wholesalers are more reactionary, but, we're gonna I'd have to figure out how to approach different age groups because there were different stages of their lives. And not every product will appeal to millennials, gen X, Y, or Z. And the overlap in some cases is apparent in some not. There's very little overlap between a boomer and a millennial product. And yet there's quite a lot of overlap between a gen Xer and a boomer, or a gen Zer and a Gen Yer So , I think people are gonna have to be very specific about who they market to and how they market. And I think that's the challenge that we're going to face. And smart companies will succeed and have to invest time and money to really make that work for them.
Christopher Lacy: I think that's going to one of the biggest challenges, because anytime you talk to anyone in the fashion industry, there's always the conversation.
It's always, we want the millennial. Now, it's we want the gen Z. And it's kind of interesting, because to your point, there's a lot of generations out there in the market right now. Always wanting to go for this one particular group when you really could look at the full spectrum and really pinpoint where you fit in it, because you might not actually fit for the gen Z and the gen Y at this point. And maybe like really pivot for the old term "get in where you fit in." Because that's just what makes sense.
Andrew Jassin: You know, it's an interesting story, I'll tell quickly. My son's an architect and he went to University of Miami a long time ago. And my wife and I would go down to South Beach once or twice a month and hang out with him, really to just check up and make sure he's doing okay. And we would go shopping on Washington Street. very interesting telling story, which is really the story of today of segmenting markets is, there was a very cool, what looked like an Army Navy store on Eighth Street down there. And I was in there shopping around, and I'm looking at tee shirts and my son, Eric, is in the front of the store and he comes back with a handful of these, I'm going to say retro looking plaid shirts. And he said, he just discovered this most incredible brand, this new thing that's in the store. And I'm looking at the shirts and they were Van Heusen shirts Heusen shirts one of the oldest brands in America, but wasn't even cool for me at that point to buy them. And they were sort of out of the lexicon of brands that people thought about. But this cool Army Navy type store had bought vintage product. And here it was a young guy at the time discovering a brand that was no longer in my, or even my dad's wardrobe, as a new brand. So, that's how things have to be done. Make somebody discover it. Make it their own. And make it work.
Christopher Lacy: I think we couldn't end this conversation on a better sentence. Andy, our listeners, if they want to hear more about what you're doing. You're out there, you're writing articles. Your company is at the forefront of what's happening in the industry. How can they keep up to date with what's going on.
Andrew Jassin: They can look at our website jassinconsultinggroup.com, or look at LinkedIn. Our website will take you to any of the connectors that we use to talk to consumers. And if they're interested in talking to any of my colleagues, my colleagues are always out there and happy to chat about what's going on. And the more we talk, the more we learn. Right now, we're being educated by younger consumers and how they make choices. So, we'd like to talk to anybody.
Christopher Lacy: Fantastic! Andy, we appreciate your time today. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing, and we hope to talk to you again soon.
Andrew Jassin: Thank you both have a great day. Bye.
Christopher Lacy: You too.
Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible.
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