TIME TRAVELING The latest trends from Baselworld watch fair. Page 8 <strong>WWD</strong> xxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxx xx, 2011 00 March 31, 2011 Joseph Abboud and Doug Williams Jeremy Langmead and Natalie Massenet Robert Hanson David Granger The New Man Over 200 decision makers converged at the Fairchild Fashion Group Men’s Wear Industry CEO Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York to address the central issues shaping the industry’s future. Innovations in e-<strong>com</strong>merce and digital media, product development, branding, retail trends and mergers and acquisitions were some of the key topics explored in 16 presentations. In-depth coverage of the conference begins on page 4. Will Swillie PHOTOS BY THOMAS IANNACCONE Austin Lally Umberto Angeloni Matthew Willcox Josh Rosen
4 <strong>WWD</strong> thursday, march 31, 2011 Men’s Week Reinventing HMX by JEAN E. PALMIERI ThE sEA of sleeves in traditional tailored clothing departments is a yawn and needs to be revamped to appeal to today’s shopper. “We need to make tailored clothing departments more interesting,” said Joseph Abboud, president and chief creative officer of the hMX Group. “Men are the new women,” and are now more interested than ever in looking good. This presents an opportunity for the men’s wear industry, but only if they’re prepared to “shake things up,” he said. That’s exactly what he did to the product offerings at the former hartmarx Corp. when he came on board at the beginning of 2010. “We’re breaking the rules in a sexy, intelligent and masculine way.” Abboud and Doug Williams, chief executive officer of hMX, were the opening speakers at the Men’s Wear Industry CEo summit at the Mandarin oriental hotel in New York on Tuesday. They told the tale of how they rebuilt the shattered shell of the hartmarx business after being brought in by the <strong>com</strong>pany’s new majority owners, s. Kumars Nationwide Ltd. (sKNL), a publicly held Indian <strong>com</strong>pany. When Williams walked into the <strong>com</strong>pany in september of 2009, he found that there were fewer than $20 million in orders in hand. Retailers had walked away from the business because they were not convinced that the <strong>com</strong>pany could deliver because of its financial problems and subsequent bankruptcy filing. At the same time, the design of the labels had suffered and the “product did not have relevance to consumers,” he said. his first order of business was to convince retailers that the newly formed hMX, which had acquired only the assets of the business, would deliver on time. he also worked to lift the spirits of employees, who were terrified they would lose their jobs. Williams, who was raised on a farm in south Dakota, said most of the employees were like prairie dogs, hiding in their holes and expecting the worst. “We encouraged them to <strong>com</strong>e out,” he said. he quickly evaluated the product and realized that a major revamp was in order. Realizing that his strength is as “a business engineer” and not a merchant, he searched the market for “the best talent” and hired Abboud. Both Williams and Abboud had cut their teeth at Polo Ralph Lauren and learned firsthand about how to “build great product and execute it. That philosophy was drilled into us by Ralph Lauren himself,” Williams said. Both men believe that brands “have to have consistent DNA” in order to make a statement to retailers and on the Fairchild’s Men’s W “There’s nothing that we make that anyone has to buy.” — dOug WilliaMS, HMX sales floors. Williams likened it to “establishing goal posts,” where the <strong>com</strong>pany would use the past for inspiration but strive to create a modern offering. The jewels in the hMX crown include hart schaffner Marx, which is 120 years old, hickey freeman, which is 100, and Coppley, a Canadian label with 107 years of history. But despite their longevity, Williams said, the brands “had no relevance.” This represented “a great opportunity and challenge,” Abboud said. one of the firm’s strengths that could be exploited, they said, was the fact that their tailored clothing was produced Joseph Abboud and Doug Williams in <strong>com</strong>pany-owned factories in the U.s. and Canada. “As a an American designer,” Abboud said, it’s invaluable to be able to produce a quality garment in the U.s. Today, hMX makes more than 500,000 suits at its facilities, which retail from $795 to $3,000. But the design needed a major overhaul. “The first thing I saw was that the silhouette and fabrics looked backward,” he said. “That’s not where the market should go. We should take the lead. We needed creative discipline.” And so he created a leaner silhouette, softened up the construction of the suits, turned to more relevant fabrics and added <strong>com</strong>plementary casualwear offerings by creating “a bridge from tailored clothing to sportswear.” he said he sometimes pushed the envelope, offering nine different madras patterns instead of just three, for example, but the depth of the collection provided retailers with more options and showed the <strong>com</strong>pany’s <strong>com</strong>mitment to product. Abboud also created distinct collections for different seasons. “The thought of seasonal collections is so important in men’s wear,” he said. “Why take the options away from our customers.” Moves like this show that hMX is “not burdened down by the way things used to be,” Abboud said. he has the full support of Williams. “Too often the business side says to consolidate, and that stymies the creative process,” he said. Abboud added: “Creativity drives profit.” To help drive that profit, Williams turned to the back office to search for savings. shortly after joining, he closed the <strong>com</strong>pany’s “dusty” headquarters in Chicago and consolidated the five New York City offices under one roof on 42nd street. With everyone in one place, he then set out to “establish a culture of excellence.” Williams visited all of the <strong>com</strong>pany’s 1,700 employees and assured them that the new management team was <strong>com</strong>mitted to keeping the <strong>com</strong>pany in business. With the employees now firmly in his corner and Abboud in charge of the product, hMX was on solid footing once again. “There’s nothing that we make that anyone has to buy,” Williams said. “so we have to evoke emotion and make people want to be part of the club we have.” Responding to questions from the audience, Williams said that although hickey freeman operates four stores, these are viewed mainly as “laboratories” to test new offerings and should not be viewed as <strong>com</strong>petitors to the <strong>com</strong>pany’s retail accounts. And asked about the Palm Beach label, which also has a rich history, Williams said the <strong>com</strong>pany shut it down but plans to reintroduce it as a luxury collection focusing on its strength in such staples as seersucker and khaki. “It’s a great name and a global opportunity,” Abboud said. Josh Rosen Saturdays Surf Carves Stylish Niche in Surf Retailing by DAvID LIPKE oPENING A sMALL surf shop on a cobblestoned street in New York’s soho neighborhood in the midst of a recession may not sound like the most sure-fire business proposition. But since its debut on Crosby street in 2009, saturdays surf has created a stylish niche for itself in an industry dominated by big players like Quiksilver, Billabong and vol<strong>com</strong>. “It’s a weird thing, I admit it,” said Josh Rosen, who opened the shop with partners Morgan Collett and Colin Tunstall following a stint as a showroom rep for brands like Nudie and J. Lindeberg. “But we thought there was this missing piece of the puzzle in the surf industry. We live and we breathe surfing, spend countless hours going back and forth between the city and the beach, and we didn’t have a surf shop that we could call home. We also didn’t wear surf apparel brands — we identified more with New York brands, with a more modern feel.” The shop sells surf boards and gear, wet suits from Patagonia and accessories from Dakine, as well as fashion items like Levi’s vintage Clothing jeans and Gitman shirts. There’s a saturdays surf line that started with T-shirts but has expanded to woven shirts, chinos, shorts, sweatshirts, pullovers and outerwear — as well as collaborations with <strong>com</strong>panies like bag maker Porter and grooming brand Baxter of California. After opening the brick-and-motor shop, Rosen and his partners leveraged the Internet and social media to build the business beyond those four walls. The <strong>com</strong>pany operates a blog, facebook page, Twitter account, videos on YouTube and a just-launched e-<strong>com</strong>merce site to burnish the brand and grow sales. one video of Collett making his way to Rockaway Beach from the shop, via skateboard and subway, has garnered more than 400,000 views. “It can be deceiving when you walk into our shop on a rainy Monday morning and there’s nobody in the store,” said Rosen. “It’s what you don’t see, it’s what’s in the back — on the blog and Web site — that’s really allowing us to take this business to the next level.” The foundation for the business, however, remains the original soho store, stressed Rosen. “None of this would have <strong>com</strong>e if it weren’t for the shop. The Web would not be successful without the store. People have to <strong>com</strong>e in and touch and feel. A lot of the original content for the Web <strong>com</strong>es out of the store,” he explained. The store has be<strong>com</strong>e a hub for surf fans and hipsters in general to congregate and hang out, thanks to a coffee bar and a backyard that are part of the space. “The coffee shop in front is a way to invite people into our world. We have people who <strong>com</strong>e in the middle of the day and we see them until we close,” related Rosen. Up next for the <strong>com</strong>pany is its first shopin-shop, which will open in two weeks inside the Adam and Rope department store in Tokyo. “Japan makes sense because they love culture and New York,” said Rosen, adding another pop-up shop will likely open on Long Island when the AsP World Tour <strong>com</strong>es to Long Beach in september. photos by thomas iannaccone
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