Leadership In the Fashion Industry

 Leadership in the Fashion Industry

Risk and Reward-I hope this isn’t a eulogy

 

The first course I taught at Baruch a few years ago was entitled “Leadership in the Fashion Industry.” It was a course the administrators dreamed up for the French graduate students they hosted and left me to realize.

I did, probably wasn’t great because I had one day to prepare. Looking back on it now, it seems clear to me that the focus of this course should have been the consequences of the failure to lead in an industry that thrives on stimulating interest rather than protecting survival.

“The Fish Stinks from the Head” was told to me by a former and late COO at Joe Boxer. The company was headed by Nick Graham, who had (and probably still has) an endless flow of ideas that were unusual, impractical and totally captivating. The “licky” boxer was the prime example of this creativity, as it was totally disrespectful and irreverent to the then boring state of the underwear business. And that is precisely why it sold in huge volume, in department stores, and created a label that still exists today.

At that time, Nick continued to innovate and left the practicality up to me—get it done. I did, despite the fact that when I joined the company there were no (as in zero) suppliers. Took a lot of work and travel, but I and my colleagues were motivated by the undeniable fact that people wanted to buy this stuff,  despite the fact that it was different than anything that had come before.

Why? Because at its core, this is what fashion is all about. Risk. The risk whose reward is when the little spark of creativity becomes a raging inferno. No risk, no reward.

The fashion industry, retail and wholesale, has many stories that bear out this fact. The pocket T created by Mickey Drexler at the Gap (I knew Mickey when he was at A&S, and he was never afraid of risk). How bell bottom jeans went from an outlier to a huge business where people couldn’t get enough. The Women’s 501 which my team and I brought to life at Levi Strauss, after more than 100 years of protecting an icon but being pitifully ignorant of the brand equity’s fashion opportunities did, with all due modesty, save that business.

This spark, and the innovators who would create it, are missing from the department store business today. No, I don’t know the merchants and am not passing judgment on any of them—maybe it’s their bosses—but the deep hole that the department store business finds itself in provides indisputable evidence that something interesting, captivating, is missing. The tell is how selling floors are dominated by huge brands (who can afford to be there) and ordinary merchandise that you really don’t need and definitely don’t want. 

They can’t (shouldn’t) compete on price, cannot find the hot item that goes from the T-stand to rounders, so the zero-sum game that fashion has become leaves department stores in nowheresville.

Then, it becomes a survival game, which is increasingly dominated by the real-estate vultures, not the merchants. 

Let me make my point clear: I believe that only merchants who are willing to take risks and have the fashion sense to find what the customer wants and needs, although they may not know it, to satisfy the aspirational, personal gaps in their closet. Not another tee or hoodie. Innovation. Style, fabric, fit, social desires. Without a doubt this will only be possible with the full support of top management who won’t chicken out when shareholders or creditors bark.

Don’t tell me that these desires are gone from present-day retail. Humans have not fundamentally evolved to the point where looking and feeling good is no longer important. Granted, many Americans are too fat for fashion, but nothing stimulates dietary discipline like the possibility of looking “mahvelous.”

In fact, the possibilities are more numerous than a half century ago, in large part because the greedy have helped us F**k up our bodies and our environment. When I was a buyer, we had nothing to save. Now we have a world full of textile waste and harmful plastic product and a retail world where department stores we idealized like Saks and Macy’s are no longer relevant. 

Fabric innovation with cotton, linen or wool, plant-dyed fabrics, style innovation that makes our bodies actually look good in ways that they have not before is more possible than years ago because current fashion is—no way around it—boring. And toxic to the earth in many cases. 

This revival is all possible. It requires a mentality shift on the part of department stores, where the merchants lead the way without fear of the accountants or creditors; where everyone from the top down understands what will and will not save department stores’ future by restoring their place in customers’ minds and hearts. Risk, reward.

More, where is the merchandise that  is different and can’t be returned when the buyer finds out it won’t sell as they expected? In some “marketplace” where good merchandise goes to hide, or somewhere else in the retail sphere. Will it be on Saks or Macy’s floor? If it was, would the department store business be in dire straits?

Are there innovators on current department stores’ staffs? If there are, their work is not apparent. Are risk-takers and unafraid merchants being encouraged? I doubt it. Are there training programs for the next generation that teaches them to be merchants and businesspeople. Judging from the results, most probably not.

The Fish Stinks from the Head. Do you agree? The biggest problem with department stores is  who is looked to for the solution and how much leeway do they have to innovate? More important, are the merchants in charge or are the shareholders and creditors? Risk entails failure, which is never nice until it isn’t, but failure is what is happening now, so what difference does it really make?

Relevance and newness are the keys to success in the fashion business. And we live in a world where the destruction we ourselves have caused demands increased attention and relevance. So the opportunities for relevance and their results are waiting for us.

How will we know if this ever happens? Not from posts or social media. It will be from walking into (physically) department stores and coming away with something we want (not need) and didn’t expect.

As I said in the title, I hope this isn’t a eulogy. When I was very young, my father had a millinery factory, which ended when women stopped wearing hats; when I started in department store retail, they ruled the City. Now they are becoming irrelevant. I hope they won’t go the way of millinery.

This is how I see the present and future of department store retail. People sunk them, and only people will save them. It saddens me as a former department store retailer who actually had fun finding and expanding new and exciting fashion.

Last word- In case you thought I was making this up, here are some graphs from Statista to increase your wonder:

 

 

 

02/01/2026