Thom Browne Continues to Launch Retail – WWD

Thom Browne has big ambitions when it comes to physical retail.

On Friday, the luxury brand will open its 96th store in San Francisco. But this is just the latest in a rollout strategy that sees the company’s brick-and-mortar presence grow to 150 within the next four to five years.

Rodrigo Bazan, CEO of Thom Browne, says these numbers can surprise people who don’t understand the company’s size and scope.

When the Ermenegildo Zegna Group reported its first-half results in late August, it said Thom Browne’s sales rose 30% to €185.8 million, up from €142.5 million last year. Adjusted operating profit increased 13.4% to his 31.5 million euros from 27.8 million euros last year.

“Most people think Thom Browne is a smaller business than it really is, with fewer stores,” says Bazan.

However, this creates more opportunities to increase brand awareness, much of it focused on retail expansion.

Most of the brand’s fleet is in Asia, with the most stores in mainland China, Japan and South Korea, with units in London, Dubai, Milan and Saint-Tropez, and a bespoke atelier in Paris.

Browne is based in New York, but has only six stores in North America, including San Francisco. The company plans to add a store in Boston’s Copley Square by the end of the year, but its own retail presence here is still fairly small.

Ironically, Brown started opening a bespoke shop in New York, raising money out of his own pocket.

Two decades after the brand was founded, it was slow to add other stores until fairly recently.

“If you divide the brand’s 20 years into 10 years, in the first 10 years we would have less than 10 stores, three or four of which were company stores,” Bazan says. “But since joining us in 2016, we’ve grown from 14 to 96, of which 57 are directly operated.”

He said the retail strategy is to test the market first to make sure there is a customer base there before opening a store. , the company said it added five more stores in 18 months.

“There is never a race to open as many stores as possible,” Bazan said.

Instead, the brand has spent the past few years building collections specifically for women and doing what he called his “client ring”: knowing as much as possible about his customers, engaging with them, and understanding their needs.

“We take an almost religious approach to getting customers at this company,” he said.

Knowing your customers can also help inform where to add future retail stores.

“It’s not about being on every potential major street or mall, it’s about being where the customers are,” he explained. “We assess markets and urban areas to ensure they are the right location for our clients. And we open carefully — that is our strength.”

For example, our San Francisco store is located in the historic Yong Building in Jackson Square. Designed in collaboration with Flavio Albanese of ASA Studioalbanee, the 1,250-square-foot space showcases the company’s signature mid-century modern styling, slatted blind-covered windows, fluorescent tube lighting, and white Calcutta and Carrara marble floors. Features a wall. In addition to men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, tailoring and accessories, eyewear and fragrances are also available.

“It’s a beautiful area, similar to Tribeca,” Bazan said, referring to where Brown opened his first New York store. “We don’t spend a lot of time in traditional retail areas, but there are great design stores and restaurants here, and Tom enjoys spending time when he’s in San Francisco. , San Francisco has a very important customer base and this is a way to reach them and serve them from a local store.”

Besides San Francisco, Bazan said he is looking at other cities in California and Chicago as a potential location for other stores in the United States.

Bazan said most stores are relatively small (1,500 to 2,000 square feet, with clean, minimal aesthetics) and easy to do once they’re located. “Once we find a suitable fit with our landlord, we’ll turn things around quickly. Boston he wasn’t even in discussion eight months ago.

“What’s great about Tom’s original concept is that it’s a midcentury-inspired environment, and it doesn’t get old because there’s nothing built into the walls,” he added. is. “Because almost everything is vintage.”

Of the 96 stores, 20% are men’s only, 10% are women’s only, and the rest are dual gender.

Within stores, tailoring, outerwear, knitwear and skirts have historically been the best-selling items, Bazan said. You can choose more choices in store.

Stores also provide an opportunity to showcase brand extensions in categories such as children’s clothing. In some cases, such as Milan and London, this has led the company to split men’s and women’s products into separate retail outlets or develop new merchandising concepts. For the kids’ collection, Braun has figured out a way to display his line of leather trunks in the store that makes the collection stand out without taking up too much space.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Bazan.

He emphasized that wholesale will remain important to the company going forward. “Most of our business is [direct-to-consumer] In the future, I love wholesale,” he said. “We have about 300 doors around the world and it’s a great way to build brand awareness. Every time we open a store it’s an opportunity to grow our wholesale.”

Online will also play a big role in the future of business, he said. When Bazan joined, he set out to expand not only to women but also to direct-to-consumer sales. He first partnered with his Farfetch to test the waters. This has allowed the company to build an omnichannel his business and ship globally. “Our lack of infrastructure has actually been a blessing because we’ve been able to use technology that’s coming fast forward and we’ve been able to partner with other platforms,” ​​he said. Told.

In addition to expanding direct-to-consumer sales online and through retail stores, Bazan said the company’s goal going forward is to double its customer base and sales of women’s clothing. It represents 40% of Braun’s total business.

“We aim to double our business, but not necessarily more stores,” he said. “Women’s is opening up a huge opportunity in North America, and it will be a big part of our business in the future.”