This is an episode of the Glossy Fashion Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the fashion industry. More from the series →
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After 16 years in business, advanced contemporary fashion brand L’Agence is hitting the gas on growth. On top of introducing a Jean Bar retail concept, starting with a new store in L.A., the brand is expanding internationally to Europe and Asia — since early July, it’s opened stores in Paris and Seoul. Category expansion is also a key part of the strategy: In the last three years, L’Agence has launched shoes and swimwear, and it will soon introduce sleepwear, intimate apparel and belts. In addition, building on the success of a recent candle release, the brand will be going deeper into the home category. And a future beauty category, complete with cosmetics and fragrances made in Paris, is in the works.
According to L’Agence founder and chairman Jeff Rudes, customer behavior will determine the timing of the home and beauty category launches.
“She has to be so brand loyal that she’ll pick up the bottle [of perfume] at Saks and say, ‘I’ve got to try this.’ We’re not there yet,” he said. ”We’re very realistic about how to grow the brand. … She has to trust us and vote for what we’re doing. It’s all about timing. We have to get her to love more of what we’re doing, and then we’ll capture her [as a customer in other categories], for sure.”
Also on the podcast, Rudes and L’Agence fashion director Tara Rudes-Dann spoke about their New York Fashion Week plans, the new standards in customer service, and the road to “lifestyle brand.” Highlights from the episode, below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
What’s fueling the company’s ‘exponential growth’
Rudes: “We have about 35% growth over last year. New customer acquisition has made a big impact — the marketing that we added to what we were doing [before] brought in new customers. And we know that when they come on, they’re a year away from starting their brand-loyal quest with us. We added shoes very successfully, and we launched bathing suits, which were a huge success out of the box — we couldn’t believe it ourselves. And we’re adding belts and sleep, and we’re working on intimate apparel. So, we’re building a lifestyle brand — we’re building something that allows our customer to dress themselves from day to night and in all different types of products.”
Traditional marketing for the win
Rudes: “We’ve done about four or five catalogs, to date. It’s a way to deliver an edited, focused product, … but it’s really a selling tool. And why people are responding to it is because it’s like an old magazine. It sits on a table, you can turn the pages, and if you want to deal with it later, you can deal with it later — but there’s a lot of value in it. And we’re surprised by the business that it’s generating. It’s incredible how people are responding to it.”
Reverting to old ways of selling denim
Rudes: “I’ve been looking at the [denim] market for a few years, since we launched denim. In the old jean environment, like at the old Barneys, you walked in and there were tables of jeans. You immersed yourself in denim. You went to the dressing room with three or four pairs. You were there to buy denim. That doesn’t exist anymore, anywhere in the world. … So the whole idea of the Jean Bar is to immerse our customers in jeans. They’re there to try on jeans, and we set up the environment for them. We have a big jean business, and even in our stores, it’s fragmented. At every brand’s store, you’ve got one [pair of jeans] on the left side of the store, and then there are dresses and blazers, and there’s another pair of jeans on the other side of the store. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re selling by fit in the Jean Bar. So when someone says, ‘Oh, the Ruth is my favorite fit,’ we can show them nine choices of the Ruth, and they’re right there in front of them. … It’s all about getting them to the dressing room so they can try the different fits, and it’s really working well.”
Rudes-Dann: “I love the part about educating her also — because there are so many great silhouettes and she may be unfamiliar with them or how they fit on her body type. It’s such a great tool to be able to walk into such a beautiful store and have this experience where she can identify what she loves — and find more of that in different washes and fabrications — and she can find something new that she may never have tried on because she has these stylists who are taking care of her and making sure she walks out feeling her best.”
Rudes: “The most important thing is service.”
