Annas blog feat. Mel E

Apropå skor, så kan jag dels berätta att det är halva priset på alla skorna (som de har framme) på Pjuck på St Eriksgatan (och på systerbutiken Plagg också) och dels att jag i lördags fick två par nya dojjor - också för halva priset på Mazzini på samma gata. Ett par svarta, platta, långspetsiga med remmar och små kricifix hängande i remmarna, Från Ross. Och ett par platta vita boots, ganska spetsiga, från Inxert. (Och så en bikini med paljetter!) En trevlig lördag vid Fridhemsplan, helt enkelt!

Postad av: Mel E den 29 juli, 2003, kl. 16:30:08

En riktig bibliotekarie kunde inte låta bli att hitta den refererade artikeln:

Women of the world go Choo shopping
By Carlos Grande
Financial Times; Jul 29, 2003

When MGMgave the greenlight to Legally Blonde 2, the Reese Witherspoon comedy click-clacking through multiplexes this summer, one doubts it had Robert Bensoussan in mind as its target viewer. Yet the forty-something veteran of corporate buy-outs and restructurings is excited about attending the UK premiere.

This is not entirely due to Ms Witherspoon. And Mr Bensoussan jokes about going to see the picture twice, the second time to follow the plot. For as chief executive officer of Jimmy Choo, the luxury shoe group, his attention will be on the 60 pairs of Choo shoes featured on screen, a promotional stroke that could turn a chick flick into a chic flick.

Product placement does not come much bigger. Unprompted, Mr Bensoussan brings out a US newspaper advertisement for the film. Of all the featured quotes from reviewers, the most prominent is one scribe's claim to have laughed so much she almost parted company with her "Jimmy Choo shoes".

"And that advert went nationwide," he smiles. He agrees he could not buy advertising exposure like that.

For a young company, Jimmy Choo can increasingly claim a brand awareness as sharp as the heels on its trademark party-girl strappy shoes and boots. With a fraction of the sales, product lines or distribution of the luxury powerhouses such as Chanel and or Louis Vuitton, the company is on the cover of glossy magazines and on the feet treading the red carpet on Oscar night.

When Channel 4 begins its new run of Sex and the City on Friday, expect the brand to get its customary share of screen time and name checks. After all, HBO's sex-and-accessories comedy was first to put Jimmy Choo as a luxury yet racy brand into the minds and mouths of young, urban women internationally, most of whom could not afford shoes that start at about £300 ($485) a pair.

The celebrity association has been assiduously cultivated by Tamara Mellon, the group's president, public face and co-designer.

"She was extremely clever in spotting that shoe brands were not targeting Oscar actresses in the same way that clothing or jewellery brands were, and it has been incredibly successful," says Alice Rawsthorn, director of the Design Museum in London.

In the run-up to the awards, Mellon runs a bespoke shoe service for nominees out of a Los Angeles hotel. Having shod Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett in recent years, she says the brand is regarded as a lucky charm.

The brand is not alone in targeting stars and celebrity stylists but it has enjoyed greater success than some. And although it insists it does not pay to place products, the benefits are clearly commercial.

Paul Bainsfair, chairman of advertising agency TBWA\\UK, says: "If you are marketing a brand that is fashion led, and needs to be seen to be a brand of fashion early adopters, it is quite important that you don't advertise in a conventional sense.

"Advertising makes it clear that the brand is available to everyone and that can have a negative effect. At the same time, you want people to know these brands are around. Carefully placed product in films or articles gets round that. If you are reading an interview with Kate Moss, and you read that she sat back and kicked off her Jimmy Choos, you feel like you have discovered that for yourself."

But as any woman who has climbed into a pair of four-inch Choo stilettos knows, staying on top takes careful positioning and balance. In fact, the word "balance" crops up repeatedly in the conversation of Mr Bensoussan who, in November 2001, bought into the company as part of a 50 per cent investment by Equinox Luxury Holdings, a joint venture between Mr Bensoussan and Phoenix Equity Partners, designed to turn Jimmy Choo into a global brand within five years.

To do that successfully, he says, requires a balance between increasing awareness of the product while protecting its luxury status, between ramping up production to meet unsated demand and ensuring it does not lose quality control, and between investing in the celebrity-focused public relations the brand has deployed since its early days and the modest magazine advertising it has ventured into more recently.

Twenty-one months after the Equinox deal - which saw the Malaysian designer exit the business and take a three-year licence to the Jimmy Choo name for his bespoke shoe service - the group is understood to have doubled sales to about £25m a year, despite the downturn hitting many luxury brands.

David Burns, a director of Phoenix, says the market turmoil since September 11 2001 may even have helped. "If we had bought Jimmy Choo four years ago we would have found it difficult to find the same number of sites. There is availability in sites now."

With plans to have 19 stores worldwide by the end of the year, Mr Bensoussan rattles off the schedule of flagship stores in New York, New Jersey, Dubai, Paris "Oh, how could I? I forgot. We're opening in Milan. Selling shoes to Italians is like selling fridges to Eskimos."

But it is next month's opening of a concession in Selfridges, the London department store, that could prove a more significant challenge to the balancing act. In the finely modulated world of luxury brands, an Oxford Street concession is seen as a step towards accessibility. Mr Bensoussan says: "What makes us special is the designs and the image, and also the price. We don't have many shoes for under £300, so that becomes a question of budget as well as availability."

Mr Bensoussan, whose career has taken in fashion brands from Christian Lacroix and Burberry to Joseph and Gianfranco Ferre, says: "Price is always important. We have to keep the price high in order to ensure that the aspiration to own a pair of our shoes can only be fulfilled from time to time, and not constantly ...I admire people like Hermès. They could multiply by 10 the number of bags they sell; but no, you have to wait three years, and pay upfront, and people are willing to do that. And, you know, Chanel has 200 stores worldwide, Dior has 250, Louis Vuitton 350. We have only 18. We are so far behind, we are already more exclusive."

Like all designer houses, Jimmy Choo is looking at brand extensions where fat margins can be made on products that, while still expensive, allow more mod est consumers to buy a piece of the brand. The risk is that in seeking to "democratise" its brand, a luxury group can end up with its name on lower-quality products or ones removed from its main expertise. Shoes and handbags will remain the core Jimmy Choo business, Mr Bensoussan says, but it is considering licensing its brand for sunglasses and "the most expensive" cosmetics linked to legs and foot care. "Licensing is a bad thing, if over-exploited - we don't want to do toilet covers. You have your Givenchy toilet cover, Pierre Cardin toilet cover. They pay big money for those in Japan."

The lucrative Japanese market is indeed an obstacle. High duties imposed on imported shoes mean the sector's biggest names have often relied more on clothing and bags for profits there - and Jimmy Choo's bags have yet to gain the kind of profile its shoes have.

The shoes are made in Italy and designed by Sandra Choi, niece to Jimmy Choo, and Ms Mellon. Although the eponymous Jimmy Choo continues to create couture shoes under the name, the group denies that this is a problem. "Jimmy Choo doesn't wholesale his shoes. He is only couture. We are ready to wear. It is no different from Chanel having a separate couture business to their ready to wear," says Ms Mellon.

While there is strong acclaim for the group's commercial acumen, there are those who think it is not yet matched by its creative credentials. Rawsthorn, a self-confessed devotee of the shoes of Manolo Blahnik, says: "I always find myself visually editing Jimmy Choo designs," and argues that young British designers are more influenced by the likes of Georgina Goodman.

Despite its international-sounding name and protagonists (Mr Bensoussan has French, Spanish, Moroccan and Brazilian roots), Jimmy Choo management insists it is seen by customers as British.

He says: "How many British luxury brands can say they have a boutique in New York, the Middle East, Milan, Singapore etc? Burberry? Maybe Paul Smith, but that is very Asian. We are one of the few British brands that is an international brand.

"British means classical and extravagant. I love this pairing. I go to Jermyn Street and you have such an incredible amount of brands. I always compare British brands to Spanish rioja. For me, Spain has the best wine in the world. We are totally unable to sell it. We don't know how to market it. It is the same thing for the British. The great brands, they don't know how to expand them."

Postad av: Mel E den 29 juli, 2003, kl. 22:21:30

Vilka supersnygga skor, fast de var ju en aning dyra...

Postad av: Åsa J den 30 juli, 2003, kl. 09:30:56

Ah! Tack Malin! För artikeln och tipsen!

Postad av: Anna den 30 juli, 2003, kl. 13:53:06