Summit Notebook

Paint It Black with Bluefly’s CEO

Melissa Payner, the chief executive of online clothing retailer Bluefly, visited the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit on Wednesday to talk some shop. I was more interested in talking about her predilection for wearing, despite the azure tint of her company’s name, nothing but black clothes. Here’s what she said about that.

Everything in my closet is black. Every single thing. They’re organized by shades of black. There are many shades of black. People sort of kid about that all the time, but no one more than my husband, who can’t understand whenever I buy something new.

His comment? “I think you have that,” she said.

My question: What happens when you get invited to a summery event that encourages wearing lighter, more summery colors. What happens if she gets invited to be the bridesmaid in a wedding and everyone’s wearing, say, lilac?

I probably either couldn’t go, or I’d have to wear black. I have not been in a situation where anyone has asked me.

I guess that makes weekends easier to plan.

Later in the interview, I asked her when she started wearing black. “Probably around 18,” she said. “I was an athlete… What I’d wear would be leotards every day. That’s what I did through college. As soon as I got out of college, I instantly felt more comfortable wearing black. It was odd for my family.” Payner grew up in Elyria, Ohio, not far from Cleveland, Oberlin and Lake Erie. It’s not exactly wear-black-all-the-time country unless you’re 15 and have just discovered your parents’ old Joy Division albums.

Public school student? Bring your own supplies

I have no children and I left the public school system in 1991, so perhaps it’s not news to some of you that parents of public school children are paying for things that we never would have dreamed we’d pay for when I was in school. To OfficeMax Chief Operating Officer Sam Martin, who visited our Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit on Wednesday, this stuff is no surprise at all because he’s the one selling it to the parents.

On his short list of products that parents in some school districts are paying for: markers, chalk, tissues, paper towels.

Seriously? Why? “I think the budgets of local schools are pressured,” Martin said. “The trend started a year ago. I expect to see it expand.”

And are parents, as one of my colleagues asked, down with that? “Whether they’re down with that depends on the mom. I know I supply a lot for my son.”

I graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School in New Jersey at a time when the school board paid for our mimeograph machine out of its taxpayer-funded coffers, so it’s easy to see that I’m out of touch. Parents, please tell me, what are you paying for at your kids’ public schools that my parents never would have dreamed of financing? Please let me know.

(Photo: Reuters)

‘That’s a cheap suit!’ isn’t a compliment

Memo to the men of the United States of America, including myself: it pays to invest in a suit, and it pays even more to invest in a few. When I was growing up, my father and other older guys told me that if I spent more money on a small number of suits, they would last a long time.

Apparently much of the rest of America’s men have decided that durability and classic style count for less now that their wallets have gotten a little lighter in the past few years. Perry Ellis Chairman and CEO George Feldenkreis, speaking at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit, said that men are wearing fewer suits these days. “Not only that,” he said. “Men are buying cheaper suits.”

Sales of suits that cost more than $300, and particularly ones that run more than $1,000 — often the price that can buy you a long-lasting, classic cut made from good material — are suffering, Feldenkreis said. Ones that run less than $300, and even less than $200, are growing, he said.

“You’re either a guy who wants a well-branded suit, or a practical guy who doesn’t care too much about the life of it,” he said. And as things look from here, the cheap suits are winning.

Perry Ellis does not make suits, we hasten to add, but Feldenkreis knows how to wear one. He showed up in a natty gray pinstriped number — complete with magenta tie, no less — for his summit appearance at our Times Square bureau.

Read Pam Perdue’s explanation (second one down) of what kinds of prices get you in terms of suits. And a disclaimer: I once owned a suit for which I paid $700. I don’t own a suit any longer. Being an editor, I don’t usually have to wear suits, and on top of that, the only ones I can afford now are cheap ones — and I’d rather wait and save for two or three good ones. I’m a cheapskate, but not for suits.

(Photo: Reuters)

America: It’s in your country and it’s feeding your culture -Iconix CEO

The aura of the land of Britney Spears, Madonna and everyone’s favorite cartoon beagle — Snoopy – helps move products in growing markets like China, according to Iconix CEO Neil Cole.

Iconix, which bought the Peanuts brand earlier this year owns, licenses and markets all-American brands such as Candie’s, London Fog, Material Girl and Rockawear. And the company is betting that U.S. names will help bring international sales to 30 percent of its overall business within three years, up from 6 percent now.

“America is magic: American music, American movies — America is the feeder of culture,” Cole said at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit in New York.  “In China, and throughout the rest of the world, they look at our rock stars and our movie stars– and it sells.” (Ask Barbie if you don’t believe me.)

Cole, who is focusing on China in particular — the company just announced a deal to eventually bring 500 Candie’s free-standing stores across China  – said if you go to nightclubs in large Chinese cities, all you hear is hip-hop.

America’s reputation around the world has largely improved in the past two years, according to a recent poll, but Cole said people’s feelings toward the USA pop culture transcended the geopolitics of the day.

“There’s definitely a better feeling for America as being more friendly, but they’ve always liked our culture, they’ve always liked Mickey Mouse, they’ve always liked Playboy,” Cole said.  “America’s got this coolness about it.” 

(Photo: Reuters)

Barbie does Beijing: The adventures of a Malibu girl in China

Modern day national influence, some smart people like to argue, spreads through the “soft power” of brand appeal and attraction rather than the “hard power” of coercion. In China, one avatar of U.S.  soft power tends to be trim and busty, and come with blue eyes and a long mane of blonde hair. Her name is Barbie, she is made of plastic, she was born in Malibu and Chinese girls want to be like her.

Barbie comes in all sorts of versions, according to the man who introduces her to her foreign friends, Mattel’s international president, Bryan Stockton. Still, in China, the No. 1-selling Barbie doll is the sunny surfer girl who cruised across the Pacific from southern California to bring millions of young Chinese girls a new vision of the world, not to mention themselves.

“The challenge (in China) is to have toys become a part of the culture,” Stockton said at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit on Monday. “We’re trying to get our toys to be a part of a child’s development. … In Chinese culture it’s very important to help girls think they can aspire to be something. … Barbie is a western icon and she’s an American icon, and Barbie is from Malibu, California.”

“Now,” Stockton said, “Barbie is a part of Chinese educational culture and Chinese pop culture.”

It’s important to remember, however, that it’s not about seeing yourself in Barbie’s physical manifestation here on earth. As Stockton said:

“In reality, Barbie is a toy. Barbie is for aspiration. … Barbie doesn’t represent anything concrete. Barbie is a plastic doll, so what we try to concentrate on is all the things Barbie provides for girls… She’s a great thing for girls. She’s done a lot of wonderful things for girls, and so we’re going to continue to emphasize the positive.”

Wish they all could be California girls? Wish no longer.

The Nina Kampler manifesto: don’t waste space, buy less stuff

Sometimes it’s refreshing to meet people like Hilco Real Estate’s Nina Kampler. They work up to their eyeballs in finance, debt, bankruptcy and the business of making and salvaging profits, yet think that there is more to life than money and private enterprise.

Kampler, who runs the retailer real estate group, visited us at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit on Monday, and talked about all sorts of business-y topics that we love to write about on our wire. But on this blog, I’ll highlight one or two of her more interesting thoughts about public spaces and how people shop — ideas that seem to exist in opposition to the profit motives of, well, everyone who’s in business.

We talked about some strip malls and other kinds of retail properties along busy highways that have lost many of their tenants to bankruptcy or economic malaise, and now look depressing, dark and empty. Kampler’s idea? Give it back to the people.

“There is so much emptiness going on in the big spaces. … You’ve been hearing the same things for years: the churches will use it, bowling alleys, non-traditional uses. It’s not exactly happening… Weedy lots could be turned into productive-use and public work programs.”

We also talked about our lives as consumers, with a focus on what it really means to be a “consumer.” Sometimes, when people examine their own habits, they discover that “consume” is what they do all day long:

Kampler discovered this on a routine trip through the attic after packing one of her children off to college: “When I examined the contents of what I acquired, it was nauseating. We are over retailed because we are overstuffed. T-shirts and toys and books and serving platters… We keep shopping like the world is coming to an end. … If we made everything special and had fewer of it, the better stores selling product that would last…, we wouldn’t drown in junk and would have more time for important things like relationships and health… Buying stupidly isn’t a smart way to live.”

You say you want a revolution? Here’s one way to start.

Ethan Allen fills up its (tastefully upholstered) bench

The recession wasn’t kind to Ethan Allen’s manufacturing plant workers, but now that the economy is recovering, so are the employment rolls. Last year, the Danbury, Connecticut-based furniture maker and retailer slashed its manufacturing workforce by about 30 percent, Farooq Kathwari, the company’s chairman and chief executive, told the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit in New York on Monday. That included closing a plant or cutting jobs in Chino, California; Andover, Maine;  Orleans, Vermont and elsewhere.

I could not pinpoint exactly how many jobs he was talking about, and Kathwari did not immediately have the numbers handy, but according to the Ethan Allen website, it looks like they lost 65 workers in Chino and about 320 in Maine and Vermont. Meanwhile, the company said in 2009 that it planned to add some 300 more jobs to its larger facility in  North Carolina, where it had 540 employees as of a year ago.  The published numbers suggest that Ethan Allen cut a little more than 40 percent of its manufacturing staff, while Kathwari at today’s interview said it was about a third. Either way, he told us, “In about six months, about half have been added back.”

At a time when lots of economists and experts are telling us that we’ve been experiencing a “jobless recovery” in the United States, it’s heartening to hear that there’s at least one place in this great, big country where you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to afford that $2,000 tango louver door armoire when, instead, you can build one yourself.

(Photo: Reuters)

That’s rich. I meant the wine.

What do gold and wine have in common?

Price.

Well, too high of a high price, according to Jeffrey Rubin, director of research at Birinyi Associates, the stock market research and money management firm.

Rubin told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit on Tuesday that he thought gold prices were “certainly a little frothy” at current levels and that he would rather be a buyer of the gold miners such as Newmont Mining Corp, Barrick Gold Corp, or Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. Gold hit an all-time high  above $1,250 an ounce on Tuesday as investors piled in due to fears that European credit contagion could lead to a double-dip recession.

Rubin isn’t expecting a double-dip U.S. recession, saying the chances are slim. He also felt stock prices were likely near a bottom. Not so for the price of a wine? A good year is already priced in, so to speak.

In the spirit of austerity, we asked Rubin what personal spending he might curtail. For a wine collector with a 1,500 bottle collection, the answer was bitter.

from DealZone:

Markdown poster child: I’d do it again

With the luxury of hindsight, Saks Chief Executive Stephen Sadove said he wouldn't hesitate to repeat the big markdowns of the 2008 holiday season if faced with the same tough environment that made the retailer the poster child of recessionary sales.

"It was the right thing to do to generate the cash," Sadove said at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in New York.

The sale slashed prices on high-fashion, designer merchandise by as much as 70 percent, prompting a flood of media coverage and a slew of shoppers.

"It took some months to clear out the inventory. All the  questions of vendor relationships --- every one understood very quickly it was the right thing for the business. I would have done it again," Sadove said.

"It was a function of supply and demand when you have an excess of supply over demand you have to clear out the product. It allowed us more quickly to get back to a normalized state -- healthy margins," he said.

Sadove declined to take credit for the decision, saying it was made by a large management at Saks.

"My career has been about building teams and teamwork  -- that was an example where all the right players had a seat at the table," he said.

from Shop Talk:

Check Out Line: Cautious notes hit by top luxury execs

Check out the cautious notes being sounded in the global luxury market.

Industry executives voiced concerns about everything from unemployment to Europe's brewing economic crisis, but are nonetheless banking on growth from China and a recovering U.S. market.

Leading officials speaking at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit said the debt crisis in Europe is threatening to halt luxury's rebound, but demand for fine merchandise was picking up in the United States while China's shoppers were venturing frequently into Tokyo for top brands.

"The euro zone is a sizable market, but today the growth reserve is in the emerging countries, and particularly in China, whose demand is pulling the entire sector," said Isabelle Ardon, head of Paris-based SG Gestion's luxury fund.

The debt crisis and depreciation of the euro have raised concerns of a double dip global recession that could knock luxury spending back down after a fragile recovery. Bulgari's CEO Francesco Trapani (pictured) said Europe would remain a difficult market.

Meanwhile, a top industry consultant warned a U.S. rebound remains fragile due to high unemployment and the specter of higher taxes.

"The aspirants will come back when unemployment comes down to 5 percent," said Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute.