Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything
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Is that the jacket Pete Mitchell wore at Miramar?
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Yo,
Do you even think about competition in business? Like do you view other Japanese denim brands as competitors?
O LORD, God of vengeance,
Render recompense to the proud. -
@Alex do you view your retailers as more of a distribution channel than a showroom/physical store/ for your products? It seems like in the U.S., most of the product releases rarely hit the store shelf at the retailers and may even be seen as a "disappointment" if they do.
The retailers advertise the drop just like IHUK, set a release date and time and go live online and lots of stuff sell out instantly just like IHUK releases.
My first example is ISP selling the N1. Having both locations in Southern Louisiana would make it hard for them to sell in store to local customers.
not sure if i'm wording this correctly, and not trying to sound like a dick, just curious on the business model
world tours:
888 Fat guy chocolate WT
Mad Red x2
Wabidashery -
Further to a couple of the posts above …
Do you ever think about opening flagship boutique stores? Obviously you’d have to assess the demand but I’d think by now you might have some decent data by sales region. Purely a selfish though on my part, but I wonder if a market like Toronto would support it?
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@truby sorry I missed this before - no, not really - if all the small Japanese denim brands grow and succeed together, its better for everyone. The biggest competition we face is large (non-Japanese, non-denim) brands wanting to make Japanese selvedge denim because it's now 'cool', and the pressure that puts on the mills we also want to use.
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@jordanscollected hi Jeff, sorry for the slow reply - was flying back from Japan.
No, that is not how we see the retailer business at all, that is definitely how it seems at the moment, given the relative speed of sell-through everyone has, but not the intention. Far better for us to sell directly to an American than to sell to them via a retailer from a profit margin perspective, so it is certainly not the intention to just have them essentially act as drop shippers for us.
I think the demand for Iron Heart is higher then we all anticipated, and we are spread a little too thinly currently with total volume across all the outlets we sell to. We need to work out how to improve things so that the shops that stock iron Heart, and we ourselves, can carry at least core product for longer, rather than having this rapid sell through model
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@Alex That makes sense. Sometimes “bigger isn’t better”. The Iron Heart ethos really resonates with your customer base. The scarcity factor may just be a small part of that
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@Alex I know there are certain things i wasn't able to purchase to do release timing and availability. It's somewhat frustrating, and somewhat a relief depending on the item that slipped away. We don't have much time to contemplate an item, and that can be a help or hinderance.
Thank you for the thoughtful response as always.
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@Alex said in Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything:
@jordanscollected hi Jeff, sorry for the slow reply - was flying back from Japan.
No, that is not how we see the retailer business at all, that is definitely how it seems at the moment, given the relative speed of sell-through everyone has, but not the intention. Far better for us to sell directly to an American than to sell to them via a retailer from a profit margin perspective, so it is certainly not the intention to just have them essentially act as drop shippers for us.
I think the demand for Iron Heart is higher then we all anticipated, and we are spread a little too thinly currently with total volume across all the outlets we sell to. We need to work out how to improve things so that the shops that stock iron Heart, and we ourselves, can carry at least core product for longer, rather than having this rapid sell through model
Yes, Yes and Yes, strategy wise!!!
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@truby Yes, you are correct in that Iron Heart is successful. They pay fair wages to everyone involved, make good products that we enjoy, and have a brand reputation that’s hard to match in the denim community.
Does that success give them the ability to just buy mills and factories? Not my place to say yes or no.
When @Giles started this, he worked out of a room in his house and slowly moved to a single unit to base
the operation. That wasn’t that long ago….They have grown and do well. I appreciate what they have done and continue to do. @Alex has done a fantastic job taking over the reigns of the business and I look forward to seeing where he goes with this.
As he mentioned, there needs to be a balance between the wants and desires of the community and what can be made without breaking the supply chain.
I trust in his leadership and abilities and know the future is in great hands.
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And, as another aside: would buying the mills remove access to weave good denim and make good clothes from the other Japanese brands? Don’t see there being any benefit for the market, there. Maybe in the removal of competition I suppose, but there’s really no comparison as their style is different. Can’t see controlling all that chain as being a benefit.
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@truby said in Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything:
@Alex pressure on the mills huh. Why don’t you guys with all your success buy the mills?
We have no interest in running mills. It is not what we are good at (for that read, we know fuck-all about running a mill).
A few years ago, we had the notion that we could fit out a workshop and make shirts, I mean, how difficult could it be? We spent a shit ton on machines, sewed up one set of UHF's (the original 101 and 102-TG's), they were made so badly we had to recall them all. We sold the workshop and slinked off into the sunset with our tail between our legs.
Haraki is amazing at designing stuff, selecting the mills to make the fabric and selecting the workshops to do the sewing.
IHUK is fantastic at building a brand, creating customer and retailer loyalty, specifying product that will resonate with our customer base and marketing.
We don't know how to make fabric and stuff.
