Branding the man: why men are the next frontier in fashion retail

(SAN FRANCISCO) – One might have thought that  so-called “pop up” retail would have worn out its welcome. Earlier this year, the Gap tested out alliances with Paris specialty shops Colette and Merci with moderate success, while Reebok experimented with a pop up gym in West Hollywood (aiming at building their gay target market? One can only speculate.)

Target Misses the Mark

This holiday 2009, Target announced a three-city tour of major urban centers, including New York, Washington, and San Francisco. The stores — called Target-To-Go — will sell fifty thrifty items for Christmas; from 99-cent tree ornaments to Sony’s PSP Go handheld video game player, as well as limited-edition pieces from Rodarte’s exclusive Target collection. Each store will also use Twitter to communicate the store location, products, and hints on where to find giant gift tags that have been planted, scavenger-hunt style, in each of the cities. Tags are worth anywhere from $10 – $500 each.

Today we visited the store and found it largely deserted — despite the fact that elsewhere stores and streets were jammed with shoppers. Was it the location, tucked down a gentrified alley away from the main shopping arteries, or was it simply because choosing items (vending machine style) from a display case and picking them up at a take-out window is just kind of…well, uninspiring?  Afterall, shopping is supposed to be fun and with consumers unable to spend as much as they normally would, other stores in the area were enjoying heavy crowds of looky-loos wanting to paw at the merchandise — and yes, buy. In fact today compared to Black Friday, we saw a lot more shopping bags.

eBay Bids High on Retail Experiment

Last on the pop up bandwagon is eBay, with perhaps the most confusing and least developed concept yet to hit the market. Using eblasts, eBay announced that it would be offering a store-like environment in several U.S. cities with “trendy gifts, interactive kiosks, personal shoppers,  and plenty of things that make the season bright”(great copywriting!).

In New York that took the form of a 5,500 square foot store on West 57^th, while in San Jose, California, it was what looked like a giant taco truck. But the mechanics of this marketing campaign is confusing. The eblast I received announced they would be in San Francisco’s Justin Hermann Plaza for one day only. Without showing any product, the dedicated website at www.ebayholiday.com, includes the weirdest navigation bar in recent memory: “Mobile Boutique | eBay Twitter | Green | Black Friday | Cyber Monday | Zhu-Zhu Pets”.

Zhu-Zhu Pets? Green? What am I supposed to do with this site? Suddenly eBay wants to play the bricks-and-mortar retail game except there is only one problem: there’s really nothing to put in the store.

From all accounts the “stores” are just a room full of computers and special celebrity auctioned items and product displays, with “personal shoppers” guiding you through your purchase. Isn’t this just the same thing I do at home — minus the hand-holding?

It all feels as though it was developed by a junior marketing team bent on taking their show on the road, only — there’s no show, just an empty stage. If anything, what pop up retail still manages to do is act as a more expensive billboard, bringing dimension to more conventional advertising and offering the opportunity to — in the better examples, like Gap or Target — zero in on a specific customer with a specific need.

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Or why I learned to walk in a Cuban heel

It’s not often that a pair of shoes stops me in my tracks, but Yves Saint Laurent’s Jonny Boot has managed to do just that to me for over the last five or so years.

When I first saw them — under YSL’s previous régime of Tom Ford — they looked far too louche to be taken seriously. Uh.. is that a high heel?

“It’s a Cuban heel,” I was informed. Indeed, according to Kenny Abiog, YSL’s men’s buyer for the U.S., the shoe was not exactly a runaway success for the brand when it was launched in 2004.

“Even I looked at it and thought it was the kind of shoe my hairdresser would wear,” said Abiog, on a recent trip to San Francisco where he (alas) had to help pack up the just-closed YSL boutique.

But in very little time the shoe became one of designer Tom Ford’s most successful pieces, and at one point the Jonny Boot accounted for the lion’s share of the label’s men’s wear profits.

“A store would get a shipment of 24 pairs on a Friday and by Monday there were only eight left,” says Abiog.

Thus even under Stefano Pilati’s current reign as YSL’s designer, the Jonny Boot remains. The boot you see here is an exact reproduction of the original, in buttery soft leather and is currently available in a limited edition of 142 pairs. I have my eye on Number 78.

To stand in these shoes, one must stand tall. Comic relief can be had in watching the uninitiated try to walk in them. Some slouch, others stumble, and those even less fortunate walk as if on stilts.

Just remember,  you’re not wearing a pair of Manolo’s so make sure you swagger. At $795, they’re a small price to pay for a legendary shoe from a legendary house, and trust me, they’ll definitely give you the confidence to strut.

The Yves Saint Laurent limited edition Jonny Boot is available in select U.S. boutiques. For more information call (212) 832 7100.

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