Phat Fashions founder Russell Simmons hasn’t really changed his tune.
Simmons regaled the audience with anecdotes, all supporting his mantra that the fashion business has neglected the hip-hop segment.
While his own company, Phat Fashions, has been acquired by Kellwood Co., Liz Claiborne bought Enyce and the CFDA bestowed its Men’s Wear Designer of the Year award on Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Simmons insisted more could be done. Dressed in an argyle sweater and baseball cap, he said mainstream apparel retailers and manufacturers are ignoring the hip-hop generation at their peril.
Simmons began by telling the audience that he’d been reminded of the speaking engagement by Kellwood president Bob Skinner only the day before. “I thought, ‘What am I going to tell these people?’” Simmons said. “They have more education and more experience in this industry than I do, and I don’t even play by the rules.”
He went on to emphasize the importance of brand building. “It’s about resilience and having great imagination,” he explained. “A great yogi once said, ‘Imagination is God, and you have to have faith.’”
Simmons also said that creativity is key — “How many ideas can you work on at one time?” Having set a direction for a company, he said, a leader must bear down and be prepared for success to take longer than expected. He instructed the audience to “stay the course” and “go beyond the call of duty.”
He explained that Phat Fashions wasn’t profitable for the first six of its 13 years. “We said we were the American dream, but most people couldn’t see it for a long time,” Simmons said, citing Bloomingdale’s Kal Ruttenstein as an early skeptic. Simmons said the challenge of persuading the industry was especially difficult for him as an African-American. “This is a country where Ralph Lifshitz had to change his name to Ralph Lauren,” Simmons said, invoking one of his most relied-upon chestnuts.
“The hip-hop culture is 20 years old,” Simmons said. “It has a great influence on America, and you guys haven’t invested in it too much.” He told the audience that hip-hop labels have found success working with independent manufacturers and retailers, but that companies like his require the resources of the big players in the industry.
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“I felt the struggle as an independent, but now we’re in transition at Kellwood,” he said. “We have a design team, quality control and a strategic sales strategy. I’ve learned that with Kellwood’s sourcing and production, almost anything is possible.”
In order to demonstrate the power of the hip-hop generation, Simmons recited a list of anecdotes, most of them involving his wife, Baby Phat designer Kimora Lee Simmons. The audience heard about Kimora’s trendsetting tastes in diamond-encrusted platinum watches from Franck Muller, Bentley luxury cars and Manolo Blahnik shoes. With respect to hip-hop’s relationship to more pedestrian products, Simmons said that “if hip-hop consumers don’t like Coke, Coke is in trouble.” He summed up his message by saying this: “You may think that the [hip-hop] market is saturated, but it’s not….Get involved, or you’ll be f–ked.”
Taking questions, Simmons was asked about the similarities between the music and fashion industries, which required him to reflect upon his role as founder of Def Jam Records. “They are similar in many ways — give people what they want, fill a void, be honest and create a long-term relationship with consumers,” Simmons said. He indicated that “cool” cannot be synthesized; rather, it must be discovered and nurtured. “Whatever aspiration you’re offering, it has to be honest,” Simmons explained. “You can’t trick the consumer.”
Another audience member asked about the potential for hip-hop brands to compete in the vertically integrated retail category. “You go into the mall and you see many different stores that all really just represent one version of the American dream,” Simmons said. “But even among Rocawear, Sean John, Ecko and Phat Farm, there are a lot of differences.” He explained that hip-hop brands have significant potential as retail operations, but joked that “I have one store [in New York’s SoHo], and I can’t even manage that!”
Asked about his management style, Simmons said he tries to be a “nurturing manager.” He mentioned that at various times different divisions of the company have been run by executives who began as interns. He also said that all employees are required to read books from Deepak Chopra’s “Seven Spiritual Laws” series. “We all have an understanding of how to treat each other,” Simmons said.
Simmons conceded that “our jeans are smaller now” when asked when urban styling would bring silhouettes closer to the body.
But how does his advice of “staying the course” reconcile with the need for fashion companies to reinvent themselves each season? Simmons responded by saying that “‘staying the course’ is more of a mission statement, but your job is to bring creativity every season.”
He cited Phat Farm’s pioneering embrace of the use of pink as an example: “We were making pink sweaters years ago. Now that everyone else is doing that, we’re doing lavender. You’ve got to bring something new every season.”
Asked about the possibility of taking hip-hop brands global, Simmons replied, “To do that, you need to figure out what you represent to foreign audiences. Keep your licensees as close to the ground as possible.” He also mentioned the expertise brought by Phat Farm’s president, Bernt Ullman, who in his last position oversaw a major international expansion for Fubu, another groundbreaking hip-hop label.
The session’s last question focused on the relationship between hip-hop and high-end labels, and whether there could be a “hip-hop luxury brand.” Simmons cited his own Simmons Jewelry Co. as an example of just such a venture. He also pointed to expansion by Jakob the Jeweler, bling-crafter to the stars. Simmons made distinctions between owning and identifying with a luxury brand and actually creating one. “Existing luxury brands don’t have a common touch,” he said. He pointed to his wife as an example of the rare nexus of hip-hop culture and luxe lifestyle.