It’s been only a year since Edgar Huber joined the Liz Claiborne Inc.-owned Juicy Couture brand as its first president, and he’s already made strides in his overall growth plan.
Huber, a seasoned beauty industry executive, has opened several new stores worldwide — a London unit will open next week, as well as three more in the U.S. in the next few weeks — and he’s streamlined the business by shelving the superhigh-end Couture Couture brand and shuttering the Dirty English men’s label in order to concentrate on increasing the segments that have the most potential. The ultimate goal, he said, is to develop the Juicy Couture brand, which did $600 million in sales last year, into a multibillion-dollar business.
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“Men’s just doesn’t fit well into the business model. It’s such a separate business,” he said. “We are about femininity at Juicy.”
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Considering Juicy is already one of the largest contemporary brands — with over 100 freestanding stores worldwide (both company-operated and partnered stores) and large amounts of floor space at Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Selfridges and Lane Crawford — it’s no wonder he hit the ground running. Huber’s decision to come to the company in the first place wasn’t a light one.
Before joining Juicy, Huber spent over 16 years at L’Oréal SA, most recently as managing director of major markets, where he oversaw a portfolio of brands including Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Diesel Fragrances, Lancôme, Shu Uemura and Kiehl’s. When Huber got wind of the president’s position at Juicy, it was a major decision for him on both a business and personal level. At the time, he was living in Paris with his wife and then-eight-month-old daughter, Stella.
“It was a family decision, since we all had to make the move to the U.S.,” Huber explained in an interview in his Empire State Building office here. “If we were going to do that, it had to be something like this. I saw the potential in the brand, and I wanted to take on the challenge of developing it.”
Bringing the colorful, humorous world of “controlled craziness” that is Juicy Couture to new territories worldwide is a major focus for Huber.
In the U.K., he’s brought all operations in-house and just opened an office and showroom on Burton Street in London. In Asia, the brand has a partnership with Lane Crawford, which has already opened 24 stores in the region. Huber said he’s now working with them to open faster — he would like to see somewhere between 45 and 50 stores in China alone. Two Juicy stores in Greece are planned to open in November, five will roll out in Dubai (there are three there already), and he is currently in talks to open stores throughout the rest of the Middle East. In addition, Huber is working on South America, where there is currently no Juicy presence. His plan is to first open in Mexico and then move south into Brazil. In the U.S., Juicy stores are planned for openings this month at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif., the Galleria at Roseville in Roseville, Calif., and The Summit in Birmingham in Alabama.
In total, Huber plans to open about 25 company-run freestanding stores and 18 outlet stores before the end of the year.
On a product level, Huber said he is working with the brand’s co-founders and co-creative directors, Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy, to create a travel line, which he hopes to offer to duty free shops and in-flight catalogues, an area where he sees much growth potential. In addition, he is working to optimize the brand’s children’s business. He’s already decreased the children’s line’s pricing by about 20 percent in order to stay competitive, and plans to distribute it in more of the brand’s freestanding stores. Huber said he also intends to expand the brand’s intimates business. After last week’s opening of the first intimates store, called Love G&P, in Las Vegas, Huber said he sees that store concept extending into more cities. In August, Juicy will launch its third fragrance, called Couture Couture, exclusively at Bloomingdale’s.
Also, the newly launched Bird brand, which is priced about 30 percent higher than the Juicy Couture label, will launch in 43 doors for fall, including Bergdorf Goodman, Maxfield, Harrods and Lane Crawford. While Huber said the company is working to keep Bird small with limited distribution, he said the collection has already exceeded plans three times over.
“Bird has been so well-received, we are all very pleased,” he said. “Of course the real test will come when it hits the sales floors.”
While most brands are taking growth slower in this down economy, Huber views this time as an opportunity for the Juicy Couture brand. While he admitted retail in the U.S. has been difficult in the past year, he believes expansion of the label worldwide will be good for the brand in the long run.
“The stores are a huge benefit. We need our stores to be our opportunity to express to the world who we are,” he said. “The stores offer the full range of product and offer a great quality of service. I really believe that we can be that splash of color in a gloomy .”
One retailer, Shopbop.com, which offers a huge selection of Juicy Couture, is also seeing strong sales.
“Our Juicy business is driven by great updated basics, a direction we are noticing many vendors going in and our customers are responding to,” said Kate Ciepluch, Shopbop.com’s fashion director. “We have been selling their new fleece group well, their faux leather and denim legging are on fire, and their striped dolman sleeve dress was a top selling item this season.”
While Huber is based in New York, he said he travels to Los Angeles almost every other week in order to meet with Nash-Taylor and Skaist-Levy. Most recently, he was there to go over details for the next ad campaign, which will debut in September. The new ads encourage customers to “do the don’ts” — for instance, the children’s ad shows them running (decked in Juicy, of course) with “Be Loud” written across the photo. The ad campaign, he said, was entirely Nash-Taylor and Skaist-Levy’s vision.
“He does not interfere at all in creative, and we don’t interfere in his world, because he knows exactly what he’s doing,” said Nash-Taylor. “He’s a total brand guy, which is why we wanted him. Also, he is totally the opposite of us — we are crazy and emotional, and he’s calm and sophisticated, which has given us so much focus.”
The key, Huber said, is that the 13-year-old brand has a clear direction moving forward. He is confident he can make the Juicy Couture brand the next big American fashion label.
“Happiness is the culture of the brand,” he said. “Now we have to stay modern and continue to evolve, and then, we can only win.”