← The Glossy Podcast
The Glossy Podcast
Zara's banned ads, Gucci's labor dispute, Capri's recovery — and Anthropologie's Anu Narayanan
00:47:00
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- [00:04]
Danny Parisi
Business growth doesn't just happen. Brands get blocked by bad data, slow decisions, and media that doesn't pull its weight. Tenuity is the only agency that helps brands eliminate waste and unlock real growth with strategy, with tech, with people who treat your business like their own. Love growth, Hate waste. Find out what your media is really doing. Visit lovegrowth hate waste.com hello and welcome back to the Glossy Podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi, and I'm here with our international reporter Zofia Zviglinska. Hello, Zofia. Thank you for joining us.
- [00:49]
Zofia Zviglinska
Thank you for having me again.
- [00:51]
Anu Narayanan
Lovely to be on, of course.
- [00:53]
Danny Parisi
We're always happy to have you on. We are going to be discussing a couple of things this week. First, we're going to talk about two ads that Zara pulled this week after complaints from the British Advertising Standards Agency. We'll get into why and what that means. We're also going to talk about Gucci, which is in the middle of a big kind of labor dispute that could lead to a pretty significant strike among Gucci's workers. You have talked about and written about a couple of times some of the labor disputes happening in European fashion. So we'll get into some of that. Then. Lastly, we're going to talk about Capri holdings, which had their earnings this week, but there's actually a lot of earnings this week. We will probably touch on Ralph Lauren, too while we're talking about them and what both results mean for the state of luxury fashion, particularly American luxury. Later in the episode after the break, I had a great conversation with Anu Narayanan, who's the president of Women's and Home at Anthropologie. This week they spun off one of their private labels, Maeve, into a full standalone brand, which I have a story about on the site. But we also had Anu on the podcast and went pretty deep on how and why they came to that decision. And also she gave some, I thought, some really good insight into leadership strategy and how to manage a large growing company. That was a great conversation. We will get to that after the break. But let's start with breaking down some of the news this week. Like I said, Zara had to pull two ads this week after the British Advertising Standards Agency banned them. Essentially specifically, the two ads were both criticized for showing models who were unhealthily thin was the phrasing that the the ASA used. Not just that, it also alleged that the photographs were intentionally posed in a way to maximize the emphasis on both models thinness. One of them is like a woman leaning forward. She's in a big boxy dress, extremely thin. And the way she's leaning forward, her collarbones are super, super prominent. And then the other one is a photo of just a woman standing in a dress, but kind of similarly like a large dress emphasizes her extremely thin legs. Interesting. I feel like there's not in the US I feel like there's not as much kind of banning of advertisements for things like that that I'm aware of, but the ASA has actually done this for a couple of fashion brands. Marks and Spencer similarly had an ad banned earlier this year for showing extremely thin models. So I don't know. I have lots of thoughts on this, but Zofi, I will let you go first. What's your take?
- [03:19]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, so I mean, the ASA has been notably quite strict on most brand agenc when it comes to these advertisements. I think that for a lot of brands recently, body image hasn't maybe been a priority. And I think as a result, a lot of them are returning back to the types of models that were popular for them or that were doing well. A while back, I think there was a period where Zara did have slightly better, more diverse body types. And now it seems like it's kind of going back on that, which I think is a weird decision from a brand. And I'm not surprised that the and ASA has caught it because obviously they don't just kind of interpret the ad itself, but also just the visual cues that Zara is trying to give. I think that because of the kind of age of Ozempic and all of that, it's become a bit more of a thing that brands are putting thinner models again in their campaigns, in their ads.
- [04:19]
Danny Parisi
Absolutely. Definitely a trend that I noticed. I feel like there was a time where a lot of organizations in fashion were aware that they should probably have some more diversity in terms of body type and they kind of tried to do it. And it just definitely feels like in the last few years or so there's been sort of this like almost like the inertia is like pulling them back. They're like, we'll just go back to like super thin models. Definitely. It's probably one of the oldest kind of stereotypes in the modern fashion industry is an obsession with extremely thin models. And. And unfortunately, I do think it's a pretty well founded stereotype, particularly on super high end fashion brands. I feel like that's often where at New York Fashion Week and other fashion weeks when I go to the runways, that's where I tend to see the most of it less so on kind of more mass market consumer brands. Which is interesting though, because Zara is sort of more of a mass market brand in terms of price, but has always kind of tried to copy the aesthetic. Much like H and M of like a high end luxury European fashion house.
- [05:24]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, exactly. And obviously with the kind of price changes that they've had over the last couple of years to try and elevate themselves above, you know, what Shein and Temu offer. I think as a result, the imagery also got to be more high fashion. I think what's most interesting about the ASA is that a lot of these kind of ad reviews end up kind of being reviewed in real time or even after the complaint is issued. So, you know, for a past ad from Calvin Klein that featured FKA Twigs, I think for her, they ended up reversing the decision because apparently she looked confident and in control. And as a result the ad was allowed, even though she is probably leaning towards slightly thinner rather than kind of super body positive. So I'm wondering if they're going to try and do the same thing here. They cited this report, Fashioning a Healthy Future, which kind of is part of an industry push for voluntary compliance with healthier representation. Not really something that is maybe mandatory for brands to follow, but they seem to think that, you know, they're already doing quite a lot to support kind of healthy representation, while at the same time, you know, I'd say trying to toe in on the whole, like, ozempic conversation.
- [06:40]
Danny Parisi
Yeah. And just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, like, the ASA has the authority to like, make a brand take an ad down. Right. It's not just like a request or a criticism, it's like an outright banning. Yeah, I think that's interesting because it is a little bit. I mean, it's a little bit ambiguous. Like, what is healthy representation when you're saying FKA Twigs, does she look confident and in control? It's like, I don't know, how do you define confident and in control? Like, you could say, probably the women in the Zara ad looked fairly confident, but is that the metric? Like, how confident do they look? So we don't need to get into super deep into, you know, British regulatory politics or anything, but it does feel like it's a little bit. There's room for ambiguity and I think for just thinking from the brand perspective of how to, like, not have your ad banned is, I don't know, I guess be super cautious. I'm not really sure, yeah.
- [07:37]
Anu Narayanan
I mean, obviously the ASA is self regulating and they don't have any kind of legal enforcement power. However, for like brand reputation, the ASA stuff does matter. You know, in the past, those ads that have been taken down, you know, if you've worked really hard on, on a campaign or some imagery, you probably don't want those images to not be in front of the public. And granted, the UK is still probably slightly more lenient than some of the other European or Nordic kind of agencies. Citing, for example, in the Nordics, you have to have this massive badge on a campaign. If something's been edited virtually after the campaign has been shot just to show that Photoshop has been used. In this case, I think it's just mostly about representation. I'm sure that there'll be able to put the offending images back up after a while if there is a further discussion about this.
- [08:30]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, that's interesting. The statement I saw from Zara didn't seem super defensive. It seemed like they kind of complied pretty without much fuss. But yeah, it would be interesting to see if they appeal and try to get. Because they did spend money on those ads and right now they're not doing anything. Yeah, definitely something to keep an eye on with the asa. I was not super familiar with the organization before this, but yeah, there's been, like we said, not just Zara, multiple brands have had ads taken down along the same lines. Let's move on and talk about Gucci. Gucci's in the middle of a labor dispute. Over 1,000 of its workers are threatening to strike. Gucci workers are represented by three unions, all of whom are jointly threatening to strike against Kering because they allege that they signed a contract in 2022 and part of that contract included annual welfare bonuses. And the unions say that Kering has just not paid them those bonuses. They paid them their wages, but have not paid the bonuses that are written into the contract for over three years. Gucci has, as far as I understand, tried to renegotiate this contract a couple of times. The unions have said they just are stalling and trying to get out of paying those bonuses. It's a pretty significant, I mean, it's over 1,000 workers altogether. It's a pretty significant labor action if it does happen. I read that Gucci did have a strike in 2023, but it only affected a couple dozen workers. And I think it was resolved pretty quickly. This would be like a huge chunk of employees would be walking out if this goes through. Let's talk about the specifics of Gucci first. And then we can talk about some other luxury labor disputes because there's been quite a number of them recently. But what's your take on the Gucci situation?
- [10:17]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, it's interesting the way that it works in Italy because their welfare kind of package extension is based on something called continued application, which is a kind of legal and moral stance in the Italian labor culture that expects employers to honor the expired terms of their agreement until renegotiated. So even though this is a common practice, Gucci is arguing that as a result they should be able to renegotiate and the terms from the previous agreements are not upholding. Obviously with Gucci, the biggest issue with any kind of labor issues is that they're probably trying to cut costs. Gucci has been severely in the red for a very long time. I think the most recent earning results from a week or two ago showed that Gucci was again not doing well. And I think that as a result, not only is it a little bit weird that they're not considering their workers and their payment kind of requirements, but they're also risking this strike. There's been a national state of unrest declared and localized strikes are possible with Italian workers, I would expect it's likely. So as a result, is this really the right kind of move to make when you're brand is already kind of hammering? Let's just say in terms of the kind of media impact, the brand perception, this isn't going to do you any favors.
- [11:47]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I think Gucci's revenues recently in their most recent earnings were down 25% and that's after several quarters of similar kind of numbers. Gucci is also a huge chunk of Kering's revenue. I think think the last time I checked it was like almost half of their money comes from Gucci. So Gucci is very, very important to Kering as a whole and they've been kind of not doing so well recently. Yeah, it does seem sort of like it feels like the classic short term gain versus long term loss. It's like, yeah, you might save some money by not paying your workers bonuses that are in their contracts, but then you provoke a strike which leads to way bigger losses than if you just paid them in the first place. That's just one possibility. But they would not be the first company to shoot themselves in the foot doing that. But yeah, the other thing that's interesting is like we said, there's been a lot of labor disputes in big European luxury houses in a way that I Can't really remember it being that common since I've been covering fashion, which was since 2017 or something. Yeah, there was the Dior probe that we talked about in which they had extremely poor working conditions, very low paid immigrant laborers making their clothes in France, although that's a little different because those workers aren't unionized. So it was up to the regulators to kind of step in and do something there. For Gucci, they have three very strong unions representing them. So it's a little bit different. But yeah, it feels like there's been a number of these kind of big disputes or probes into working conditions. And the luxury brands, I think, kind of try to give themselves this reputation of we treat everybody well and everything's high quality and high end and that kind of thing. But it's a workplace like any other and there's going to be disputes. But it does feel like there's a lot of them recently. I don't know if you have any thoughts on why that might be.
- [13:48]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's because of a realization as well from the workforce that they probably have a lot more bargaining power than they used to. For a lot of, I guess the times that luxury has been popular, the workforce has almost been kind of hidden, silent. You know, unless you're the kind of petit man working in Dior atelier, you're not going to be particularly visible. That means that, you know, you don't appear in marketing, you're not really a priority. But two things I think have changed that. One is obviously the kind of focus on craftsmanship in terms of conversations that a lot of the luxury brands have been focusing on in their marketing and their ads, you know, social content, all of that stuff. And as a result, anyone who's a kind of craftsman or making products for these brands is also in a little bit of more of a frontline position. They're important, they're valuable, they're showing up in all of these social channels. So therefore their work has to be kind of appreciated and valued. And two is a lot of these brands have been relying on workers who have been steadily kind of aging out of that workforce almost. And it's been harder and harder to find younger workers to fill, I guess, the gaps. There's been some programs from LVMH in particular that focus on kind of training the younger generation of luxury workers. But I think the existing ones, and especially companies like Gucci, I think again would see this as having an opportunity for more bargaining power because again, they're more valuable. If 1,000 workers leave Gucci, I think that would have a pretty big impact.
- [15:32]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, for sure. Okay, let's move on to our last topic. I want to talk about Capri Holdings a little bit. They announced their earnings this week, and despite the fact that by almost every metric it was down compared to a year before, there was actually a lot of optimism around the report, both from Capri themselves and also from the market and from analysts. Mainly because even though it was down, it was not nearly as down as everyone thought it would be and not nearly as down as it's been. Basically, their revenue was down 6% actually. Interestingly, both Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo had revenue down around 6% as well. So a lot of sixes. Their year over year profits were $500 million compared to $535 million last year. All of that is bad. That's lower. But I think compared to what analysts were expecting, it was much better than expected. And it's a much slower decline than Capri has been experiencing ever since the Tapestry deal fell apart. I have a quote here from their CEO John Idel. He said, this performance demonstrates the progress we are making as we execute against our strategic initiatives to energize our fashion luxury houses. While still early, we are beginning to see signs that our strategies are working. Basically, they've said they're confident that they can kind of stabilize the free fall that they've had for a while by the end of the year and by 2027 can be back to positive growth. So even though it's down, it feels like there is kind of a positive energy around the whole thing. What do you make of that and do you think they're right to be confident?
- [17:06]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, it seemed like they were definitely more optimistic and a lot of that is being driven by Michael Kors. I think that for them, the kind of Michael Kors brand is now basically the biggest. Versace is still, I think, important, but definitely in terms of their mass assortment, Michael Kors is the one that's kind of leading things. They've seen measurable improvement for their kind of travel in style storytelling and marketing strategy. For Michael Kors, I think they've had an expanded influencer network. They've done some new events in Ibiza and Rome, and they're moving away from kind of traditional wholesale driven storytelling towards kind of social led campaigns, which I think is what a lot of brands are doing nowadays. It's kind of a smaller reliance on wholesale, especially in terms of owned channels. They're renovating I think 50% of their store fleet and closing some stores. I think again, it's just a focus on their own retail presence as well as kind of changing out the kind of outlet strategy. I would say that Michael Kors is kind of one of those brands that you really do see discounted a lot and they've had a dramatic kind of 35% reduction in promotional clearance in outlets and they've had an introduction of full price products, which is called their icons program in outlet stores as well. It's kind of similar to what Coach is doing and it hasn't really been talked about that much. So I think there's more opportunity for them almost to follow the Coach model and basically focus on their full price assortment, focus on their in store kind of presence and identity and then just basically lean into that to try and sell more products at full price rather than, you know, promotional.
- [18:52]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, definitely think the reliance on heavy discounts has a long term negative effect on the brand. The other interesting thing from their earnings is that they did not include Versace even though they technically still own Versace. They're soon selling it off to Prada. They haven't actually transferred ownership yet. They do technically still own Versace, but they cut it from their earnings. I think they marked it in their earnings as discontinued operations or something like that. I remember speaking to an analyst a while ago about the Tapestry deal when Capri and Tapestry were trying to merge. He was saying with Capri that they should really just cut their lowest performing brands and focus on the ones that are doing well. Like you're saying Michael Kors is a big one for them and Versace was not one of the brands that was doing super well for them. And I think Versace will be better off at Prada and Capri will be better off without Versace. So it does seem like they are taking some smart steps. Last thing I want to mention before we wrap up is just a contrast Capri with Ralph Lauren who had earnings Thursday morning, which we're recording this Thursday morning. So it was right before this. They saw their net income up 30% and their total revenue was $1.7 billion. They are doing very well as a similar American luxury ish big fashion company. They're doing extremely well. And I think the good performance at Ralph Lauren and the not as bad as we thought performance at Capri are both kind of a good sign for American luxury. That's my feeling, but I don't know how you feel.
- [20:31]
Anu Narayanan
Yeah, definitely. I think Ralph Lauren is continuing with being the main driver. I think for American brands, it's one of the only ones that's kind of growing consistently. It's kind of maintaining its outlook regardless of tariff impacts, which I think have been significant for a lot of American brands. So despite pressures from higher product costs, they still seem to be doing well and their supply chain is still pretty diversified. So, again, like, good value for them. One thing that I did want to kind of note on Ralph Lauren is that they are pushing into new categories for them, which includes handbags, which I'm not sure if that's going to be the most successful push because I haven't heard anything about Ralph Lauren handbags yet. But this is a very much at the beginning kind of thing that they're doing. And maybe they're going to expand more into marketing so that these products are. Products are more well known. But I'm excited to see what a Ralph Lauren handbag, you know, model and kind of assortment would look like.
- [21:32]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I'm excited to see that, too. I wonder if they have the kind of strength and brand resilience to push into that when there's. That's a very competitive category to be in. But yeah, let's wrap up our news segment there. Thank you so much for being here, Zofia. It's always great to have you on.
- [21:50]
Anu Narayanan
Thank you so much, Dani.
- [21:51]
Danny Parisi
Like I said, at the top of the episode, I had a great conversation with Anu Narayanan, who's the president of Women's and Home at Anthropology. We're going to take a short break, and when we come back, you will hear my conversation with Anu about them spinning Maeve, one of their private labels, off into a standalone brand. And like I said, we also talked. She had some really great insight about leadership and managing a big team, managing a growing team, that kind of thing. So it was a great conversation. Every brand says they want growth, but here's the thing about growth. Most of the time, it's being held back by waste. Waste in your media plan, waste in your measurement, waste in the way decisions get made. Tenuity is here to end that. Tinuity is an independent media agency built for brands that want to grow. Their humans are brilliant. Their technology is powerful. Tenuity tech shows you exactly what's working, what's wasting budget, and what to do next. They don't just talk about growth, they engineer it. Tenuity. Love growth, hate waste. Find out what your media is really doing. Visit lovegrowth hatewaste.com okay, I'm here with Anu Narayanan, the president of Women's at home at anthropology. Anu, thank you so much for being here.
- [23:17]
Zofia Zviglinska
Thanks, Danny. I'm so excited to be here with you today.
- [23:21]
Danny Parisi
It's great to have you on the podcast. This is our second time talking in a week or two because I had a story on glossy this week about the news is out. Anthropologie, you spun off Maeve as a new standalone brand. You can read a story for the broader details, but I wanted to go a little deeper on the topic with you, Anu. Maeve is, the way you told it to me, the most popular brand at Anthropologie. It sounded like from talking to the team, it was a very no brainer kind of decision to spin it off. But to start, could you just how would you describe Maeve to people who haven't heard of it? What is the appeal?
- [23:54]
Zofia Zviglinska
Yeah, Maeve is one of these timeless brands that just has this sense of joy. So we always say that Maeve is a brand or label that is suits the state of mind of a modern woman. It's for a customer who's like a little bit more irreverent, has a sense of joy, sees the world in Technicolor, just loves things that make her smile. And so Maeve is our Happy factor label and has kind of a very loyal following. And what is so amazing about it is people style Mave pieces in so many different ways. So that's like a little bit of an overview, I guess, of what the brand is like.
- [24:38]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I remember Richa, your chief creative director of design, saying a lot of brands have a uniform and she thinks of Maeve as a Maeve customer does not have a uniform. They're experimenting, they're trying new things. I think that's reflected in the product. So yeah, before we get into some of like the details, just again, this is in the story, but I just want to hear real quick, what was the decision to spin Maeve off into its own brand? Like, what went into that?
- [25:03]
Zofia Zviglinska
We really look at trends in the business and things that our customer tells us about. So our customer loves Maeve. It is our number one most searched brand on our site. We've had over 2 million customers engage with the brand in the past year alone. And TikTok is obviously a hugely growing channel and we've had over 10 million views for Maeve on TikTok. So the customer just is insatiably curious about the brand. The label can't get enough of it. And seeing the growth, we knew that the customer wanted more. And that's core To Maeve, we always say, more you, more Maeve. Like, she loves more Maeve. She wants to style it in so many different ways. And it just felt like the right time for us to be able to expand the label into a stand Turtlene brand. We also had expanded into additional categories, so we had added some other categories and the customer was really liking that as some of the tests that we had done. So we knew that we could probably go further than we had.
- [26:09]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I mean, like you said, if it's. With 10 million views and 2 million people shopping, it feels like makes a lot of sense. One of the things that was interesting about it to me from talking to you last week and talking to you now is because right now it feels like there's so much uncertainty in the market. Whether that's retail or apparel or just whatever. There's a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other things. It's always interesting to see who is investing, who's kind of leaning in to the business. So obviously you're doing that right now. This is a big investment on your part. Can you talk a little bit about what's giving you confidence right now? And particularly how do you feel about. Of trying to grow at a time when there's a lot of uncertainty? A lot of other people, I think, are in holding periods or waiting to do any big things just because they're not sure where the market's going to go.
- [27:01]
Zofia Zviglinska
It's so interesting that you say that, Danny. That's definitely top of mind for so many people in business these days. What I think is interesting is at the end of the day, we're all looking for something that is going to bring us a little moment of happiness. And I think that at this time, we know that when there are uncertain times, the most important thing is for you to feel confident, to feel like you can be unstoppable. And it feels like our product assortment really enables that for the customer. And we all need a little smile factor and something that makes us feel good. And I think investing during this time shows our customer who has been so engaged with us, that we're not afraid. We're willing to go out there and to try to bring them a little moment of joy and happiness in their day, as cheesy as it may sound, with like a new pair of pants or a great accessory. And sometimes those little things just make you feel like, okay, I've got this, like, I can make it through what might be a tough week or uncertain times, and. And that might sound cliche or somewhat Superficial. I don't see it as that. I think that there is just this opportunity for us to have a little bit more of an influence in terms of the customer's day to day life by investing. I think it also just shows the strength of our portfolio of brands and Anthropologie Group that our business is strong. We feel very confident in how we have been delivering results over the last few years and it is the time for us to invest and we do see this as a chance for growth. So I think it's going to be fun.
- [28:49]
Danny Parisi
I think I saw a data point that anthropologies had 10 straight quarters of growth. I think of double digit growth, which is, yeah, that's very impressive. A lot of other businesses, a lot of the ones that I write about have been contracting or are kind of just like, like I said, in a holding period, like not wanting to, to disrupt things too much. Was there any discussion internally about like, maybe we wait another year for this? Maybe we do, you know, like did you. And I believe you told me you guys have been thinking about this for a little while, but what about what went into the decision on timing where it was like, right now is the right time?
- [29:23]
Zofia Zviglinska
You know, I think, listen, the timing might never be right in life with like so many things, but I think that we take calculated risks and we really think about the time that it's right to invest in something. So we've thought about it, we listened to our customers and we also know that the time being now for us really had a lot to do with where the business was. So we have the strength in our total brand and the strength in the Mave label to be able to do that. Now waiting wasn't really a question for us and we approach everything methodically. So we've been building internally this brand and really adding to it. We had added shoes in the last year, we have expanded into home and we watched. We watched and saw that the results were there, which gave us the confidence to know that we could do this. In addition, Anthropologie has been opening new stores fairly consistently over the last few years and we're consistently planning that in our new growth plans as well. And every single store that we've opened has exceeded our expectations. And so we know how to open a store and we know how to grow new categories. So this isn't the first time that we've gone out after a new concept and really put forth an idea. It's the first time we've done it to this magnitude in a While. But I think it's that testing and learning and that gives you the confidence to really go for it.
- [31:00]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I think that the way you phrased it to me the other day was when you see a foundation for growth, you try to grow there. If you see the opportunity, I think that's a great. That's where you should invest. I think a lot of people listening are probably at fashion brands or retail brands. Probably few of them are at the scale of anthropology. So I'm sure a lot of them maybe don't have, like you're saying, the experience with. With expanding and growing. Is there any kind of, like, philosophy or anything you keep in mind whenever you're expanding, whether it's expanding into a new category or expanding to new stores? Like anything you keep in mind to avoid getting sort of out over your skis a little bit?
- [31:41]
Zofia Zviglinska
Yeah, I think you have to go slow, for sure. I don't think that you want to be too aggressive too fast, because the whole, you know, the whole point of growth is to be out there, to put something out there and then learn and learn and pivot and change as you go. Nothing in life is perfect. And I think as we try this, we're going to see what are the pieces that the customer interfaces with the most? What channels and social media are they enjoying talking to us and interacting with us on when we open up our standalone store? How do they like that store design? How are they enjoying the shopping experience? All of those will be learning, and we'll apply all of those learnings very quickly to the next things that we do. And I think that would be my advice for anyone, is take the risk and go for it, but then know what you need to do in terms of how you can pivot and change so that the downside of that risk isn't something that's catastrophic. And I think really making sure it's calculated and understanding how you can quickly pivot is really important. And. And speed is at the essence of everything we do. I work with a team that's extremely fast and very nimble. And I think having contingency plans in place is always important in anything.
- [33:02]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I actually wanted to ask about nimbleness, because that's a term I think I hear a lot in the business, and people are always. I think the ideal, especially now, is can we change things super quick? Can we respond to, for example, a completely different rate of tariffs on the things we're making that changes every day? It feels like a lot of the people I'm talking to that is very top of mind for them is how do we make decisions quickly and move things quickly. I imagine for Anthropologie and for Urban, it's a huge company. You have tons of people and tons of partners that you're working with. Does that kind of get in the way of nimbleness sometimes or how do you negotiate that?
- [33:40]
Zofia Zviglinska
I don't think it does. It's shocking. It's a very interesting organization. It is so creative and it is so fast past. And you would think with the size of the company that, to your point, that that could slow things down. But there's a shared understanding of common goals and objectives, which really helps. If everyone knows exactly where we need to row in what direction and where our end destination is, it makes life so much easier versus people being really confused. So communication is key. We really pride ourselves on making sure people are in the loop. Everybody understands what we're trying to achieve and that makes things a lot easier. And I think you can't spin either. And to your point, there's been so much change in what's the latest tariff rate of the day to where are we shipping things from and how fast can they get here? And that does change very frequently. And so just understanding that like a broader objective I think is sometimes helpful so that you're not knee jerk reacting to every single thing that might be changing on a day to day basis.
- [34:43]
Danny Parisi
Yeah. And it sounds like, and this is my experience as well, that the most kind of important qualifier for whether a group or an organization can react to something quickly is if there's a very clear goal set from the top or kind of broadly. If you have a clear direction, you have a clear goal, then it's a lot easier to get everybody on board. I mean, that's my experience, but does that sound totally.
- [35:10]
Zofia Zviglinska
I feel like I learned that very early on in my career that you have to repeat something like seven times before it sticks and people really understand it. And I think I'm a big believer in communicating and getting the entire team on the same page. It just makes things easier. And then it instills a greater sense of collaboration and teamwork as well. That people have a shared common goal and they want to achieve that. No one wakes up in the morning and is like, I don't want to. To do a great job and be a good team member today. Like everybody wants to achieve the same results that they can.
- [35:46]
Danny Parisi
Yeah. And then if there's not a clear direction, though they might be wanting to achieve those results, but everyone's going in different directions.
- [35:51]
Zofia Zviglinska
Exactly.
- [35:52]
Danny Parisi
Yeah. Yeah.
- [35:53]
Zofia Zviglinska
Sometimes it's the simplest things that just make life. You know, like you don't realize what a big impact the littlest thing can have.
- [36:01]
Danny Parisi
Yeah. And to that point, I also wanted to ask you a little bit about managing a growing team, hiring people, expanding your team. It sounds like you work very closely with the people that you work with. So for Maeve, obviously, I know you're expanding your team, you're bringing in new people, you're working with people you've already been working with for a long time. What are your thoughts on growing a team right now?
- [36:24]
Zofia Zviglinska
Yeah, it's so fun. We have a woman named Megan who is leading the internal initiative for Maeve. And what's been so fun is seeing someone be able to take on an additional area of responsibility. So personally for me as a leader, I love being able to find talent within the organization who has the ability to kind of stretch, take on more, and is ready for a new challenge or new learning experience. And then when you're growing businesses and growing teams, it gives the ability for people to expand their scope and role, to grow in their career and gives us the opportunity to bring in new talent. And I think it's an important mix in the business to have people who really have institutional knowledge of how we work and our customer base, but then also a fresh perspective. So it's really exciting. I think one of my favorite things to do, we're in the summer intern season, is meet with our young interns as well as our new hires at more opening entry level positions because they have the freshest ideas and usually are not, you know, they don't have all of the history and the baggage of what comes with being at a company or an organization for a long period of time. And so I really think it's that, like, special sauce of mixing, you know, knowledge based people who've been here for a while with new thought and new process that can really unlock some exciting ideas in the business. So it's fun to grow a new team. And so this is great for us to be able to grow this business and give people more opportunity.
- [38:03]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, it's interesting. It is like when you have, when you work with the same people for a long time, there's institutional knowledge, like you said, there's things that you don't have to explain, which can be great. But then sometimes new people, like you said, don't have those tracks that they're in. They can kind of try something new. I think that's very cool. I Also wanted to ask about. Okay, so this is something I didn't realize until you mentioned it to me the other day. Maeve is also going to be selling other brands. Just like Anthropologie, you have your own brands and then you're selling other brands that are not owned by Urban as well. I know Rowing blazers is one of the brands that is going to be sold at Maeve. I think some goop products as well. I wanted to ask about the curation process and how you form those relationships and then. And what goes into deciding like, this brand is going to fit well alongside Maeve on the shelf with Maeve.
- [38:53]
Zofia Zviglinska
Yeah. So I think it all starts with what the style story is to be told and the customer and what they're looking for. And I think with anything, especially with Maeve, the customer style tells her story. So she is thinking about pieces and how she can mix and match them. I was just with a bunch of customers yesterday and influencers who were wearing Maeve and what was so incredible was to see the different ways that people were styling their Maeve products. And so the versatility of one bubble top that could go with so many different looks and accessorized in a multitude of different ways is what makes the label so exciting. So what sits alongside that is really important. So the curation is really what's going to elevate Maeve label. What is a brand that might not be able to have the distribution to go into a lot of locations, but is looking to grow and looking to gain a new customer base that might be our Maeve customer? And how do we target some of those people to sit alongside us and really complement the brand? Because at the end of the day, I don't know anyone who only has one label in their closet. I think everyone's closet is a mix and match of different things that you pair in different ways. And so we're not naive to think that the Maeve girl isn't going to have a whole bunch of different stuff in her closet. So being able to provide her a curated destination of things that are the must have closet staples is really important. And everything we do at Anthropologie is thinking through the lens of a lifestyle brand and what should we have that lifestyle experience be like? So when we were thinking about the Maeve customer, we were like, okay, what would be her perfect earring? Well, of course it's probably going to be a Jennifer Fisher hoop or what is her beauty count, like countertop look like in her bathroom? Oh my gosh. If she had goop beauty in there. Like, we could totally see that Maeve girl. And so our buying team reaches out to different, different vendors and works with those different brands to see what could be the right fit. And some of the brands will reach out to us as well and say, we think you're doing something really cool. Or we could imagine ourselves looking like this alongside your store. There's actually stationery brand who reached out to us and we haven't landed it yet, so I won't give you the name of it, but who had reached out to us and said, we could totally see ourselves next to you guys. And I was like, oh, completely. I could see that too. And you start to build that essence of what Maeve is and how that looks, and those are how those relationships are formed. And nothing is forced. We won't do anything that feels inauthentic or just to put it out there. Like, it has to feel like it's a mutually beneficial fit. And just as much as we want to see Maeve grow for our customer, we want to see the other brands be extremely successful as well. Extremely successful. I don't know. Like, al said that 900 times, but we want them to win just as much. And so finding those right partnerships is critical to what we do.
- [42:15]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I mean, I think you said it best. I think there you don't want to, as a brand, try to imagine your customer and think, what kind of jewelry would you wear? Obviously, Maeve jewelry. What kind of shoes would you wear? Obviously, Maeve shoes. It's like, realistic. It's not realistic. She probably would like, move shoes, but she'll probably mix it with other things. You know, it's like, it's good to keep that mindset. I want to ask you one more thing, a little bit more of a harder question, but I feel like it's a huge thing. We brought up tariffs a couple times. Is there anything you can tell me about sort of what the conversations at ANTHRO are like? Because I have to imagine you guys are thinking about it and you have your team working on solutions and staying nimble. But. Yeah. What's your feeling on the status?
- [42:58]
Zofia Zviglinska
It is something that we're taking a day at a time. What is incredible is we have an extremely talented sourcing team within anthropology, shared resources through urbn, and they have proactively really been diversifying our country of origin strategy for the last several years. We're not all in. In one country, which makes it a little bit easier in order to have multiple options for where we produce product. And we also have some incredible vendor partners who are working with us on what's going to be beneficial to them as well as us in terms of that relationship and how we can figure out how best to still give our customer the greatest quality products at the best prices possible. So we're taking it day by day and really looking at where things are manufactured and making the right calls with the information that we have to the best of our ability at the day that we have. That and rolling up a lot of scenario planning and understanding what happens if, and then thinking through how we're partnering with those that we're working with in order to come up with the best possible outcome. So I don't have a succinct, specific answer for you because it's nuanced and it's changing every single day, but I can say that it's top of mind. I have a standing meeting every. I think it's mostly every day at noon that we kind of cancel when we need to, where anybody can share any updates or questions and we can all be on the same page in terms of, like, what's the decision that we need to make of the day with the information that we have for today and that's how we'll approach things.
- [44:44]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, it's like we were saying about being nimble, where it's like as long as you have a shared kind of goal and shared direction, then a lot of those things become much more manageable.
- [44:54]
Zofia Zviglinska
Exactly.
- [44:55]
Danny Parisi
Well, thank you for answering all my questions, Anu. And thank you so much for being on the Glossy Podcast with us.
- [44:59]
Zofia Zviglinska
Oh, I appreciate it, Dani. It's always so wonderful to spend time with you. Have a great rest of your day.
- [45:05]
Danny Parisi
Thank you. We'll have to have you on again soon.
- [45:06]
Zofia Zviglinska
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [45:12]
Danny Parisi
And thank you for listening to the Glossy Podcast. Don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you listen to this, because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the Glossy Podcast to hear interviews with industry insiders and we can review segments where we break down the news. The new episodes come out every Friday. Until the next time. Thanks for listening.