Clinging to Old Structures is the Wrong Way

Real-time fashion describes collections that deliberately disregard seasonal rhythms to refocus the production process on customer demand. style in progress caught up with Nicole Doleh, the owner of Inked in Vienna, to find out how this concept can work in retail. Interview: Martina Müllner. Photos: Inked

Everybody is speaking about a new rhythm, about delivery dates that are ac tually in line with reality. As a retailer, it can’t be easy to shake off old habits.

When I discovered Anine Bing, who is the icon of this new real-time fashion movement, I immediately wondered how I am supposed to explain this to my customers. Over the decades, they have become accustomed to me stocking summer items in January and winter items in summer. So here we have someone who just waltzes in and says that she’ll do everything differently. You can have winter goods in January, some more casual items in February and March, and only then will the items for summer be available. However, I can supply more summer goods in August, when it’s really hot. How are my customers supposed to understand all this? At that point, they are already hardwired for the sales.

Aren’t sales obsolete in this new rhythm?

I hate all that anyway. I don’t even want to read it anymore when I travel. When I’m in Paris and stroll through the streets it says “Sale!” everywhere. Recently I was talking to a social media influencer and he told me: stop with those sales! Make yourself exclusive to ensure that you don’t need them. I had my concerns at first. What if I didn’t have those sale customers? I let the thought sink in a little, but two days later I wiped the “Sale” letters from the windows of my two shops.

And?

It didn’t make a difference! It doesn’t matter whether it says “Sale” or not. Those who want a sale, come and ask anyway. One may be tempted to believe they wouldn’t come in, maybe because the store seems too aloof. But they do come in. And the others are much more attentive now.

So the aim of the new rhythm à la Anine Bing is to ensure that nothing ends up in a sale?

That’s the underlying principle of a system like Anine Bing’s. I love it. When I visited her in Los Angeles, I asked her how she resolves the debate about sales. She answered that she has no sale at all. She only reduced a few items in the past, such as a few pairs of shoes that were more difficult to sell. However, all her other items were sold out before the sale period even started. I recently experienced exactly the same at Golden Goose in Milan. The store manager told me that they have no sale. She said that they keep their circle very small and that the customers they have know that Golden Goose stands for certain values such

Nicole Doleh about her stores: „There is no more staged environment that is flashy and shiny. No, it’s all very downto-earth and realistic. We no longer pretend, we look like we are. It’s like Nietzsche said: “Become who you are.” The customers love that approach. They love this close relationship.”

as quality, handicraft, et cetera. She explained that a sale would merely negate those values.

First Burberry announces a new show rhythm and Gucci announces that it won’t have sales anymore. Is the time finally ripe to end this utter madness?

Yes. What they are trying to do at the moment - these new rhythms, I mean - could reverse the trend. I am quite sure that this sale madness won’t last much longer.

The sale customer is actually a lost customer. That is proven by a sufficient number of studies. The customer who was once called “smart shopper” - but is actually a rather rude bargain hunter - is a dead loss.

What I have experienced over the last few months tells me that customers who are not in that mould don’t define themselves via the price. I brought back a few brands from the US. Those brands are really expensive, but they are selling like hot cakes. It’s all about the asset. It’s all about what the customer desires, what image you pass on - or even about which image you project as a store. If they can take this in and if this is communicated in an unmistakable manner, the price is secondary. It must be abundantly clear what and who we are, where we are heading, and that our business is truly authentic. Customers who experience this clear cut profile love coming back. I am currently paying a lot of attention to how authentic we are - and how authentic I am, as a matter of fact. I can see that the customers really latch onto this. They are not merely jumping onto the next sales bandwagon, but they really appreciate that there’s something that’s different. It’s this eye-opening experience that puts a stop to moaning. It stops you from complaining that everything is bad, while still buying the bad stuff and not changing anything. We’ve already written it off mentally, but we won’t attempt to change anything. This is the completely wrong approach: this clinging to the old and being stuck in structures of the past.

If everything was triggered by the customers and if they determined the demand, how often do these customers need new items?

In terms of complete looks?

In terms of their subjective feeling… How frequently do your best customers turn up and say: I’m back!

When customers discover something new, then they want to remain faithful to that new thing for a while. If you pull them away from that discovery with something even newer, it won’t satisfy them. When you fall in love, you want to be together with that new partner, right? You want to experience those emotions. These trousers fit perfectly, that’s great. But would a dress by this brand suit me too? If I introduce something new, I don’t do it because I merely want to keep it for a certain time. I want to incorporate the new brand into my cosmos. I am not a brand catcher who wants this and that now before switching to something else in the next season. I want to incorporate that new brand properly, and it takes three seasons until it is firmly entrenched. The customers get to know the new brand during the first season, they really desire it during the second season, and they aren’t ready to let go just yet during the third season. It takes three seasons for the brand to arrive, so to speak. After all, it’s not possible to grasp the brand upon first viewing. A truly fashion-oriented customer will remain faithful to a brand no longer than two and a half years. That’s when she detaches herself from the brand and starts looking for something new. This scenario assumes that the brand is really exciting, not just some run-of-the-mill denim on which the producer has slapped a different name. This kind of brand is hard to find these days, especially as it can’t be a brand that is already well known. The brand has to be relatively unknown, especially in Europe, and I need to stock it before it is featured in the newspapers. This has worked a treat with a few brands lately. I brought them in when nobody knew them and now they are featured in the likes of Gala, InStyle, and Grazia. The customers respect this, you know? They say: “Wow! You already stocked that brand before most people even knew about it?” What we do at Inked is to respond to our customers - not by building a fake world, but by giving them the feeling that they really are buying exclusively. At Inked, they are able to buy brands that appear as if they were made exclusively for them. We show understanding when they decide to buy one item instead of five. We even understand when they want to mull over a purchase a little longer and are grateful that we still talked to them for an hour or so. If they want to sleep on it, that’s fine. Most of them come

The world of Inked explained by those who create it: Nicole Doleh and her employees are authors, salespeople, and role models for the bubble.

back. We are also super friendly when we don’t have an item in a certain size in stock. We simply check whether we can reorder it. Easy-peasy - it’s all very relaxed. The customers like that. There is no more staged environment that is flashy and shiny. No, it’s all very down-toearth and realistic. We no longer pretend, we look like we are. It’s like Nietzsche said: “Become who you are.” The customers love that approach. They love this close relationship. It’s not really a relationship between a salesperson and a customer anymore, but more an encounter between friends - advisory, but never didactic. It’s a cosy bubble that allows you to let down your guard once in a while.

Do you find enough employees who enjoy working on an equal footing with customers?

That’s what I demand of the girls I work with. They are all little dealers in their own right; they aren’t average individuals. They are always busy. They work just like me, which is why I haven’t set them any limits. They have their own e-mail accounts and I allow them to use the Internet. I want them to google, use Facebook, post on Instagram, and socialise in general. They are affine with our customers and brands. They even contact the brands personally when they need something for a customer. My employees are aware of all the difficulties the retail industry is experiencing; they are not excluded from that reality. They know what it means when something needs to be imported from Japan or the US. They know how the customs process works. All this is so valuable, because it makes them so much more significant in their own perception and in the eyes of the customers. The latter perceive them as little entrepreneurs within a business. If it wasn’t so, a brand like Anine Bing wouldn’t work. I am on the road a lot, so how am I supposed to explain every aspect to my customers? I need my entrepreneurs within the business to tell the story behind the brand. I could, obviously, write about Anine Bing on my blog. I can write about how I met her and how I discovered the brand. But the daily re-orders and the daily sales have to be handled by my girls.

How exactly does the re-order process work?

There’s an online store for retailers. That’s where the new items are posted and they are usually sold out within a very short time. One has to be extremely fast and my employees take care of that. I had, however, reached an agreement with the agency, which allowed me to place a block order right at the start. That ensured that I had a basic stock of lingerie and ready-to-wear items, which were delivered in January. Naturally, I advertised the arrival of the brand via Facebook, my blog, and Instagram. I basically utilised every social media channel available to me. I was literally swamped with people almost instantly. My block order was sold out after that and I had to re-order via the Internet. We are really generating good sales with Anine Bing. It’s a real hype.

Are the customers happy with buying real-time?

At the start of the season, I put together a block order that ensures I’m not stuck with heavy knitwear. However, the customers don’t even ask which season it is. They take what they can find in the store.

Well, maybe only industry morons like us find it weird to buy items in January that you can actually wear straight away…

Maybe, yes. (laughs)

Thank you for the interview.

Nicole Doleh is the owner of the two Inked stores on “Bauernmarkt” in Vienna’s first district. After graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York, she worked - among other jobs - as a buyer for the Braun department store before taking the plunge into self-employment. Nicole Doleh’s blog inkedology.at portrays its author’s lifestyle: New York and L.A. spirit mixed with cosmopolitan European brands.