Facing Prada Transformation Pressure, How Much Time Does Raf Simons Still Have?

Prada soldiers put forth a strange trick to include Raf Simons.
The Belgian fashion lover will officially join Prada in April 2nd this year. He is co creative director and creative director Miuccia Prada, who is responsible for creative decisions. The first show has been shown on the fashion week of Milan in September this year.
"To be honest, after I left Calvin Klein, Bertelli (chief executive and Miuccia partner) contacted me immediately. Miuccia and I communicated with creativity in today's fashion industry. This made me and many designers start to talk with each other, not just with MS. Prada. We have to re examine how creativity develops in the fashion system, "Simons said in the press conference announcing the news.
As the first non family member to join the group's core design team, he has been an important step in the group's current transformation plan since he was founded by Prada. Chief executive Patrizio Bertelli has no doubt: "Prada Prada" once again proved to be on the front line of transformation. "
However, in recent years, Prada's actions in the field of distribution and communication are not so convincing, and the feeling of passing to the outside world is that the key node of the industry change is wrong. When it comes to selling electricity to the family, Prada is still investing in global stores. Street fashion has swept the luxury industry for several years, leading the brand fever to fade away. Prada only revived the 1990s hot Linea Rossa product line in 2018.
In the transformation plan, there are no drastic reform actions at present, mainly through reducing wholesale channels, strengthening direct retail sales, and ending sales promotion activities since January 2019, in order to achieve profit growth by controlling prices. This spring, the wholesale rationalization strategy is expected to further upgrade, and the number of products sold by retailers will be reduced by 50%.
However, these trends are reflected in the performance of the transition period, and the strategy is not effective. The group's sales in the first half of 2019 were 1 billion 570 million euros, unchanged from the same period last year. Prada brand revenue accounted for 80% of sales, up 4% over the same period last year. Retail sales were not unexpected at all, but total retail sales declined.
Luca Solca, director of luxury research at Bernstein Research Institute (Bernstein), once thought that Prada could upgrade its management team or improve its merchandising and brand management capabilities.
But Prada invites a co creative director for himself. Since Miuccia Prada took charge of Prada in 1978, it has transformed fashion and creativity into a good business to promote the development of family groups. Her every move has been firmly tied to the brand. So the entry of Simons is easy to understand that Miuccia, more than 70, is looking for a successor for herself. But she insisted at a news conference: "this is not a succession, it is a way to stimulate creativity."
Simons met with Miuccia as early as 2005. He was a creative director at Jil Sander, and he joined Dior and Calvin Klein in 2012 when he left his six year old office. The fashion darling later explained his work in Dior: "when you do 6 shows a year, you don't have enough time to complete the whole process." Especially, "you don't have time to incubate ideas." The experience of Calvin Klein seems to have worsened this situation, announcing that Simons should join in the appointment period to strengthen the high-end brand positioning in the world. However, he did not bring considerable sales, leaving 8 months before the end of his term.
This kind of "not suitable for" and his comments in 2015 are far from being verified: "I never really thought about big companies, big brands and famous designers. I just wanted to design clothes. "Similar views have been said more than once, but also sober:" these brands are largely driven by marketing and revenue growth. "
Then Miuccia should be a good working partner. She once said in the famous talk of "System": "now I want to focus on what I like and what I care about. If we do not grow enough to meet market demand, I need not worry. "Two people are the top designers in the fashion industry who still insist on their own creative ideas. In the view of Tim Blanks, even if two people do not always agree on creativity, they may inspire more sparks.
But behind Prada is not just Miuccia, but Bertelli is responsible for everything except creativity in the company. In his early Fortune, Bertelli's former employees revealed that he was short tempered, full of control, and full of control. Even when he disagrees with Miuccia, he will start shouting, which is rarely seen in the fashion industry.
More importantly, a listed luxury group in transition always needs to deal with the pressure of market performance. Since the 2012 Prada Saffiano, the brand has not introduced a comparable explosive bag. Simons herself is not famous for her handbag design. Leather goods contributed 57% of revenue to Prada group in the first half of 2019. It is also the largest source of revenue for Kering Group. Leather goods and footwear account for 73%, of which the first tier brand Gucci is 75%. The pressure is not only the difference between the proportion of revenues, but also the future growth rate. Compared with the same period last year, Prada group's growth rate was only 1%, and the related categories of Kai Yun group successfully pulled the overall development, which was more than 4% of the overall growth rate.
Jil Sander and Dior's professional experience proves that Simons is not not able to bring commercial results, but the fashion industry is eager and high-profile in pursuit of short-term profits. Designers need to explode cash products. Simons even with the Miuccia, the problems we encountered before could not be avoided. As Mario Ortello, managing partner of Ortelli&Co., a luxury consulting firm, said, "for designer namesake brands, the transformation of the designer is always the most complex stage, and it takes a long time to achieve success."