Dear Comme des Garçons: One Thing I Would Do
Comme des Garçons has pioneered a new model of creation and ownership over the almost 50 years of its existence, fostering a thriving horizontal ecosystem of brands and retail stores. No other company has the breadth and the depth that Comme does,…
Dear Triple Five Group: One Thing I Would Do
As Triple Five Group works toward the opening of American Dream Miami, you’re riding the success of your other mall properties, including Mall of America—a trailblazer in unifying theme parks with retail. Your new venture will be the biggest mall in…
Dear Hollar: One Thing I Would Do
When shoppers surf the Hollar site or app today, they can choose from thousands of products, filling up their carts with items from beauty to snacks, party supplies to toiletries, at an average of $2 to $5 dollars per SKU. Maybe while scrolling…
Dear Rent The Runway: One Thing I Would Do
It has been very exciting to watch Rent The Runway usher in a new model of clothing consumption—one of the first that puts sustainability at the forefront. The company has continued to scale in the face of many skeptics, and your customers have led…
Dear Away: One Thing I Would Do
Away has built an impressive toolkit to help today’s travelers, no matter where they’re going or how they’re getting there. Your mission to improve the travel experience and its innumerable encumbrances has sparked a new group of consumers who turn…
Dear The RealReal: One Thing I Would Do
With The RealReal’s network of more than 8 million members, shoppers increasingly go to you to purchase high-end consignment items. Driving your mission to extend the lifeline of luxury clothes and accessories, you connect customers with…
Dear Ulta Beauty: One Thing I Would Do
Ulta continues to expand its brand selection, often testing new brands online or at a small number of brick-and-mortar locations first, before scaling the offering. This worked wonders for MAC Cosmetics—Ulta’s most successful ecommerce launch…
Dear Fenty Beauty: One Thing I Would Do
Fenty sprung onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere—a brand built on inclusivity, with an unprecedentedly wide assortment of SKUs for people of all different skin colors. Filling this long-time void in the market, Rihanna and your team created one…
Dear GREATS: One Thing I Would Do
While GREATS is very much a blank canvas, both in terms of the products and the brand, it’s less clear how this can serve new and existing customers—how they can make this blank canvas their own. Bridging this gap will help the brand grow in more…
Dear Pop & Suki: One Thing I Would Do
When Pop & Suki launched in the fall of 2016, it entered a category where shoppers already had plenty of options. But your product releases took a different direction, prioritizing individuality and personalization, rather than cookie-cutter items,…
Dear Entireworld: One Thing I Would Do
Building a traditional basics brand today is a somewhat futile quest, riddled with endless products and price deflation. The way to make it work, then, is to build a basics brand by not building a basics brand. The current manifestation of…
Dear Reformation: One Thing I Would Do
It’s been exciting to watch Reformation’s rise, which has proved that high-quality, tasteful clothing can be made and marketed with sustainability at the forefront. Few companies can claim this, let alone at Reformation’s scale. But what comes next?…
Dear Walmart & Jet: One Thing I Would Do
As the battle with Amazon continues to heat up, Walmart has the best chance to play offense in categories where Amazon either isn’t focused or isn’t succeeding. While both companies are competing heavily in the private label world, Amazon continues…
Dear Netflix: One Thing I Would Do
As you continue to produce show after show and movie after movie, with hundreds more in the pipeline, you have an emerging opportunity that will not only grow Netflix revenue, but also deepen the relationship between your service and its…
Dear SSENSE: One Thing I Would Do
SSENSE is one of the top digital-first luxury retailers in the world. You’ve gotten there by putting aesthetics, simplicity and function at the forefront, creating a vision and experience that is built around the modern shopper. But SSENSE has the…
Dear Chubbies: One Thing I Would Do
Chubbies has, from the beginning, been all about the weekend. This focus has powered the brand’s success to date, creating a thriving cadre of men (and some women) who have strong and positive feelings about a company that makes short shorts. But as…
Dear Stitch Fix: One Thing I Would Do
Watching Stitch Fix scale, fueled by a modest amount of venture capital and a major dose of revenue, has been exciting—and rare. You’ve built a real business that merges the best of shopping, styling and personalization to solve actual customer…
Dear Glossier: One Thing I Would Do
In relationship terms, if most brands are parents, their customers are children—a relationship that, at its core, is one-sided. Glossier has cultivated a brand-customer relationship more like that of two friends on equal footing—a dialogue. The…
Dear Goop: One Thing I Would Do
Goop sits among a special class of brands that have used the celebrity and values of their founders—authenticity, honesty, humility and a dose of luxury—to cultivate a passionate audience. What smartly started as a media play is evolving into a…
Dear Rimowa: One Thing I Would Do
Rimowa is the most recognizable luggage brand on the planet, which makes it an incredibly exciting company to lead. However, it is also a heritage brand, and while it has both decades of legacy and excellence, it must also work to attract a new…
Dear Nike: One Thing I Would Do
When I was growing up in suburban New York, almost every kid in middle and elementary school wore Nikes. It wasn’t up for debate—of course you were going to buy a pair of Nikes, and after that another pair, and after that yet another pair. But…
Dear Thor Equities: One Thing I Would Do
Retail, as you know, is going through a tumultuous time. While many older brands that fell asleep at the wheel are struggling and realigning their retail footprint, there is a new crop of digitally-native brands that are only just dipping their toes…
Dear Sephora: One Thing I Would Do
Normally when you search for a company’s name followed by the word “problem,” you end up with a lot of complaints. But when you run that search for Sephora, the results are mostly about customers who can’t stop spending at your stores.
Dear Peloton: One Thing I Would Do
Right now, this data lives on each rider’s bike and on your servers, but, like the stationary bike, it never leaves home. That could drastically change if you created a personalized, data-driven apparel program where riders could order products that…
Dear Zara: One Thing I Would Do
Working in the consumer products space, I have examined many different companies, but Zara remains one of the most fascinating studies. Your accomplishments—from a supply chain, retail, digital and culture perspective—rival few others because of the…
Dear Simon Property Group: One Thing I Would Do
Dear David, The Westchester was my local mall growing up in New York, and I have fond memories visiting it both when I just wanted to wander and when I knew what I wanted to buy. When I would traverse its multiple wings and floors, there was always…
Dear Bloomingdale’s: One Thing I Would Do
Bloomingdale's used to be one of the first places I went when I was looking to make a big purchase—a new coat, a blazer, some jeans—but I didn’t know what brand I was going to buy. There was always a bit of chaos, but the wide selection and generous…
Dear J.Crew: One Thing I Would Do
Shoppers usually know what to expect from J.Crew. Normally, this is good, but in a world where fast fashion has elevated the trend cycle to a new level, keeping relevant and exciting products in stock is a challenge, especially with months-long…