Scott Kuhlman's Minneapolis-based fashion subscription site gives men a new Lewk

Scott Kuhlman was on an airplane reading a letter from the editor in GQ magazine when the idea for Lewk, his new menswear subscription service, came to him.
“The recurring word was ‘uniform,’ as in ‘creating my uniform for the season,’ ” he recalled. “It was a word that had been going off in my mind, because that’s what I do — I create uniforms for myself every season. And I thought, what can I do with this?”
A few years later, Lewk (pronounced “look”) was born. Kuhlman, in partnership with marketing pro Drew Pearson, quietly launched the Minneapolis-based start-up at the end of December. Its aim: to set up style-conscious men with a “uniform” of wardrobe staples, one month at a time, via subscription.
Kuhlman is one of the most recognizable names in Minnesota retail, best known for his namesake store, which specialized in fashion-forward men’s shirts featuring his own designs. At its peak, Kuhlman boasted 60 locations throughout the U.S., including four in the Twin Cities area, before shuttering in 2008.
“I could see that [the traditional retail model] wasn’t working,” Kuhlman said. He doesn’t see e-commerce as the solution, either. “I’m not going to look through 36 pages of shirts to find a shirt that I want, so even I think that’s broken,” he said.
With Lewk, Kuhlman and Pearson have spent two years building what they believe to be the answer. The slang term “lewk” refers to someone’s signature style. “We looked it up on Urban Dictionary,” said Pearson, “which defined it as a guy who has an overall curated look — from a one to 10, he’s a 12.”
“We wanted something that was simple, memorable and portrayed confidence,” Pearson said of the company’s name. “And it just so happened that [lewk.com] was actually for sale. Finding a four-letter URL is incredibly difficult, so we did a happy dance and high-fives.”
How it works
A would-be subscriber begins on the website by selecting one of three plans, ranging from $79 for two items per month to $399 for four. From there, he fills out a quick interactive profile, in which he answers lifestyle questions and enters his sizes, before creating an account. (If he likes to rock chinos with gingham shirts, he’s “classic.” If he swears by his Red Wing boots and selvage denim, he’s “heritage.”) Subscribers also may opt in for on-demand packages, such as a head-to-toe look or a trio of selvage twill pants.
“We know that guys hate to shop but they want to look good,” Kuhlman said. “Our mission is to make that convenient.”
The catch? You can’t return the clothes for a refund if you don’t like them — they’re yours to keep. While this may turn off some potential subscribers, Kuhlman isn’t concerned. “You only have to be right 50 percent of the time,” he said. “If we send two items and one of them is spot-on, they’re good with that. Plus, you would have paid much more for that one item anyway.”
For instance, Lewk’s first $79 box, which goes out to subscribers at the end of January, will contain a pair of Japanese selvage denim jeans and a white oxford shirt — a seriously good deal considering that most high-end selvage jeans retail for $200 to $350.
Designed in Minnesota
Lewk isn’t the first clothing subscription service on the block. There are at least five other menswear services, including Trunk Club and Five Four Club, and too many women’s subscription services to count.
But unlike its competitors, Lewk’s goods are designed in-house by Kuhlman himself, rather than purchased wholesale, which allows the company to pass on the savings to the customer. (He said most of Lewk’s clothing is manufactured in small factories in Turkey, Italy and China.)
Although he declined to reveal early numbers, Kuhlman said the subscription model affords Lewk the predictability of recurring revenue, reducing risk.
“Retail’s pricing structure is based on speculation,” he said. “It’s what retailers call out-the-door pricing. It means retailing something for $200 but selling the bulk of it at 50 percent off, so $100 is where the costing has to be. I always thought for the consumer, that’s a losing proposition. Where with this model, you’re getting a much better value.”
He put it another way: “There’s a saying that classic retail is a one-night stand, where a subscription is a long-term relationship.”

Tavi Gevinson on fashion, acting and growing up in the limelight

The moment I saw the pint-sized fashion blogger take her seat in the front row of Chanel’s spring couture show back in 2010, I knew it was the beginning of the end. Tavi Gevinson was a 13-year-old kid from Oak Park, Ill., but already the precocious style maven was making waves in the blogosphere with her Style Rookie site, which she’d started two years earlier, that was attracting over 30,000 readers daily. Gevinson’s earnest and unwittingly controversial efforts were emblematic of the democratization of fashion: Even a pubescent fan who blogged from her Chicago suburb bedroom could have opinions and a voice as vital and valuable as a seasoned editor. The system had finally, perhaps happily, changed. And while cynical tongues wagged, arbiters everywhere became cognizant of fashion’s new age.
As the years have passed, Gevinson has expanded her horizons, embracing issues of feminism and pop culture. She founded the online publication, Rookie Magazine (of which she continues to be editor-in-chief). In 2014, Gevinson made Time Magazine’s list of the 25 most influential teens, and she has flourished as a public speaker and most recently, an actress. Gevinson was in Toronto recently for the launch of Yearbook Four, a publication that compiles the best of Rookie website’s senior year. I spoke with the 19-year-old dynamo about growing up in the limelight, how her parents helped ground her, and the evolution of her personal approach to style.
You were one of the first young fashion bloggers to surface in a major way. How aware were you of the impact that you were having on media and the fashion industry?
It was always really difficult to gauge and I don’t think I was very interested in knowing because I was never writing for an audience with the interest of giving them news about fashion or telling them what was cool to wear. It was all coming from a very personal place, and to protect that, it was great that I was just still living at home and going to school. And there was stuff written about me and I could look at it or I could not. I just came up at a time when the narrative of someone’s fifteen minutes running out was very prevalent. The idea of being a ‘child star’ always sounded awful to people my age, and so I was just very aware that these things are kind of fleeting and that a lot of it didn’t have to do with me; it had to do with my age, it had to do with whatever came to mind when people thought of a young internet sensation. So I felt healthily removed from it.
I’m curious to know how important a role the fashion arena played in making you aware of the big picture and of how you could use it as a platform.
I knew that I had different kinds of aspirations, but it wasn’t any type of career move at that age to use fashion as a springboard for anything else. People ask me about the decision to transition from fashion to Rookie magazine. But it wasn’t a decision. I was 14 and my interests were changing. So all of it was pretty organic. I’m a very careful person. I never did anything that I was uncomfortable with. If anything, I wish I’d been more savvy about knowing and understanding things, like asking for money when you do something. But there was so much going on that I wasn’t calculating anything.
Looking back at that world, what are some of your thoughts on the power, and perhaps evils of it?
To be that interested in personal style was great for me in the same way keeping a diary was great for me because it was a way to express myself, and it feels good when you’re outsides match your insides. And then to have that recognized in this other sphere was interesting. But you know, a lot of it was mixed. Looking back, I’m very glad that I was going to the stuff with my parents. They had no interest in the scene initially, but they became interested. They thought it was fascinating. But no part of them wanted to go to an Alexander Wang party! So I’m really glad that they were with me and coming at it from these outsider perspectives. My dad is an English teacher and my mother is a textiles artist so they’re interested in the world in very unique ways. Looking back, I’m even grateful for the initial encounters that were less than positive, because it forced me to build a really thick skin and to think constructively about whose opinion was important to me and if an opinion mattered, if it came from someone who you don’t feel shares your values. And it’s also honestly a blessing because now I live in New York and I think I would have had a weirder first year there if something like a very exclusive party was new for me and I felt super wide-eyed. Now that I can see though some of the fluffier parts surrounding the scene, it allows me to maybe see someone at a party that I can actually have a conversation with, and learn something from and make other kinds of connections.
You had a turn on Broadway not that long ago and got great reviews. Is that something that you want to do more of?
Yeah! We’re starting rehearsals in January for The Crucible on Broadway and I’m so excited, and a little scared.
You’re obviously still adamant about not just settling for one kind of arena – you don’t want to confine yourself to just realizing one dream.
No. And I feel like I learned so much more about each arena from the others. I think being in a play made me a better writer. I think working on Rookie and thinking so much about what it means to connect with someone emotionally made me a better stage actress. I just feel so lucky that I’m able to do things that are enriching for me.
Do you consciously feel the responsibility of being a role model for young women or just accept it?
It’s not a bad way to live, thinking, ‘What would I want a smart but maybe a little confused 15-year-old to see in someone she admires?’ I think it makes me take better care of myself and less willing to make concessions about other people’s opinions. I’m very lucky that the audience I’ve had has been that supporting kind of audience. In terms of my own creative expression, I feel just more encouraged to open up.
And finally on more of a superficial level – how has your approach to style changed since you first got into that world?
I don’t think that’s superficial. I go through periods where I don’t really care what I look like because I feel more focused on the work that I’m doing and I don’t want to think about it. And then sometimes it feels like the biggest part of my day is getting dressed. Probably the biggest change is that I have more of an awareness of my body than I had when I was that age, because I was totally prepubescent and would just go to the thrift store and had no concept of sizes and was just like ‘I can make anything work! What’s important is the colours and whatever…’ Now I don’t feel that way. But I still try to make sure that if I put something on and then I feel ‘Ah, it’s too weird’, then I have to wear it. Because I’ll always feel better coming home at the end of the day knowing I did that than being out and knowing that I sort of compromised based on some standard that no one even set for me.

Hoodies and robes as fashion enters the ring – Men shun conventions

Proving that manliness can come wrapped in a skirt, design duo Sibling on Saturday stamped their style on London Fashion Week with a bold collection inspired by boxing and 1980s pop culture.
Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” opened the show, held in the basement of the neo-Gothic Victoria House in the heart of the British capital, a fitting soundtrack to the British pair’s punchy but light-hearted designs.
The catwalk became a ringwalk as male models paraded in thick woollen hoodies decorated with medals, inspired by boxers’ robes.
Punchbags were fashioned into fabric travel bags while the hand-strapping worn by fighters and martial artists provided the inspiration for a set of mittens.
But pop stars as-well as pugilists were a driving force behind the collection, with the dominant royal blue palette a tribute to an album cover by 1980s pop diva Grace Jones, Sibling designer Cozette McCreery told AFP.
Influence
“The other person that was a huge influence was (Jean-Michel) Basquiat,” one of contemporary art’s leading stars and graffiti pioneer who died in 1988, she added.
The designers encouraged men to shun fashion conventions, showcasing a range of skirts also embellished with medals.
“We like legs,” said McCreery. “As a girl, I’d be very happy if lots of guys showed more leg”.
Earlier in the day, Astrid Andersen presented a comfortable and modern wardrobe inspired by urban street-wear, using a variety of materials including quilted nylon, denim and tweed in a collection she said was “focussed on fabric”.
The palette ranged from grey to turquoise through to orange, and the young designer offered her own take on the male mitten, stretching all the way to the elbow.
Shows for the autumn-winter 2016 season began on Friday and will continue until Monday.
Men’s Fashion Week will then up sticks and head for Milan and Paris before ending in New York.
Also:
PARIS: Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is suspected of having hidden more than 20 million euros ($21.5 mn) from French tax authorities using complex transactions between various companies, L’Express weekly has reported last Wednesday.
French authorities declined to comment citing the privacy of tax affairs. A spokesman for Lagerfeld, who is artistic director for fashion house Chanel as well as having his own label, also declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
French tax authorities “suspect that in the space of six years the man with the ever-present black sunglasses omitted to declare 20 million euros” in France, wrote L’Express.
Lagerfeld, also an artist and photographer, is known for his trademark dark shades. An investigation is focusing on the 7L bookshop in Paris, which Lagerfeld founded in 1999.
According to L’Express, the bookstore houses a photo studio owned by a British-based company, which takes in the revenue from Lagerfeld’s photography work. The bookstore loses money and thus does not pay taxes.
The news weekly said French tax authorities suspect the foreign transactions allowed the “concealing of the undeclared professional activity” of Lagerfeld as a photographer.
French authorities are also interested in the activities of two property investment companies and a tax adjustment Lagerfeld received in the 1990s.
LOS ANGELES: Now sought-after for her edgy, androgynous style, actress Ruby Rose initially struggled to find her niche.
“When I first started in the industry back home in Australia at 18 there was a lot of push and shove as to how I should dress, if I was allowed to cut my hair short, if I had too many tattoos,” Rose said in an interview Tuesday. “If I didn’t get a campaign or if I didn’t get a role, they would always come back to ‘well, she dresses like a boy.’”
Times have changed for the “Orange is the New Black” breakout star, who recently swapped her Litchfield Prison uniform for distressed overalls and cutoff shorts as the face of Denim & Supply Ralph Lauren.
Rose, who counts Vivienne Westwood, Annie Lennox and Madonna among her style icons, teamed with model Hailey Baldwin for the brand’s latest social media and global ad campaign.
She credits her hit Netflix series along with Amazon’s “Transparent” for sparking a dialogue about gender identity and acceptance in the entertainment industry and beyond.
“People were waiting to start this conversation,” said Rose. “Someone had to ignite it and once that happened, it was just a snowball effect where you had celebrities and all different people coming out and saying, ‘I’m gender fluid’ or ‘I’m transgender,’ and people feeling more comfortable in their skin.”
The 29-year-old also praised Louis Vuitton’s latest womenswear campaign featuring actor-rapper Jaden Smith.
“I mean he’s so amazing but the reason that’s so special is because that’s how he dresses,” said Rose. “It’s not like they just went ‘OK, we’re going to grab a guy that’s popular, that people like, and we’re going to put him in a dress.’ It’s not done in a tasteless way. It’s just this is who he is.”
Though it has not yet been announced if her “Orange” character, Stella Carlin, will return for season four, Rose is busy with upcoming films including “John Wick 2” and “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.”
“Acting is my life. It’s what I live and breathe,” said Rose.

FIND YOUR FASHION FOCUSES ON CUSTOMERS

Ferndale clothing boutique Find Your Fashion has always been about taking care of its customers, and in 2016 owner Barb Scoggins is doubling down on that philosophy.
Find Your Fashion is coming off one of its worst retail years in its five-and-a-half-year history, and Scoggins sees a number of reasons for this. She sees accommodating the needs of all of her customers as an important step to improving business at Find Your Fashion.
“Any good businessperson is going to zig and zag to meet the needs of the customer in a down economy,” she said. “Part of it is the economy in general, and a big part of it is how much people are shopping online. That’s going to eventually kill brick and mortar if we’re not more dutiful to our little stores. A big part of it was the layoffs, and a big part of it was the move.”
Find Your Fashion moved from Ferndale Station to its new location nearby on Labounty Drive in late 2014. The store’s consignment arm, Find Your Fashion Again, was already located there. Scoggins said people may not have heard about the move and may have lost track of the store in the process.
Since founding Find Your Fashion, originally a boutique store selling all new merchandise for men, women and kids, Scoggins saw a desire among her customers for a consignment option.
“Many people were disappointed that we were not consignment,” she said. “So I said ‘I think I’m going to start selling consignment at the back of the store.’”
Within three weeks, Scoggins went from zero to 70 consigners. Find Your Fashion doesn’t buy clothes; rather, the store allows people to bring in their gently used clothes to sell them.
When considering how to handle the influx of consigners, Scoggins found that there was great support for both sides of the Find Your Fashion brand. She opened Find Your Fashion Again on Labounty Drive exclusively for consignment, keeping Find Your Fashion open for brand-new merchandise as well.
However, Scoggins found that people with a variety of shopping styles were purchasing from Find Your Fashion and Find Your Fashion Again. Some wanted solely consignment, some wanted only new merchandise, and some wanted a mix of the two. Having two separate stores made the latter option difficult with two locations.
So, when her Ferndale Station lease expired, Scoggins moved Find Your Fashion into the same space as Find Your Fashion Again.
“Now, we’re all under one roof,” she said. “People love the bigger space of the store. It’s more open. Some of the feedback that I’ve received is that it’s less claustrophobic. People have really appreciated what I’ve done here. Everyone has really appreciated that we’ve managed to bring both boutiques together. Almost six years later, and I’m hoping this is the winning formula.”
The down year has not been reflected in her customers’ enthusiasm for the store, Scoggins said. Despite not pushing or publicizing Find Your Fashion’s bid for the Ferndale Record’s Best of Ferndale awards, the store won the Best Retail prize.
She said the best way to spread the word about Find Your Fashion is to like the store’s page on Facebook and to share it with family and friends. Visit the store’s website at FindYourFashion.com. It is located at 1730 Labounty Dr., Suite 8, in Ferndale.

Moda Operandi, Online Seller Of Six-Figure Fashion

On the front wall of Moda Operandi’s otherwise sleek, modern, downtown Manhattan office is a cast-iron dinner bell with a rope pulley. Whenever theluxury online fashion retailer made a sale over $20,000, CEO Deborah Nicodemus would ring the bell to the cheers of staff at Moda, as the five-year-old e-commerce operation is known.
But over the last 14 months Nicodemus watched the percentage of $20,000-plus purchases — embellished gowns from Spanish couturier Delpozo, for instance, or in one record-setting case, a $413,000 ruby necklace — climb from zero to more than 10% of Moda’s total business. The bell now waits until a shopper spends $50,000.
Soon enough, however, even that figure may prove too low. In 2015 Moda had $68 million in revenues, up from $46 million the year before. By 2020, Nicodemus tells FORBES matter-of-factly, the company will take in $500 million. “We’re on track to do that,” she says. “We deliver on our commitments. It’s not just a document. It’s not just a plan.”
Part of that plan includes Moda’s first bridal collection, which launched last spring after the team discovered that eight of its bestselling gowns of 2014 had been white. Wedding dresses from sought-after labels such as Monique Lhuillier and Naeem Khan can easily cost more than $10,000 on their own, but add a pair of heels, a clutch and jewels and the order value skyrockets for a bride’s big day. Moda can also take the process offline by offering private appointments at its showrooms in New York and London.
Moda Operandi launched in 2011 as the solution to a first-world problem of the highest order. The wealthy, thirtysomething women who make up its loyal customer base could sit front row at every Fashion Week show, but when it came to purchasing runway looks, they were at the mercy of buyers at high-end department stores.
“Bergdorf Goodman will offer ten looks per collection and they’ll be the more conservative staple pieces,” says Lauren Santo Domingo, Moda’s cofounder and the fashion insider yin to Nicodemus’ business strategist yang. Santo Domingo trained as a market editor at Vogue (“the Goldman Sachs of the fashion world,” she calls it) before heading up PR at Carolina Herrera’s fashion house.
Santo Domingo and cofounder Aslaug Magnusdottir, an Icelandic entrepreneur, conceived of Moda as a members-only online trunk show, a luxury counterpart to the flash sales sites like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La that dominated e-commerce at the time. Women could preorder looks they saw coming down the runway directly from Moda rather than waiting to see which pieces a department store would select.
Moda partnered with designers and fashion houses, many of whom had no online presence and were relieved to be able to outsource it. Just as enamored with the business model: investors, like Tony Florence of New Enterprise Associates, the venture capital firm that led Moda’s 2011 Series B and remains the largest shareholder.
“There were no alternatives,” Florence says. “There was really no place, other than Net-A-Porter, and they were getting so big that they had become mass-market. That left a big white space.”
Moda had raised more than $78 million by the time Magnusdottir bowed out in 2013, to be replaced by Nicodemus, a branding and merchandising expert who had spent 16 years at French luxury conglomerate LVMH.
Since Nicodemus came on board, the gulf between Moda and its competitors has only widened. Net-A-Porter, while still the largest player in online luxury, saw its founder and top executives resign before a merger with Italian e-tailer Yoox. In a bid for younger shoppers, Net-A-Porter launched beauty and sportswear lines in 2013 and 2014, respectively, bringing its average order amount down to about $760.
That figure is staggering given that the average online basket size in the U.S. is $78. But it’s nowhere near Moda’s average purchase of $2,000, which goes up to $7,800 during the various Fashion Weeks, when shoppers are more inclined than ever to order a head-to-toe look. “Women are saying, specifically, ‘I want Oscar de la Renta look number 13,’ ” says Santo Domingo. “ There’s no one else doing these numbers.”
Over the past two years under Nicodemus, Moda has invested in technology to enable women to spend vast amounts more easily and seamlessly. The site wasn’t even searchable in 2013. Now shoppers can create a Fashion Week wish list on Moda’s app, receiving a push notification when a beloved look becomes available — typically an hour after the runway show ends.
Last year Moda raised a $60 million Series E, bringing its total venture capital funding to just under $140 million. Its international growth inEurope and the Middle East is outpacing its U.S. performance; overseas sales now represent 30% of revenues, but Nicodemus expects that number will soon be 50%. She is also looking to open an invitation-only showroom somewhere in the Middle East to service VIP clients similar to the one it operates in London’s Belgravia, a favorite haunt of royals and oligarchs.
It was in London that Moda sold that $413,000 ruby necklace, its most expensive item to date. That record may not hold for long: There’s a pair of $480,000 yellow-and-white diamond earrings on the site waiting for a buyer. They’re one-of-a-kind, unavailable anywhere else. The bell is waiting.