Apparel Magazine 2017 Top Innovators Report

41 Pages·2017·2.28 MB·English

TTOPINNOVAOTORS P
7
Since the dawn of retail, the
ultimate goal of giving the 1
customer what she wants
0
has not changed, but the path
toward it has. So, too, has the 2
concern for the stakeholders on
that journey. There’s the customer, INNOVATORS
of course, but also the people who
design and create the prod-
ucts, the factory workers
who produce the products,
and all of the other work-
ers who pack and drive
and deliver and sell. There
are, too, the people who live
in the communities where all
of these functions take place,
whose health and livelihoods
may be directly or indirectly con-
nected to these businesses.
This year’s crop of Innovators,
like those before it, are harnessing
the power of technology to im-
prove their businesses and serve
the consumer, yet each year, the
players seem to be more capable
of, and thus more interested in,
taking a more holistic view of their
supply chains. With increasing
visibility into everything enabled
by automated and connected
systems as well as business intel-
ligence, the possibilities for col-
laborating with partners, identifying
consumer desires and speeding
the whole lifecycle increase.
From sustainability and artificial
intelligence to automating work-
flows, doubling down on fit tech-
nology and perfecting patterns,
this year’s innovative cohort shows
that there’s no wrong way to move
your business forward and rise
above the competition — even as
the stakes get higher every day.
By Jordan K. Speer & Jessica Binns.
10 MAY 2017 apparelmag.com
TOP TOPINNOVATORS
The Black Tux
Gardena, Calif. | www.theblacktux.com
’s
SELF-NOMINATED
Think back to the last time Netflix.) Place your order, and
you rented a tuxedo. Was your garment arrives 14 days
INNOVATORS
it senior prom? Your wedding? prior to your event so you
A corporate event? Is the mere have time for a free exchange opening this month.
thought of that experience if necessary. After your event, Business has grown so
generating a spark of anxiety, place it back in the bag and quickly that the company has
what with the multiple trips to box it arrived in, and ship it moved from producing gar-
the tux shop to get fitted, an- back, free of charge. ments twice a year to buying
other to pick it up and another For those who prefer more monthly. It services all of its
to return it? And what about traditional measuring meth- customers from one distribu-
the style and fit? Did you feel ods, the company will send tion center just outside Los
like a sharp-dressed man, or you a tape measure, or you Angeles, but it is running out
more like you’d raided your can go to your tailor, and sub- of space, and looking to ex-
father’s closet? You don’t have mit those measurements. Or, pand, potentially to another
to answer that. you can request its brand new DC on the East Coast. Last year,
But you’re nodding your home try-on option, which it invested a couple million in
head. You know what I’m talk- will allow you to see how a technology, much of it from
ing about. In 2013, after a ter- suit looks and feels before SDI Industries, to upgrade
rible experience renting tux- you rent (but only Tuesday its current 65,000-square-foot
edos for Andrew Blackmon’s through Thursday, and only DC. It is now fully automated,
wedding, longtime friends six weeks in advance of your with each garment individu-
Blackmon and Patrick Coyne event, to reduce the likeli- ally tracked via RFID through-
saw an opportunity to spruce hood you’re using this option out inbound and outbound
up the traditional tuxedo and to avoid paying). processes.
suit rental business. They ran Today, its online store As its name might suggest,
their idea through startup in- represents the majority of its the majority of its inventory is
cubator MuckerLab of Mucker business, but that may change black, but the company makes
Capital and out popped The soon, says Mike Klepfer, vice sure to keep fashion-forward
Black Tux, an online tux rental president, operations, as Black choices on hand for those cus-
shop that removes the drudg- Tux just inked a partnership tomers who are a little farther
ery from the rental process with Nordstrom to allow cus- out on the edge. Its black and
and also outfits its customers tomers to access Black Tux white and red split tartan tux-
in stylish high-end tuxedos directly from its stores. The edo, which makes the edge
and suits — the equivalent of first of these opened in March look like the middle (see for
a $1,200+ garment in a retail at Nordstrom’s Mission Viejo, yourself), has been very popu-
store. Black Tux uses 100 per- Calif., store. Business is grow- lar, while its Midnight Blue
cent Italian merino wool in its ing rapidly, spreading through tuxedo has been its best-sell-
suiting, 100 percent cotton for word of mouth, through cross- ing non-black suit this season.
its shirting, and real leather for marketing with retail partners Every suit is available in clas-
its shoes. — which also includes the sic and slim fit and has mul-
The ordering process wedding registries of Crate- tiple options for pants’ length.
couldn’t be simpler. Go on- and-Barrel and The Knot — Next up, the company is
line, enter some basic informa- and through media spots, in- considering a retail model for
tion about your height, weight cluding a recent GQ feature. those customers who want to
and build, and a sophisticated Black-Tux also has four of its keep their garments. In short,
algorithm will tell you what own showrooms in Chicago, says Klepfer, “we want to of-
size you should be. (Black Tux Dallas, LA and New York City fer people what they want.”
snagged its data scientist from and a fifth in San Francisco — Jordan K. Speer
apparelmag.com MAY 2017 11
TOPINNOVATORS
FOSSIL Group
Richardson, Texas | www.fossil.com
NOMINATED BY: Dassault Systemes | www.3ds.com
Over the past 33 years, FOSSIL solution, so the company issued an from start to finish, eliminating any
has grown immensely. It began RFP in 2011, narrowed the search “rogue development.” The company
by importing brands before starting to two contenders, and eventually has about 900 licensed users on the
to develop its own brands and prod- chose Dassault. One of the primary system, including internal designers
ucts. It also purchased a couple of reasons for that decision, says Bol- and vendor partners.
Swiss watch brands. In the late ‘90s, linger, was that Dassault agreed to FOSSIL started the project in
the company began licensing watch integrate Adobe Illustrator into its February 2013, with two planned
and jewelry lines, starting with Ar- platform, enabling FOSSIL’s design go-lives, and finished in July 2016,
mani and expanding significantly group to drag and drop directly into with the Adobe portion one of the
from there to include brands such the PLM system without having to last things to go live. “It was a lot
as Michael Kors, Burberry, Tory re-enter data. of work on Dassault’s end,” he says.
Burch and DKNY. “Designers don’t want to do data It’s been less than a year, but the
“Over time, the company grew entry, and we didn’t want a layer of benefits are unmistakable. One of
as an amalgamation of all of these re-interpretation,” said Bollinger. “So the most significant is that FOS-
brands,” says Steve Street, senior Dassault created the link between SIL now has a clear understand-
vice president, global operations Adobe and its PLM system, and it’s ing of its design-to-hit ratio, and
and supply chain, with the major- amazing,” he says. By having Illustra- because it can measure it, is able
ity (around 80 percent) of FOSSIL’s tor integrated from the beginning, all to improve it. For example, for
business in watches. That’s split projects are maintained in the system one watch brand, it has improved
about evenly between owned from an eight- or nine-to-one
and licensed brands, he says. design-to-hit rate to a five-to-
“Essentially, for decades, one design-to-hit rate. Said
each subgroup of each brand differently, it has reduced by
had its own way of tracking about 45 percent the number
and keeping up with the prod- of designs it creates, while
uct development process,” increasing the percentage of
says Street. designs it adopts.
It’s a familiar tale: Emails “That is a very big im-
and spreadsheets ruled the pact,” says Bollinger. “We
day, so the company ended up have less sampling. On one
with many ways of handling of our larger brands, for ex-
product development, both by ample, that kind of reduction
brand and by category (leath- in sampling would translate
ers, shoes, jewelry, watches, to about 300 fewer designs
etc.). “We had a million ways per brand, and we typically
of doing the same thing,” do about three samples per
quips Brad Bollinger, vice design, so that’s getting close
president of product develop- to 1,000 fewer samples per
ment, licensed brands. brand per year.”
In short, FOSSIL was los- FOSSIL has also reduced
ing a lot of time, energy and cycle time, in large part due to
money to redundancy and that reduction in hit ratio, but
inefficiency, and it needed to also because of greater trans-
integrate and unify its product parency and collaboration.
development processes. “In short,” says Bollinger, “we
It thought the answer to its have one tool, one process and
problems could be found in a one truth.”
product lifecycle management — Jordan K. Speer
12 MAY 2017 apparelmag.com
TOPINNOVATORS
American Eagle Outfitters
Pittsburgh, Pa. | www.ae.com
NOMINATED BY: Reflexis | www.reflexisinc.com
When it comes to prod- “What’s great about it is
uct launches, marketing the teams get a holistic view
and other store-level events, of communications,” says
retailers invest a lot of mon- Horn, because it includes
ey to research, brand, pack- both the business drivers and
age and market. Yet many of the specific tasks or projects
these big projects lose steam that need to be completed
when it comes to executing during the week or month.
at the store level. The tasks At AEO, the company has
that are necessary to execute moved to a three-month cal-
are often ineffectively com- endar. “For the first time
municated with tools such as ever, store managers can see
emails, conference calls and what is going to happen in
handwritten notes. their business and schedule
American Eagle Outfitters to it,” says Horn.
has found a solution. For Additionally store and dis-
the retailer — which operates trict managers can add store-
1,026 stores in the United specific items, such as associ-
States, Canada and Mexico, ate availability, PTO requests
and is in 176 international or market mall-specific events
locations via license partners to inform the home office,
— the goal is for “every cus- says Horn.
tomer to leave happier than To simplify things further,
when they came in,” says El- AEO developed a daily plan-
len Horn, lead, store commu- ner screen to provide a “one-
nications. That requires giv- shot” snapshot of the busi-
ing store managers the ability ness, a “huge win” for SMs,
to put the customer first. she says, who can now log in
To do that, American Ea- to this unified dashboard, see
gle Outfitters (AEO) needed to provide information what they need to do, and then get back on the sales
to its store managers (SMs) in one place and one ver- floor without digging around for a lot of information.
sion so they did not spend valuable consumer-facing Previously, SMs spent approximately two hours every
time searching through forwarded and unprioritized day sifting through communications — and that didn’t
emails. To get a handle on store communications, even include execution; that was just figuring out what
AEO implemented the Task Manager™ solution from needed to be done, quips Horn. Since using Task Man-
Reflexis. ager, that process has been reduced to about 15 to 20
What’s more, AEO dug deep into the solution to minutes.
take advantage of some of its more useful features, Other benefits of the solution: AEO has seen an ap-
including its store-specific calendar, which allowed proximate 70 percent increase in completed projects
the company to communicate in a holistic way with- year over year because it can track what’s been com-
out burdening individual stores with specific tasks or pleted vs. what hasn’t, and communications have been
communications that were not relevant to that spe- reduced by 30 percent.
cific location. Next up, AEO is looking into the solution’s mobility
How does AEO use the tool? From the home office, feature. It has iPads in all of its stores and wants to bring
it loads information into the systems such as floor sets, the app onto the devices so that store managers can op-
pay days, holidays and specific market events such as erate on the go, without having to leave the sales floor,
tax-free weekends, and then pushes that information out enabling them to better service customers.
to the appropriate stores on a time-relevant schedule. — Jordan K. Speer
apparelmag.com MAY 2017 13
TOPINNOVATORS
Canada Goose
Toronto, Ontario, Canada | www.canadagoose.com
NOMINATED BY: NGC
At a time when both the retail expansion in Europe, which includes
and luxury worlds have seen e-commerce sites for France and the
better days, Canada Goose is among United Kingdom (in addition to web
the few bright spots in the industry stores for the United States and Can-
(insert bird-related phoenix-rising ada) — all of which pulled in total
metaphor here). e-commerce sales of $33 million for
Steeped in Arctic heritage and fiscal 2016 amid $290.8 million in
known for outfitting film crews work- revenue overall.
ing in extreme conditions and loca- Canada Goose, which filed for an
tions, Toronto-based Canada Goose IPO on Feb. 15, 2017, prides itself on
boasts an enthusiastic celebrity fol- being a vertically integrated compa-
lowing. A-listers from David Beck- ny. One third of its products are pro-
ham to Scarlett Johansson have em- duced in company-owned manufac-
braced Canada Goose’s down-filled, turing facilities, and there are plans to the outerwear brand keep product
fur-trimmed parkas, elevating the bring even more production capacity development lean and efficient.
brand profile and sealing its status as back in house from third-party part- And with its sights set on broad-
one of winter’s most coveted prod- ners in order to increase profits. ening its product assortment, Can-
ucts. Yet outside of Canada, where To manage growth and set the ada Goose has a vested interest in
brand awareness is 76 percent, many stage for the future, Canada Goose running a tight ship. Based on cus-
consumers still don’t know about the turned to NGC’s Extended PLM plat- tomer feedback, according to its IPO
makers of luxury down jackets; just 16 form, which combines fashion PLM filing, the brand is looking to move
percent of survey respondents in the with supply chain management into categories such as footwear,
United States are aware of the brand. tools. From costing and vendor/sup- fleece, bedding, travel accessories
There’s plenty of room for growth, plier management to product testing, and knitwear to become a daily part
and markets such as Germany, Italy production tracking and quality con- of its customers’ lives.
and Scandinavia are prime targets for trol, the end-to-end solution helps — Jessica Binns
The Buckle
Kearney, Neb. | www.buckle.com
NOMINATED BY: SheerID | www.sheerID.com
Buckle is a proud champion of the military, and shows
its support in many ways, including by sending care
packages to soldiers overseas. Additionally, a percent-
age of the proceeds from select merchandise goes to
military members and military non-profits. Since 2016,
combined donations have totaled more than $95,500.
In its stores, the denim and casual apparel retailer
shows its appreciation by offering a discount to mem-
bers of the military. To ensure customer eligibility, the
sales associate checks the military ID at the register and
issues the discount.
As an increasing number of Buckle customers began company needed a secure and efficient method of han-
to shop online, the retailer wanted to enable military cus- dling ID verification.
tomers to benefit from the discount both in-stores and That’s where SheerID comes in. The eligibility verifica-
online. In order to offer the military discount online, the tion software provider allowed Buckle to offer discounts
14 MAY 2017 apparelmag.com
TOPINNOVATORS
without interrupting the customer experience. After ini- found that offering the discount online has enabled mil-
tially verifying a customer’s military credentials online, itary customers to easily reap its benefits, making verifi-
a 10 percent discount is applied to the online purchase cation across all channels possible.
and all purchases thereafter, each time the customer (or Since implementation, the company has received a lot
his or her dependents, who also qualify for the discount) of positive feedback from customers about the offering.
shops online. Cassie McDonald, project manager for the “SheerID takes care of troubleshooting any problems that
program, said that 41 percent of verified guests who use a guest might encounter throughout the verification pro-
the military discount are active duty, while 45 percent are cess. With SheerID, we’ve been able to verify more than
veterans, and the remainder are dependents. 37,000 military personnel. In short, it’s a win-win for ev-
According to Diane Applegate, vice president of eryone involved,” Applegate said.
supply chain and merchandise operations, Buckle has — Jordan K. Speer
CareZips
Atlanta, Ga. | www.carezips.com
SELF-NOMINATED
For former University of Georgia ting patients in and out of garments.
fashion merchandising student Though Dye developed the pants
Molly Dye, necessity really was the with hospice and caregiving facility
mother of invention. Faced with patients in mind, the use case has ex-
watching her Alzheimer’s-stricken panded to include dialysis patients,
mother endure the indignity of hav- wound care and wheelchair-enabled
ing a caregiver change her briefs in individuals. Given that roughly
a skilled nursing facility in 2006, 10,000 people in the United States
Dye decided there had to be a better have turned 65 years old every day
way. For her mother, for the care- since Jan. 1 this year, products such
giver and for herself. as CareZips are poised to become an
She paints a vivid picture of the important part of the lives of aging,
scene: the tall, svelte English-as-a- and disabled, Americans, notes Dye.
second-language caregiver strain- Healthcare textiles company En-
ing her back leaning over to wrangle compass Group produces CareZips lina. Dye says the next move would
Dye’s “large” mother, who — half pants through a NAFTA-approved be securing contracts with major
falling out of the bed — didn’t under- factory in Mexico and ships the medical equipment companies such
stand the staffer’s stilted commands. product from its facility in Mc- as McKesson as well as corporate
Chaos with a side of humiliation. Donough, Ga., an hour south of At- adult care communities that would
A light bulb went off in Dye’s lanta. Initially Encompass made two buy the product outright and then
head. “If I can open the pants fron- fabric recommendations: the win- charge the patients’ families. In that
tally and eliminate the front seam, ning one — 82 percent polyester, 21 scenario, nurses wield enormous in-
then you can access the patient’s ab- percent rayon and 7 percent spandex fluence when they see how CareZips
domen frontally,” she says, describ- — beat out a 65 percent polyester/35 elevates patient care. Once you win
ing how she rushed home to dust off percent cotton blend that wrinkles a over the nurse, says Dye, the nurse
her decades-old sewing machine to lot and is harsh on the skin, explains will go a long way toward convinc-
experiment with patterns. And thus Dye. Indeed, a nurse at a North Caro- ing upper management.
CareZips was born. lina veterans facility found that the Since its launch nearly three
CareZips pants, carried in four fabric was so soft that it was lessen- years ago, the patented CareZips de-
colors and seven unisex sizes, are ing skin tears, according to Dye. sign has stayed about 90 percent the
wonderfully simple and employ Currently, major retailers such as same, says Dye, though one impor-
three zippers — one each on the Amazon, Walgreens and Walmart tant iteration moved the side zippers
outside of each leg and a third that carry CareZips online, but the start- forward so that patients weren’t roll-
runs from one interior knee to the up also sells to veterans’ centers in ing onto the zipper heads (ouch!).
other — that ease the burden of get- Michigan, Missouri and North Caro- — Jessica Binns
apparelmag.com MAY 2017 15
TOPINNOVATORS
Crunch Fitness
New York, N.Y. | www.crunch.com
NOMINATED BY: Cegid | www.cegid.com
standards, which then put our credit
card processing at risk,” Neff points
out. “PCI compliance has gotten re-
ally strict these days and as a level 2
merchant, we need to prove our plat-
forms are secure every quarter.”
The next obstacle? Struggling to
maintain hosted applications. Self-
hosting always sounds great in the
beginning, says Neff, but ends up
costing you more in the end. “The
days of hosting your own applica-
tions and taking up real estate in
large data centers with expensive
servers are over for most small and
mid-size companies,” he explains,
adding that cloud technology’s dra-
matically decreasing cost makes it a
“no brainer.”
And last but not least, Crunch was
missing out on valuable insights into
customers’ buying habits. “We were
only capturing half of the sales jour-
ney of our members,” Neff says. “We
Cycling while belting out karaoke. Neff. “Crunch apparel had always could tell how much a member pur-
Feeling the burn while bounc- been primarily branded pieces but chased for a membership or personal
ing around in spring-based low- we’ve seen a need for performance training, but not necessarily that they
impact boots. From pole dancing gear and athleisure, so we’ve bought water and a nutrition bar ev-
like a pro to flying through the air brought in brands like Under Ar- ery day they worked out.”
with the greatest of ease, workouts mour and Onzie,” he adds. To address all of these issues,
at Crunch Fitness range from the The company’s business model Crunch deployed Cegid’s Yourcegid
average to the ambitious to the ex- deviates from the usual retail norm. Retail Y2 platform, particularly en-
otically imaginative. The New York “Our primary business is running ticed by the system’s purchase order
City-based chain of fitness clubs health clubs so our managers are not creation and management process.
includes more than 145 Crunch Fit- true retailers,” Neff explains. “Our “It was important to have a system
ness locations nationwide plus 32 true retailers live in our corporate tell us when and what we should be
premium Crunch Signature facili- headquarters and have the knowl- ordering and how often,” says Neff,
ties featuring yoga and spin studios, edge to run this area of our business.” adding that previously Crunch re-
live DJs, child care and more. Recently, Crunch needed to up- lied on its stores to tell headquarters
To enhance the all-around fit- grade its retail platform for three which merchandise was needed.
ness experience, Crunch sells ap- primary reasons: payment security, Yourcegid Retail Y2 has enabled the
parel including men’s shorts and cloud convenience and customer fitness chain to tighten margins and
women’s sports bras — among data. With the Jan. 15, 2017 SHA-2 manage store inventory through a
its bestsellers — as well as high- security compliance deadline loom- central cloud-based system instead
growth products such as women’s ing, Crunch had to act quickly or of relying on manual POs submitted
capris and crop tops, a direct result suffer the consequences. “Our prior by stores.
of the athleisure trend, says vice applications were not going to up- And because the platform cap-
president of member services Mike date their platform to meet these tures the entire journey of the
16 MAY 2017 apparelmag.com
TOPINNOVATORS
Crunch customer, the company stead of relying on two disparate ed. Says Neff, “Moving to cloud al-
now has the data it needs to develop retail systems, now Crunch has just lowed us to save thousands per year
compelling loyalty programs to in- one. One of its old systems ran lo- in data center costs related to host-
crease customer spend. cally on a single computer at indi- ing our own application as well as
But the move to the cloud has vidual club locations and on a “few the peace of mind in knowing all is
been perhaps the most transforma- occasions” the entire database was being backed up.”
tive aspect of the deployment. In- lost when the computer got corrupt- — Jessica Binns
NYDJ
Vernon, Calif. | www.nydj.com
NOMINATED BY: LaForce | www.laforce.nyc
When you’re already solving one of a woman’s biggest
pain points when getting dressed — looking one
size smaller — what’s left for denim brand NYDJ to do?
According to president and CEO Lisa Collier, the an-
swer lies in creating products that deliver even more
benefits and borrowing from athleisure to make that
happen. “Athleisure is nothing more than comfort and
ease of use,” she explains, adding that athletic and out-
door activities are influencing the technologies that are
finding their way into a new generation of denim.
NYDJ — the no. 1 selling women’s denim brand in
department stores, offering more than 66 sizes from
petite and plus to missy, tall and maternity — is al-
ways on the hunt for new fabric technologies and
innovations that can solve problems for its custom-
ers. Through a partnership with Prosperity Mills, the
brand discovered the Fiber J fabric that powers its
new Future Fit technology — and received exclusiv-
ity on the material.
“At denim shows, everyone talks about THERMO-
LITE and COOLMAX because everyone has their own
version of it,” Collier explains. “Fiber J is not broadly sdale, Ariz., and Garden City, N.Y. In an effort to fur-
available in the market. There aren’t a lot of linear com- ther engage with customers directly, the brand recently
pression technical fibers out there.” began hosting shoppable Facebook Live segments to
For now, “no one but the sports industry” offers lin- talk up its products and innovations and even featured
ear compression that creates a sleek shape while remain- Emme — routinely credited as the original plus model
ing comfortable, so NYDJ is wading into new territory. — to promote awareness of its sizing inclusivity. While
“We’ve also expanded into adding uplift technology, the customer wants to know why a certain pair of jeans
which makes the consumer look like they’ve been to the could work for her, she doesn’t necessarily want to hear
gym and they haven’t,” Collier adds. about the nitty-gritty technical details, Collier adds.
Working with a new fabric involves more than a NYDJ sees a major opportunity to grow international-
few tweaks and nuances in the manufacturing pro- ly as well as in specialty boutiques. As a premium brand
cess. “There are more variables to deal with, from with price points in excess of $100, it would benefit
washing and determining shrinkage to perfecting pat- from the service levels that an intimate boutique would
terns up front and achieving the precise sewing and offer. And because NYDJ uses vanity sizing, a shopper
needle tension,” explains Collier. “It requires a lot may not know to size down and thus might walk away
more preproduction.” with a negative experience — something that high-touch
Though NYDJ primarily is a wholesale brand, it op- service could alleviate.
erates an e-commerce website and two stores in Scott- — Jessica Binns
apparelmag.com MAY 2017 17
TOPINNOVATORS
Xero Shoes
Broomfield, Colo. | www.xeroshoes.com
SELF-NOMINATED
How many of us long to run bare- en’s own experiences getting in- slightly higher educated, slightly high-
foot and carefree, the wind at jured while sprinting. That led him er income, somewhat iconoclastic.”
our backs and possibility stretching to barefoot running, which led him Among Xero Shoes’ new launches
out before us? How many of us want to want to produce a shoe that re- this year are an ultra-lightweight travel
to avoid the pain and health compli- produced the barefoot experience as sandal, Genesis, and a women’s casual
cations of landing on a rusty nail or closely as possible, because, after all, canvas shoe, Lena. It’s also launching
shard of glass? For those folks who there are some surfaces that are not a men’s and women’s performance
checked both of those boxes, Xero amenable to bare feet. multi-use shoe called Prio and the
Shoes hits that sweet spot in the Xero shoes are lightweight, so they DayLite hiking boot (which weighs
middle with shoes that allow your do not interfere with your gait; they just 10.2 ounces), both of which fea-
feet to bend, flex, move and feel the are flexible enough to let your feet ture functional instep tensioners
world with enough protection to bend and move and grip the ground (meaning the webbing isn’t sewn to
make them safe and comfortable. and they are durable, says Sashen. the upper), which locks your midfoot
Xero Shoes is a lightweight, natu- Their patented FeelTrue® soles are in place so that your toes can function
ral movement footwear brand that designed to provide the perfect mix freely. Other new offerings: the Boaty
offers sandals as well as performance of protection and “ground feedback” McBoat shoe and the Coalton, a mini-
and casual closed-toe shoes. To un- that your brain needs for proper and malist take on the familiar Chukka.
derstand just how lightweight these efficient movement, he says. As innovative as the company is in
shoes are, says founder and CEO Ste- Launched in 2010, the company product development, it’s also forg-
ven Sashen, consider that “three pairs has “proven [its] concept directly” — ing a new path in marketing by us-
of our Z-Trail sport sandals weigh less initially selling only a do-it-yourself ing what Sashen calls the “Wild West
than one pair from a big competitor. sandal-making kit, and then launch- world” of equity crowdfunding.
“Xero shoes are built to let your ing ready-to-wear in 2013 — selling The $28.5-million company is
feet move naturally,” he says, with almost 150,000 pairs to customers growing quickly, and needs to keep up
features including wide toe boxes to in 94 countries who previously had with demand. “We outsold inventory
let your toes spread and relax, non- only seen the shoes online or on for the past two years,” says Sashen.
elevated heels for proper posture and someone else’s feet. “It used to be that retailers would pre-
low-to-the-ground “stack height” for To describe its typical customer, book big orders, now they are expect-
balance and agility. Sashen says, “Think Whole Foods. … ing us to carry the inventory.”
The company grew out of Sash- It’s Millennials-plus, 65 percent men, But Xero’s approach is unique,
in that it is an already established
company using crowdfunding not
only to generate capital but to raise
an army of influencers.
“We’re in that awkward ‘teen-age’
phase where we have a very robust
and sophisticated team, plan and
model but at the same time we’re on
the cusp of having proven the con-
cept at retail and online. Rather than
argue about financing, let’s go to the
people who keep coming back,” he
says. “This is a whole new approach.
We want our customers to be owners
and share in the future of Xero Shoes.
We’re making the customer part of
the story,” he concludes.
— Jordan K. Speer
18 MAY 2017 apparelmag.com
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