<\/p>\n
\n\tMorris Goldfarb, chairman and chief executive officer of G-III Apparel Group Ltd., and recipient of the WWD Honor for Creative Leadership at the WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit, knows a thing or two about transformation.<\/p>\n
\n\tGoldfarb was asked how he took a small leather company founded by his father, Aron, through the ups and downs in the fashion industry and came out with a $3 billion branded powerhouse with labels such as Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and Karl Lagerfeld, among numerous other brands.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSo you want me to put 50 years, 54 years, into 15 minutes,\u201d he quipped in a conversation with Evan Clark, WWD\u2019s deputy managing editor. Goldfarb zeroed in on how he managed to so consistently keep up with the times.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSo I would say that this company was built with one intention originally. It was to make a livelihood for an immigrant. And as time passed, I joined the company, and I had a greater vision,\u201d Goldfarb said. \u201cI had a vision of building the biggest and the best. It has gone through many transitions and many transformations, quite honestly. Most of them came unexpectedly. Whether it was a political issue, a war, just changes that naturally occur and product changes, product demands drove us to transform our business. It\u2019s an amazing case study where it started out as X, and it evolved to temporarily Y, with a long distance to go, the transformation\u2019s occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe explained the company started as a monobranded business in the leather industry. The brand was G-III. The product was not well assorted. It was a \u2018Top Gun\u2019 jacket, in one color, brown, four sizes and that was it. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t hard to design.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe said they capitalized on the demand created through the movie, and through that, they took the company public. \u201cThe moment we did that there was a realization that this is not going to last forever. Either we transform the business into something broader than the one jacket or the one commodity, leather, or we lose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThey realized branding was their way into department stores. They knew how to service department stores and knew how to create great product. They had a strong team in place in South Korea. \u201cWe took a Liz Claiborne model. It was a company that was perfect in every form. Leadership was great, sourcing was great, sales were great. It was well positioned. I had a target of one day being like Liz Claiborne,\u201d Goldfarb said.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo they built the company via sourcing, starting in South Korea, and had no boundaries with what they could create. He said his father had a factory in New York, and the limitations were extensive. \u201cYou could produce colored leather in a handful of styles, limited quantities and you couldn\u2019t get too creative on your designs. In South Korea, you could do basically anything you wanted. Labor was malleable. The creative components that we could apply to creating products were endless. We took advantage of that and created other commodities in the coat business,\u201d Goldfarb said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe biggest transition came when G-III acquired Marvin Richards and Winlit, two coat companies. Through that, they picked up coat licenses for Calvin Klein and Guess, among others. \u201cWe took those relationships, we expanded classifications\u2026and the rest is history,\u201d Goldfarb said.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs G-III has gone through these different phases, Goldfarb was asked how his approach to leadership has changed.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t think my approach to leadership has changed at all. I have my own limitations. I have my own strengths, and I have my weaknesses,\u201d Goldfarb said. \u201cMy leadership has always applied other skill sets or looked for other skill sets that complemented mine to enable this company to grow. Whether it was finance, design, sourcing, sales, I brought in the best that I could, and in fact, that\u2019s what got us here. It\u2019s not really a change in my leadership style.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cStrategies change, but my style has been consistent. Take the best. Give them freedom, guard them to the best extent to limit the failures and accept the failures and take ownership of the failures. That\u2019s my job. I led the charge. If somebody fails, I\u2019m your partner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tG-III recently partnered with WHP to acquire Marc Jacobs from LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Marc Jacobs, the founder, is still on board, and Goldfarb was questioned how he is negotiating that transition and eases the integration process.<\/p>\n
\n\tGoldfarb said there is more than one process. For the first time in his career, he has an outside partner, WHP, \u201cwhich is an adjustment. You have a responsibility to your partner to share information, to share strategies. That\u2019s one. The other is Marc Jacobs, the man, who\u2019s incredibly smart, who\u2019s been in the world of LVMH, which is unique in the fashion world and doesn\u2019t get any better than LVMH. If I had a choice to work for G-III or LVMH, the quick response is\u2026I don\u2019t know why anybody\u2019s laughing,\u201d he said as the audience chuckled.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNow I have to convince Marc Jacobs that this is a good place to be, and we respect you. We honor everything that you\u2019ve created, your name. Most important, we\u2019ve done that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou reach out and you explain who you are. We don\u2019t have the luxury that LVMH does, which is maybe, pain tolerance to build a brand. We are a public company. We are more driven by decisions that are more quarterly than 10-year horizons, and Bernard Arnault has earned the right to build and take his time. We have not earned that right in the financial world because sometimes having the financial world expectant of particular results causes decisions that maybe a Bernard Arnault would not make. We\u2019re the victims of being public. He\u2019s not. He goes his own way, and if he goes down, he goes down. If our stock goes down, we do buy back stock but we make shorter-term decisions.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe now have to convince Marc the man that his brand is well insulated from poor decisions, and we\u2019re doing that. He understands that we do have a history of effectively building brands and having the respect of the founder Donna Karan is an amazing example.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tHe said Donna Karan and DKNY both were not profitable businesses under LVMH. \u201cThey were great brands with global recognition and we recognized that when we bought them from LVMH. We put our own metrics in place as to what would constitute success, and we achieved it. And at the same time, respecting the integrity of the founder. Today, Donna is a great witness to what we accomplished. So Marc looks at that and says it\u2019s in the right hands. The jury\u2019s still out. Marc has some adjustments to make. G-III has some adjustments to make. So does WHP. In perfect candor, it seems like a great partnership, but adjustments are made when there are other people involved,\u201d Goldfarb said.<\/p>\n
\n\tExplaining how he keeps his enthusiasm while so many big changes are happening in the business, he said, \u201cI have amazing partners. I have a wife. If you want to talk leadership, this all flows to her,\u201d Goldfarb said of his wife Arlene. \u201cAt the end of the day, she\u2019s been a driver of our lifestyle and our children, and I guess the heritage that has been created, she\u2019s been an amazing partner. I would say I come home, and I want to achieve more for financial gratification, maybe status in the community, maybe as an example for my kids. The family is a driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFortunately for him, he said his son, Jeff Goldfarb, is very engaged in the business, \u201cand it feels as if he\u2019s next, and he\u2019s got his own strategies and he\u2019s got his own strengths. Setting it up where most of the problems are behind when I step away would be a wonderful thing,\u201d Goldfarb said.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe was asked his secret for lasting through all the changes. \u201cStaying interested and staying curious and not overstaying your welcome. Knowing that you\u2019re productive and you\u2019re responsible to your shareholders and the community you created, which in my world is approximately 15,000 people that you have an obligation to. So the moment that I feel that is done is the moment that I\u2019ll step away. But it\u2019s been amazing. I come in. I wake up early. I wake up happy, and I don\u2019t always come home so happy. I start my day happy that I\u2019m going to work. When that ends, I have other investments that I can stray to. If I\u2019m having a bad day, I can focus on the multitude of deals that represent the family portfolio,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
#GIIIs #Morris #Goldfarb #Building #Billion #Fashion #Powerhouse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Morris Goldfarb, chairman and chief executive officer of G-III Apparel Group Ltd., and recipient of the WWD Honor for Creative Leadership at the WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit, knows… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock789.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}