Interview, Teil 1: Stefan Siegel und Pholoso Selebogo (NOT JUST A LABEL)

Anlässlich des heute Abend stattfindenden Ringstraßen Galerien Designer Award sprach ich mit Stefan Siegel – er gründete NOT JUST A LABEL – und Pholoso Selebogo, die heute mitarbeitet. Das Interview ist lange, aber ich wollte es nicht kürzen. Wer sich über dieses Monster stürzen möchte: Bon appetit! (:

Ihr habt 2007 angefangen. Wie ist es dazu gekommen?

Stefan: Das war eine Mischung aus vielen Sachen. Während des Studiums habe ich in der Mode gearbeitet und mein erster Job nach meinem Wirschaftsstudium war im Investmentbanking-Bereich. Ich dachte ich müsste mal endlich einen normalen Job haben, bin dann aber über Umwege im Consumer Retail Team gelandet und habe dort habe ich die Mode von der Bilanzseite gesehen, große Unternehmen wie Gucci Group beraten. Ich habe aber Tag und Nacht gearbeitet und das war nicht wirklich das was ich machen wollte. Dann war ich eine Zeit lang in New York und habe einen Haufen junger Modedesigner kennengelernt, die mich immer gefragt haben … mein Bruder hatte damals bei Google gearbeitet… ob er ihnen nicht eine Website machen kann. Mein Bruder meinte ‘Willst du nicht so etwas wie Myspace Musik aufbauen, wo Leute ihre Sachen raufladen können?’ und ich wunderte mich, dass es sowas nicht gibt.

[Pholoso hat sich zu uns gesellt, deswegen haben wir in Englisch mit dem Interview weitergemacht.]

So there was nothing out there which represented designers, our initial idea was to create a social network mixed with a fashion eBay. Few months later I quit my job, I thought it was a really good idea. Unfortunately we were short of money, we realized we didn’t have enough money to get web-designers and have an online store from the beginning. Developing everything ourselves took us six months until we launched Not Just A Label. It was half of what you can see today. There was a directory, some articles and the website…that was it.

…and that was the reason why the online store started last year?

Yes. We had the website up and running and our idea was always to create something which was not commercial, we thought our strategy being close to the designers, to understand their problems. So we promoted NJAL as a student’s project and scouted designers telling them that we were in the same boat. Our initial scouting trips were those to all the graduate shows around Europe, for example to Antwerp where I met Pholoso. It seemed like it was working.

After a few months we had almost 500 designers and that was the point when we realized that there are so many good designers around the world, we just had to go and find them.

We spent the first year travelling around, speaking to fashion schools. The schools really helped us in the beginning, Central St. Martins and London College of Fashion supported us and said ‘It’s a great idea, we will forward your website to all our alumni!’. Looking back we might were slightly naive, we started something without any revenue streams in mind…

Pholoso: I think the best ideas start very purely, very innocent and naive and everything comes in one place afterwards.

Stefan: As you correctly said. Now the revenues are not a problem anymore, we get so many requests from people and institutions who want to contribute. But I remember when we started working on the online shop … that was in February last year… the money we had run out and we realized we needed to do something to earn money without filling NJAL with commercial advertising. We went to Paris and met designers who told us ‘The Korean buyers didn’t come this season. We don’t know what to do.’ Their collection was really good and they wanted to start their own web-shop, but the problem is that single designer webshops don’t work, are not trusted enough… We came back to London, had no money and wanted to do so many things which were all connected to huge investments. The only thing we could develop ourselves was the online store, which my brother Daniel and Simon started working on immediately after.

At that time we had about 2000 designers on our website and the next problem was the selection of pieces going to sale, we did not have the funds to buy their pieces. So we sent an email out and told them about our situation: ‘We want to do an online store and we want to do it differently, who has pieces in their showroom and who wants to support us.’
In the end we got so many emails from interested designers, they were really keen to support us…

But that’s the point. You have so many beautiful collections out there, but in the end you have to sell…

Stefan: That was a bit of a problem we had for the first year. We were an industry website, a business directory for insiders and a lot of people did not understood what we were doing.

Pholoso: The first thing was that people asked… ‘What is it? Is it a shop?’

Stefan: But developing the online shop we faced another problem, because the garments were unique and handmade, their prices were quite high. We were competing with stores like Net-A-Porter and we realized: What do we have to change? Was does a consumer convince to change to our store and buy designer clothes from designers they never heard of?

I was actually talking to Unit F here in Vienna and they said: Listen we have the Pop up store for the Festival and Maria Luisa’s buyer Robin Schulié will be coming in to make a selection and he could select also the items that you will sell online? Unit F’s only condition was to get a lot of Austrian designers on board as well and that was great for us.

When we finally launched the online store it was very basic. I don’t know if you saw it in the beginning … everything was shot on hangers against the white wall… and looking back I am thinking ‘wow! we had no models at all…’

But that’s the trick, things done with passion always works out…

Yeah! We sent out a press release and were covered immediately by all the leading magazines such as ELLE, Vogue, Grazia in most countries. Even German Vogue featured us on page 18 which was the first part after the advertising; at that point we knew, it kicked in.

I spoke to Diane Pernet and invited her to select the next 50 items that we wanted to sell in July and she loved the idea. When we told our designers Diane Pernet herself was going to view their look books we received about 500 applications to sell on NJAL.

From a logistics point of view it was crazy. One month before going on sale, designers had to send their items to London; we had to take pictures (using models from the second month onwards – we learned our lesson), package them and sent the ordered pieces round the world… but it worked.

In our thirs month Amanda Lepore was our host. Followed in September by Lara Stone, which was even bigger…

She also selected some pieces of Anna Aichinger…

Stefan: Yes, Lara came in to select items and we shot some of them on her. After the shoot she purchased half of them and took them home. She still has this Aichinger skirt and wears it quite often she told me recently.
Although the whole concept worked really well, we were limited in terms of pieces. We could not shoot more than 50 pieces a month, it was too much work. However our next idea and was one of the best we ever had: We sold this beautiful necklace of a Spanish designer, being a unique piece I remember my mom buying it, and as soon as we took it off the site a customer emailed saying ‘I wanted it! Where is it?’
I called the designer and asked him to make another one and to send it directly to the ‘customer’. He said ‘Well that’s a good idea!’ We realised this worked better for everyone, we just charged him a commission and thought this could revolutionise the way retailing works.
In November we did a test run and selected 20 designers and let them send pictures instead of clothes to us to London. And as soon as somebody bought they received a notification they should send it directly to the customer.

The first lady who bought from us this way bought a blue dress from Berlin based designers, actually wondered if the dress was in the right size. The designer replied ‘Well we can make the necessary changes for you’. This interaction, bespoke service and personal touch impressed her. She emailed us saying she never had experienced such a good customer care and loved the contact with the designers.
That was the point when we thought ‘Why can’t we change this whole industry of how fashion works and connect the customer with the creator?’
At NOT JUST A LABEL you don’t have to think about a PR agency, about showroom sales and about the buyers…

Pholoso: In the end in this industry people are making money of you, we wanted to give something back too.

Stefan: The use of NJAL is completely for free for designers. NJAL’s focus is to support designers and to spark a rethinking in the industry. The shop revolutionises the way retailing works, giving designers the opportunity to cut out expensive middlemen. NJAL takes a commission of 30% off the retail price for all sales made through our platform; taking care of all administration and security NJAL sells on a global basis connecting end consumer and creator, giving the designer the possibility a flexible sales opportunity and a way to increase earnings due to a higher profit margin.

[Pholoso muss einen Telefongespräch annehmen, weswegen wir zu Deutsch wieder kurz gewechselt haben.]

Stefan: Das war eben diese nächste Idee die wir hatten, und wir versuchen diesen Umschwung jetzt zu pushen. Ich glaube, dass wir in den letzten 2 Jahren das System wie Mode funktioniert ein bisschen verändert haben. Für Jungdesigner ist es möglich auf NJAL zu kommen, entdeckt zu werden und zu verkaufen. Es gibt Paradebeispiele wie Ara [Ara Jo] oder Jürgen [Jürgen Bertsch]… Ara haben wir in St. Martins bei der Abschlußshow angesprochen und gescoutet. Sie hat mir gerade erzählt, dass sie über 1000 Anfragen bekommen hat, und Lady Gaga hat Ihre Sachen nicht nur einmal getragen.

Teil 2 gibt es hier…