Lands’ End axes ex-CEO’s higher-fashion apparel line
Griffith’s focus on traditional customer
Lands’ End Inc. has officially killed the signature initiative of departed CEO Federica Marchionni.
The Dodgeville retailer has halted production of “Canvas by Lands’ End,” the controversial executive’s line of slimmer-fitting, more-stylish and pricier clothing designed to attract a younger customer to the oh-so-traditional brand.
Launched last spring with gauzy images of sleek models set amid stunning scenery, the apparel line faded almost as rapidly as the resolve of the Lands’ End board of directors to shake up the Dodgeville mainstay by bringing in the fashion-minded Marchionni and letting her run the firm from New York.
“We’re not producing any more Canvas,” newly installed CEO Jerome Griffith said in a telephone interview after the Lands’ End annual meeting last week.
But given the long lead times in the clothing business, the burial of Marchionni’s pet project won’t happen just yet. By the time Griffith took over on March 6, factories already had been busy cranking out a Canvas collection for fall. So Lands’ End will offer “a small fall assortment” of the clothing, said Michele Casper, vice president of public relations. The line will be for women only, and will go by a slightly different name: Lands’ End Canvas.
After that, no more Marchionni-influenced Canvas, though Lands’ End continues to sell off existing inventory.
Canvas had been on life support even before Griffith took charge. After Marchionni’s departure from Lands’ End last September, the firm’s interim leaders put the slow-to-move merchandise on sale and wrote down its value on the books.
But until last week, it doesn’t appear that Lands’ End flatly acknowledged it had pulled the plug on Marchionni’s creation. Turns out Griffith signed the death certificate not long after starting at Dodgeville.
“It was like, ‘Yeah, we’re not producing anything more,’ ” he said.
Griffith, most recently president and CEO at luggage merchant Tumi Holdings, is just beginning to round out his strategy for Lands’ End.
Speaking broadly about his approach, he didn’t mention Marchionni by name. But his departure from the direction in which she had taken the company was clear by implication.
“The biggest thing, No. 1, is get the product right,” he said. “We have an incredibly loyal consumer base. They love our product, and you need to sell product to these people, and to people like them.
“You don’t need to go out and find a completely different customer who doesn’t share your company’s values.”
Not only did Marchionni introduce a clothing line that Lands’ End’s middle-aged base didn’t want, she also managed to anger people across the political spectrum with a pair of marketing missteps.
Seeking to guide the retailer onto new paths, Marchionni featured noted feminist Gloria Steinem in a catalog last year, then apologized for the short-lived alliance and erased online references to Steinem amid blowback from abortion-rights critics.
Marchionni’s unwillingness to move to Wisconsin — her employment contract said she didn’t have to — helped engender bad feelings at the Dodgeville headquarters
and a sense that she was out of touch with the Lands’ End customer.
Before Lands’ End Chair Josephine Linden approached him about the CEO job, Griffith had never been to Wisconsin. But the multilingual, 59-yearold Harley rider already has bought a condominium on Madison’s west side and is working in Dodgeville — as specified by his employment agreement.
Initially hesitant about joining Lands’ End, Griffith said he found he liked Wisconsin and that the company had much going for it — an “extremely good” brand, a strong ecommerce base, very good customer service and an international presence.
“A lot of good bones here to work with,” he said.
The bones have been creaky, though. Spun off from Sears Holdings Corp. three years ago, Lands’ End has booked 10 consecutive quarters of lower year-over-year sales.
And while the general retail environment has been tough, only 14% of Lands’ End sales come from the most troubled sector of the industry, physical stores. The balance are generated online
and, particularly, by its catalog business.
Griffith wants to beef up Lands’ End’s digital muscles, and is in the process of hiring more tech talent.
“We’re an e-commerce company that has the opportunity to have stores, but we have to run it like it’s an e-commerce company,” he said. “We run it today like it’s a very good cataloger, and we are — we’re a super-good cataloger — but we’re not embracing the new technology that’s out there or the processes by which you analyze data.”
Doing a better job of that, he said, will clear a path to develop a stronger brick-and-mortar presence, which Griffith believes is also crucial.
The company has a shrinking number of shops within Sears — currently 211 — and 11 of its own stores. Griffith is working to develop a new concept for the latter.
“I think the company’s actually set up to do well,” he said. “I think we’ve made our fair share of mistakes in the past, but I have to take my hat off to the existing management team who, since they were leaderless, have begun to turn that company around.”