Brad Pitt Isn’t for Everybody

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jay Kos himself at his well-appointed store on Park Avenue amongst the vintage toy monkeys, peacock feather trimmed Trilbys and straw ankle boots. The trip offered a much needed escape from the office as well as some stimulating conversation from a father of three with a wicked attention to detail and razor sharp insight into the business of fashion.

It’s no secret that a big part of what we do over here on the Lux Team is celebrity placement. It’s a big piece of many public relations programs when driving brand awareness and making friends with those slippery little souls we call “influencers”—aka, the people that 12 year-old girls pin up on their walls. That said, celebrity placements can make a real difference for a company looking to expand its number of retail outlets or to move a substantial volume of product.

During our conversation with Mr. Kos, he was explaining that many of our lot (He calls “PR” a dirty word.) think slapping any old piece of product on a celebrity means victory. He went on to explain that a custom fashion business, such as the one he successfully runs, doesn’t benefit from a celebrity placement in the way that a Prada or Louis Vuitton might. He explained: Brad Pitt wears a pink Tom Ford suit at Cannes and Tom Ford sells thousands of sunglasses. Puffy wears something Jay Kos and customers come in and only want that exact color, that exact style and that exact product to the tee. So, if he’s lucky, he moves one item and potentially upsets ten other customers who come and then can’t buy that same exact product.

Good point. And that’s why I think a good “PR” firm uses the power of celebrity strategically. If Pamela Anderson wants to wear a Verrier cocktail dress to Kid Rock’s birthday party, she can go buy it. And we won’t be sending out a media alert on it because she isn’t the right fit for the Verrier image, for example. But if Anne Hathaway wants to wear a Cynthia Steffe dress to the Venice Film Festival, then we hustle to get it there ASAP. Why? Because Cynthia Steffe is carried all over the world and we want every young Anne Hathaway loving gal to rush in and buy! Buy! Buy! Because at the end of the day, PR is really just one strategy to support sales, so support sales we do.  

Source: www.jaykos.com, www.stylist.com