James Lakeland: “You have to give people a reason to buy”

London - Designer James Lakeland, founder of the eponymous label, is celebrating his 25th business anniversary this autumn. It’s been an eventful time, as Lakeland is quick to admit, but he’s proud to have navigated the highs and lows of the fashion world for over two decades. “It’s incredible when you think about it. The fashion industry is so fickle and so fast moving, so many companies come and go. It makes me immensely proud to be still around. I’ve realised that I’m probably one of the last few independent brands where the founder still owns the business 100 percent out right,” he quips.

Lakeland has always done things his own way and his foray into fashion was perhaps a little unconventional, but a real calling nevertheless. Born in London, he spent his early childhood until he was seven in Italy (his father is Italian), when his parents divorced and he returned to the UK. However, having spent every holiday in Italy, he remained fluent in the language and his ties to the country were never severed.

Despite deciding to study accountancy instead of fashion design, he ended up working for an Italian company before being headhunted back to the UK, joining a leading fashion company at the time and learning everything about clothes, fit, styling, as well as meeting key buyers. “One day I decided together with my Mum to open our own little showroom. We were going back to Italy every couple of weeks to buy stock, then I would customise it and sell to those buyers. I always could understand quality, and I really had an eye for fabrics, colour and patterns. We had a tiny, tiny little room at Cavendish Square, but the brand took off from there, and within a short space of time I was in some of the best department stores, including Harrods, Selfridges, Fenwicks, Mitsukoshi in Japan and so on. It just happened so instantly,” he recalls.

Statement style that stands out

The James Lakeland style has remained true to those very early characteristics of colour, patterns and bold designs; however, Lakeland has reinvented his brand over and over again over the years to remain contemporary, modern and relevant. “You have to keep moving forward. In the fashion business you can never sit back and take things for granted. The collection has always been glamorous, it’s always been forward thinking, modern and full of stand-out pieces. I have my own style, but I’ve also never been scared to take risks. This is a seasonal business, and you have to offer something fresh and new every season. You’re only as good as your last collection,” he says.

Lakeland lives and breathes his brand, and he is also its most prominent figurehead, although he has worked with his fair share of celebrity models and clients over the years. If he’s not traveling back and forth to Italy to design and oversee production in his factories, where most of his clothes are still manufactured, or appear on prime shopping channel HSE24 in Italy, he’s out and about visiting stockists, hosting consumer events or being hands-on in his own stores, serving customers and having that direct contact with his clientele. And then there’s an ever-growing social media presence, with Lakeland tirelessly posting styling videos, collection reviews, buying appointments and general snippets of his life, which convey first-hand his personality and that of his eponymous brand.

He says that social media has become a huge part of his marketing and PR strategy, and in particular it’s driving new and younger customers to the business who may have not heard of the brand before. “Social media is extremely important, you can’t be without these days. I feel that especially new customers are really starting to understand who I am and who we are as a brand. I actually think this is going to open up the world to me. I could be selling to customers anywhere, from Portugal to America via Facebook or Instagram,” he says.

Multi-channel focus drives business growth

Lakeland’s business covers wholesale, with around 100 independent accounts in the UK and Ireland in addition to select international accounts; a retail arm of currently 8 standalone stores, four concessions in high-profile independents Maya Maya, Artichoke, Julie Fitzmaurice and Darcy B, as well as further concessions in Browns of York, seven House of Fraser branches and three Fenwicks stores; as well as an e-commerce arm. The website has recently undergone a major revamp, with improved usability, features and navigation, but Lakeland admits that it’s not quite where he wants it to be in terms of business growth just yet. “The website currently constitutes 20 percent of our business, but it hasn’t quite taken off as much as I’d like it to be. It has huge potential though, and we are making it our focus across marketing and PR to drive more traffic to the site over the next few months,” he says.

Having been a wholesale-only brand for the first ten years of its existence, independents have been the backbone of the business for a long time and remain a key part of the strategy. However, Lakeland concedes that it’s a tough market to be in and that the sector is under huge pressure and consolidation. “I think the wholesale sector has been in turmoil for many years now and is undergoing seismic changes. There have been a lot of retailers who have either retired or had to shut because they haven’t moved with the time and haven’t managed to provide their customers with a good, special shopping experience,” he says.

“A lot of retailers are playing it too safe, but what they are not realising is that they become stuck in a rut. For instance, in our own retail stores we recently launched a silver leather Mac as well as a yellow fake fur coat, real statement pieces, both of which just exploded; everybody in our shops loved them. But our wholesale customers were very slow to take this up. But these are the kind of showstoppers, the wow-factor pieces that create excitement and make independents stand out from the blandness of the high street. Nobody wants to go into an independent and find exactly what they can find everywhere else. There’s real opportunities that are being missed, and it’s a real shame. You’ve got to give your customers a reason to buy,” he argues.

Lakeland says he is now working with fewer independents, but the relationships are stronger and more productive, and new stockists are always coming on-board, replacing those accounts that may no longer be a good match. He has his sights on finding more independent partners to open concessions with, as well as a further roll out of standalone stores in strategic locations, like the recent opening at the new O2 outlet centre in the old Millennium Dome building in Greenwich. Another central London store is also on the cards following a successful pop-up in Kensington. An imminent move, however, is international expansion. Having been a regular on Italy’s shopping channel HSE24 for a while now, serving 15000 active direct customers, he is now also launching on HSE 24 Dubai, as well as actively looking for partners in strategic territories such as the USA, Canada and the Middle East.

Adapting to an ever-changing market

Lakeland’s longevity in the business is not only down to a willingness to constantly evolve and adapt, but also his unwavering focus on the customer, i.e. the ladies who buy his brand. He designs, as he says, for “real women”, which may be down to the fact that he has always been surrounded by strong women in his life. His late mother was a big influence and heavily involved in the business, as are his sister Philippa, who handles the wholesale side of the business, and his wife Michelle, who runs the St John’s Wood flagship. And then there are Lakeland’s two daughters, 9-year-old Melody and 16-year-old Alissia who have also grown up in and around the business. “We are a strong unit. All of us have always been on the same page. When you’re a family business, you have to be, because there are many stressful moments – customers not paying, cancelling orders, partners going out of business etc., so you need a strong support network of people around you who believe in the same goal,” he says.

25 years in, what does Lakeland see as key to success? “Tenacity and being in it for the long run. I’ve seen so many brands come, explode and then go again. As a brand, I’ve never exploded in that same way, and yet, I’m still here, and we have managed to sustain a good, solid business over such a long time. But you have to always look forward to the new and move with the times,” he says. “Now that the business is 25 and I recently turned 50, I feel hungrier than ever to grow the James Lakeland brand.”