The Kooples Wants to Return to Its Roots as It Unveils New Logo and Creative Direction – WWD

PARIS — Accessible luxury label The Kooples has a rather explicit message for those who have been following, closely or not: “F— the Kooples.”

“This really summarizes what we’re trying to do with this relaunch — we have lost our way and aren’t ashamed to admit it. We want this do-over to be done right so we’re taking the best the brand had to offer, but at the same time, we’re shaking it up and we’re stopping any nonsense,” said the brand’s chief executive officer Marie Schott, a seasoned executive who previously led underwear label Undiz before heading its sister label Etam.

She arrived at the helm of the French label in February 2021, finding a brand that was plateauing despite experiencing much success when it was founded in 2008 by brothers Alexandre, Raphaël and Laurent Elicha. The Kooples was bought in 2019 by Swiss fashion group MF Brands Group, which also owns Lacoste, Gant and rubber-boot specialists Aigle.

Her first few months were spent meeting her predecessor, visiting stores and even talking with the founders, as well as “spelunking through the archives and old news clippings” in order to see where the brand had gone off-piste.

“It was a brand that was created in such a smart, coherent way that it would have been a shame not to capitalize on its subversive spirit or the pattern-making of the early years. It’ll be a new chapter that’s inspired by what made the success of The Kooples in the beginning,” she said.

What Schott found was that while luxury brands and fast fashion had changed tack to be more product-, message- and image-driven, accessible luxury players had continued in the groove of their first years. “There’s a transformation to operate for accessible luxury. When [brands in the segment] were created in the early 2000s, they were the mirrors of the luxury houses of the moment. But they didn’t follow them on the path to change — look at Balenciaga or Louis Vuitton, then and now,” she said.

In The Kooples’s case, she felt that the brand had frittered its identity away. Rather than try to map out a circuitous route back to basics, Schott felt a reset was in order — in identity and in consumers.

The first she plans to address by whittling the offering back down from the current profusion of 800-or-so references to a more compact and readily identifiable lineup. “Fundamentally, this is about putting the brand back on a track that it should have never left, as an accessible, segmenting, different offering,” she said.

When it comes to its target, the plan is to capitalize on two core demographics: Gen-Z, to whom T-shirts emblazoned with “What is the Kooples?” and the hit Emily purse are geared, but also restart the conversation with its first consumers, “those who knew the brand when it started, who still love it but don’t shop there anymore.”

The woman she wanted for the job was Capucine Safyurtlu, a former fashion and market editor who had become a creative consultant and had most recently been creative director of footwear label Stella Luna.

“Marie called me and said she wanted to put product back at the heart, asked me to think about what we could do if we wanted to reset this brand. Her vision convinced me to join her on this adventure,” said Safyurtlu, who arrived in July 2021 with memories of The Kooples’ heyday as “the first accessible luxury brand that matched what people expected, but with a subversive side, playing with the idea of the couple.”

As her opening move, Safyurtlu went for aligning the label’s men’s and women’s offerings, creating “collections in which they responded to each other,” she explained. “I wanted things that could be read easily, and to go back to a sharp code with the idea of aligning styles for men and women,” which she pointed out was not about going genderless. “Our aesthetic has always been very sexy, festive and ultra-gendered — if you wanted it to be,” she continued.

For her first collection, for fall 2022, the creative director therefore delved into the brand’s playbook of tailoring, leopard print and plenty of black “which is really the signature color of the brand,” filling the lineup with sharply cut jackets — fitted for her, boxier for him — sweatshirts, pretty dresses, printed shirting galore but also novelties like a windbreaker in an allover monogram using the brand’s new logo.

That, too, is a change brought by Schott and Safyurtlu, who wanted a bold block signature and did away with the mention of Paris. “It’s the brand’s home base but we don’t need to be writing it all over the place,” the executive said.

Signaling the change in a very immediate manner are the carrier bags, which cover the old logo with stickers “F— Kooples” and “Rock Is Dead,” the code name Schott had originally coined for the brand’s revamp because “the words ‘rock chic’ just kept coming back whenever I spoke to someone about the brand and I found that so passé,” she said.

Schott would not be drawn into making projections for the brand, which had a turnover just shy of 200 million euros in 2021, but favored a slow-and-steady approach. She named its near-even split between male and female consumers as a strength that had allowed it to navigate choppy waters.

“We’re not aiming for two-figure growth in the first year and we’re taking the risk of a real reset where we rebuild from the fundamentals. There won’t be carryovers from past collections if they don’t make sense, like say a sneaker that’s been working well but that we feel doesn’t fit who we are. Even though buyers are asking for them, they’re gone,” she said.

While the brand is present at a global level, with stores as far afield as the U.S. and China, where the brand bought the partner handling its stores last year, there won’t be any massive rollouts or new store openings in the immediate future. “If we do well in France, our primary focus for the near future, we believe that we can radiate outward,” Schott noted, pointing out that France and Europe remained, by far, the largest markets for the label.

Also on the horizon is another challenge: sustainability. “We’ll readily admit that among the accessible luxury brands, we’re not the most advanced but we are working hard to bridge those gaps in the short term,” said Schott.

That said, the message that Schott hopes consumers will hear globally is “OK, we haven’t done our homework for the past three-four years, but we’ve pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps so come back to see us. We’re back in fashion, with something that won’t leave you indifferent.”