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For more than 60 years, La Perla has been synonymous with luxurious lingerie, although until recently it has kept a rather low profile as it produced high-quality intimate apparel for a discerning upscale clientele.
But now, under new ownership, the Italian-based company is keeping quiet no longer.
In January, it hosted its first-ever runway show during Paris Haute Couture week, as Naomi Campbell and other top models strolled the catwalk in made-to-measure creations from the La Perla Atelier Collection. It features lace pants, satin basketball shorts and bodysuits, bras and suspenders adorned with crystals, feathers and embroidery.
“For us, location, location, location is everything,” Biszantz said. “And Houston has an international element, which I love.”
Guiseppe Zanotti has designed a footwear collection for the brand, which also features beachwear, perfume, sunglasses, menswear, and, in the fall, a new fine jewelry collection.
A few years ago La Perla never advertised in fashion magazines; now it’s a regular in Vogue and W, with high-style campaigns shot by Marino Testino with models from the Elite network of modeling agencies.
Since Pacific Global Management, which owns Elite, bought La Perla in 2013, the company has expanded at a rapid clip, opening several new stores this year, including a sparkling new boutique in The Galleria, designed by architect Roberto Baciocchi, with a gleaming black-and-white marble facade, marble floors, mirrored alcoves and glamorous dressing rooms.
“The brand has undergone a transformation in the last two years,” said La Perla North America CEO Suzy Biszantz, during a recent whirlwind Houston visit. “We’ve opened stores all over the world and renovated many stores. We have acquired some of the most premium real estate there is. It’s really been amazing.”
Houston search
For more than three years, La Perla has been looking for a Houston location to showcase its new look, Biszantz said. When an opening came up at The Galleria, La Perla snapped it up, even though at only about 800-square-feet, it is smaller than other new stores across the United States.
“For us, location, location, location is everything,” she said. “And Houston has an international element, which I love. And it seems like a lot is going on, in oil and energy and technology. I feel it’s a really robust business market as well. That brings in international tourism, the right kind of profile of customer for us, from Latin America.”
“A lot of our top clients never step foot into the store. We bring everything to them.”
While small, the store has room to showcase its beachwear for summer, lingerie and the new line of lacy, cutting-edge ready-to-wear pieces. “It’s a marrying of what’s inside can be worn as outerwear,” she said.
“It’s very high fashion and it’s doing very well here and everywhere. That’s really a departure from people coming in and looking for lingerie. I just watched a lady come in today and buy two of our beautiful pants suits and bustier to go underneath. Not one but two. Our job is to show people that we’re not the same than maybe what they thought about La Perla 20 years ago.”
The store also serves as a beachhead for the brand in all of Texas, Biszantz said. ”If they want certain pieces from our Atelier collection, some of which are made-to-measure pieces, we’ll find a way through a private appointment. We do that at other boutiques too. A lot of our top clients never step foot into the store. We bring everything to them.”
From golf apparel to lingerie
Biszantz joined La Perla in 2008 after a seven-year tenure as president and CEO of The Greg Norman Collection, a premium brand leader in golf-inspired apparel. Are there any similarities between selling selling athletic wear and lingerie?
“Well, the similarity is Texas is a really important market for both,” said Biszantz, who spent a lot of time in Dallas, Houston and Austin in her previous job. “In the golf industry and luxury and fashion, you need the right demographic in terms of the customer that cares about craftsmanship and cares about an elevated lifestyle.”
When it comes to intimate wear, the American customer really isn’t that different from European or Latin American customers, Biszantz said.
“Whether they are based in Latin America or Russia or Paris or wherever, the commonality is they’re an international client and they travel quite a bit. They really understand craftsmanship and they’re looking for quality of product. They feel good about buying an established brand where there’s a reputation there. We see through our own company research that our top clients shop in multiple boutiques of ours throughout the world.
“In every market we have a wide variety in terms of taste and demographics. There isn’t just one profile of one customer. So that’s a nice thing. A lot of times there’s a mom with a daughter. She’s been with the brand for 30 years and comes in with her daughter. I think that’s one of the benefits of being part of an iconic brand with a 60-plus year history. “
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Models walk the runway at the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show at Earls Court in London
Victoria’s Secret is in danger of losing its customer base.
With controversial ads such as those in the ”The Perfect Body” campaign and its lack of plus size models on its roster (as evidenced by an online petition by plus-size model Brittany Cordts), women feel as though they cannot relate to the super-svelte Angels. The brand has even received backlash for not offering plus-size underwear.
Meanwhile, another brand has proven to be successful in the lingerie industry: Aerie.
Aerie, American Eagle’s lingerie spinoff, has drawn in customers with its ad campaigns.The company abandoned Photoshop more than a year ago, and sales have been soaring.
“We left beauty marks, we left tattoos — what you see is really what you get with our campaign,” brand representative Jenny Altman told Good Morning America last year.
The move to nix retouched images obviously paid off. On a conference call last year, Aerie sales had skyrocketed 9%. American Eagle Outfitters (Aerie included) noted a strong first quarter of 2015 as well.
Victoria’s Secret supermodels Lily Aldridge, Erin Heatherton, Adrian Lima, Candice Swanepoel and Chanel Iman pose during the “Incredible by Victoria’s Secret” bra launch in New York
Women are becoming savvy to tricks like Photoshop, and increasingly don’t trust brands that use it, branding expert and marketing professor at University of Southern California Jeetendr Sehdev told Business Insider.
“We have seen the backlash,” Sehdev said. “Those perfect bodies are not even the bodies of the Angels. And people know that now…people are fully aware, consciously or subconsciously, whether they are looking at a Photoshopped image.”
And those false images detract meaning for consumers.
“What consumers [are looking for] today more than anything else is meaning,” he said. “And meaning is going to come from relatability — ‘can I really relate to this brand? Can I derive enough meaning out of this that it’s going to be good for me to engage and pay a premium?”
Victoria’s Secret’s models are significantly less relatable than Aerie’s are.
While Aerie’s models are still on the slimmer side compared to plus size models, they do not need to adhere to the notoriously strict limitations that Victoria’s Secret Angels must (5’9″ with desired measurements of 34″-24″-34″).
Aerie, on the other hand, is currently promoting a hashtag #aeriereal, encouraging shoppers to show off their “real” bodies — the opposite of ”perfect” body.
Aerie also offers a generally more comfortable alternative to the advertised overtly sexy bras and thongs from Victoria’s Secret (although the brand does offer a line of cotton lingerie). And as it stands, women have been abandoning sexy underwear for more comfortable undergarments lately.
“Most women just want something basic for every day that will make them look and feel good,” lingerie designer Greer Simpkins told The New York Times.
While Victoria’s Secret still controls a large portion of the lingerie market, it will need to shift its marketing strategy to keep up with its customers.
“Victoria’s Secret needs to stop hiding behind dazzle and dated ’70s concepts such as ‘Angels’ and the ‘Fantasy Bra,’ and start having a real conversation with women,” Sehdev said to Business Insider this past spring.
-Business Insider
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