For example I think they are ALL made in the same factory with different labels on them.

By opening unique shops, Ksubi can preserve and control their price/image. Although it does cost alot of money for them to invest in their own stores, given the warehousey/ pop up shop feel they have going on with their other stores I guess customers won’t care if the store looks like a dumpster ( as long as it dont smell like one).

But perhaps if they truly believe in their brand they can team up with successful retail operators like Nigel from Cotton On and together open 20 stores across Australia where one controls the supply and own the retail side. Just making sure that NONE of the Ksubi stuff ends up on the $5 cotton on racks. LOL

I think lowering their price point is a good idea but it would open their brand up to alot more competition and comparison from brands from lower price points.

I believe fashion is the same with watches. The biggest and most domninant brands don’t always operate at the mid end.. they operate at the high end with incredibly large margins and minimal discounting. The nature of denim is that its too fashiony but if Ksubi can convince consumers of the “investment” property of their $500 jeans and sell alot of them… then they can be both “high class/boutique” and ” masstige/ profitible”

Its all about competing where the profitibality is highest I guess.

without a doubt mainstream blows.

don’t get me wrong, I used to love Ksubi. But unfortunately they have become too mainstream for my liking.

The fact that I can now walk down the street and see teeny boppers or metro’s wrapped in Ksubi is such a turn off when there was probably little behind the purchase other than walking into David Jones and wearing what they say is the new ‘trend’

I am also saddened by the fact that their manufacturing has gone offshore. What’s worse is that I can now search Ebay and find 100 or so pairs of fake Ksubi’s. What’s even sadder is I don’t know what quality will be worse, they’re both made for pennies!

I have since focused my interests onto Gareth Moody and Chronicles of Never. I admired him even more for sticking to boutiques but I too was a little annoyed to hear a few months ago that his diffusion line was hitting General Pants. A few of his products were on the online website but have since disappeared so i’m not sure if there was a withdrawal in that decision.

It will be interesting to see how brand perception changes in the next 6 – 12 months

The same goes for iconic Melbourne based Claude Maus with their Claude diffusion and soon to be Fernando for Myer from Fernando Frisoni.

Everyone is doing it, get over it.

I read a good interview with the founder of frockshop Marnie Goss (frockshop is an online store) and it said in the interview that frockshop gets about 4 million hits a month and between 50 – 100 transactions a day! that is a huge amount of people visiting online stores and buying compared to an actual boutique shop. just another thought….

One point we should reiterate is that although our article seems slanderous, our intention was not to defame Ksubi but rather raise the issue of how brands position themselves in the ever changing fashion industry.

Trust us, we have been big fans of Ksubi – that is why we have featured them so many times in our posts. The one aspect that we found was different with Ksubi compared to other labels is the fact that their image has undoubtedly altered over the years. That is why Ksubi is such a point of interest when talking about brand perception.

Dan and George, please accept that we mean no harm. And to you readers, stop sending us emails complaining! If you want to comment, comment on the blog post!

The Australian Fashion Review Team

But surely you can stick to boutiques and make money. Before Ksubi sold out to DJ’s, they were already millionaires, Young and Rich a few times, bling bling!! Plus if you had the opportunity to capture more market share without much compromise, you do the maths.

I don’t necessarily think that department stores are the only way, in fact there have been articles about Department Stores in Australia destroying labels, not the brand image, but with harsh 120 day payment terms, dropping labels at will if they don’t perform, losing boutique stockists from heavy department store discounting.

I do think as a label you can still make a decent living selling to boutiques, just make sure you have good cash flow and liquidity, and try to get payment upfront or at least cover your production costs when boutiques place orders. Perhaps hold off on opening a boutique or flagship store, that will just suck your money dry with all those overheads, open a store only when you won’t jeopardise your entire business if the shop goes down, you’d better be ready.

As for opening multi-label boutiques, a perfect example of a successful boutique chain is Belinda, I was surprise to see that she had both The Corner Shop and Belinda on little William St in Paddington, she must be doing well for her self, perhaps she would like to comment, “Belinda? Belinda? Can you stop counting your cash for a second and make a comment??”

Edge for being boutique?? Has Ksubi lost its edge for being too mainstream?? If you got my initial pun, then you’d know my opinion. I think if you were to survey a few hundred fashion consumers in Australia between the ages of 17 – 35 if Ksubi still has the edge?? Or do they still consider Ksubi edgy without influencing their opinion with an article like above, I have a feeling I myself might be surprised, mmmmm, but then again, every time the Ksubi name pops up, it hasn’t been positive, plus who would be keeping records for them anyway, apparently they can’t even keep records for them selves.

Yes, Dan and George can argue that brand Ksubi is still edgy and in high demand and thus wanted their brand to be more affordable to its fans, while Dan and George’s nose’s grow a few inches, which could come in handy for all those late night parties.

And finally the humble Gareth Moody, this is why the industry loves him so much; he just makes very diplomatic comments about his former partners. I think we should all go to Manly and hangout with him over the weekend!