New is exciting. New is terrifying. New keeps us all fresh and on our toes. This is Vamp. Leslie Gallin, UBM President Footwear

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2 MISSION 2017

3 New is exciting. New is terrifying. New keeps us all fresh and on our toes. This is Vamp. Leslie Gallin, UBM President Footwear

4 Vamp is the footwear industry s one-stop shop for quick and quippy reads about news, trends, brands and influencers.

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11 Retail Realities In the Showroom Shoe of the Day The Look Brand Profiles popular columns

12 VAMPFOOTWEAR.COM / AUG PRINT PASSION FOR SNEAKERS magine Dubai. Imagine miles of luxury shopping Ireal estate, high-rise buildings that continue into the sky, all sprawling outwards into the endless heat trap of the Arabian Desert. Now contrast this stereotypical picture of the Emirate city with that of a frigid afternoon in the town of Cambridge, Mass. Soon, these two seemingly disparate worlds will hold one thing in common Concepts. The wind is blustering through town on the day Vamp interviews Deon Point, general manager and buyer for Concepts, one of the true OG sneaker retail brands which, since 1996, has sat in the heart of Harvard Square in Cambridge. Once only a shop-within-a-shop at The Tannery, a Boston institution in and of itself, Concepts has recently re-branded as Concepts International with the hope of becoming a global hub for sneaker enthusiasts. Last month, the company announced the appointment of Tre Lucas as president, who plans to take Concepts from a local retailer to a standalone global brand. The cornerstone of this expansion will be a new flagship store in Dubai. Challenges have pushed the tentative store opening from spring to September of this year, but according to Point, Concepts is a brand that takes its time with everything it does. Nothing we do is ever spur of the moment, it s very much calculated, so we ve wanted to do this for a while, he said. With Concepts International, we wanted to get away from just being Concepts and wanted to show people where we were expanding to. The Dubai store will be the third Concepts flagship location, following the company s original Boston CONCEPTS WANTS MORE THAN BOSTON. IT WANTS THE WORLD. BY MATT VITONE shop and its new Manhattan store, which opened last year on Hudson Street on the border of SoHo and Tribeca. Having been with the company for over a decade, Point has helped assure the rise of Concepts in a luxury footwear space that is almost entirely dominated by big players. As the market has become increasingly crowded in recent years, he s continued to push for unique offerings and unexpected collaborations with major brands that have kept the small, independent shop one step ahead of its imitators. Part of this means taking risks. In 2008, Concepts invested over $75,000 of its own money into a bizarrely named Nike collaboration dubbed the Blue Lobster Dunk. That might not seem like much, but as Point puts it, Concepts at that time was still just small fish. Back then neither the sneaker industry nor the collaboration market were anywhere near as big as they are today, so we would knock and knock and knock until finally someone would answer. But the shoe was a hit, helping to lay the foundation for collaborations in both the athletic shoe market and with more unexpected brands. On the docket this year? What Point calls a big, major project with Adidas, as well as a new collaboration with Mephisto, an Italian maker of men s business and comfort shoes. Not Concepts usual customer, but for Point, it s all about finding connections where others fail to. It s definitely not what our consumer is used to, but I think we ll be able to educate our consumer about it. It s all made in Italy. It s really nice stuff. From its early days with The Tannery in the 90s, what s set Concepts apart from other streetwear RETAIL retailers offering similar assortments has been in large part its loyalty to its Boston roots. While others were busy chasing an L.A. or New York aesthetic, Concepts was carrying Arc teryx and Sorel on its shelves, bridging the gap between modern streetwear and a certain, very New England-centric outdoors vibe. Recalling how his bosses tried to entice Burton to sell snowboards in the shop in the early years of Concepts, Point explains, When Burton came in, they looked around and walked out. So [my boss] chases them down the street and asks them hey, where are you going? and they were like the f**k is this? We came here to open an account and this is a shoe store! And so the guys who were there at the time were able to make them come to an understanding, and so we started selling snowboards. That s where we started to bridge the gap. It was out of the ordinary for the time. By the time Point joined Concepts full-time in 2004, he wanted to start making his own imprint on the brand. An affinity for luxury gave him the idea to bring Gucci into the store not an easy proposition for a small shop from Cambridge. We went to Gucci maybe two or three times and got shot down, he said. But then finally we came to an understanding, and that s eventually what helped us get Lanvin, Balenciaga and Margiela. So even prior to Barneys catching onto the sneaker wave, we were literally the first store in the world to combine Nike and consortium Adidas alongside the luxury brands. As the specialty sneaker market continued to grow, Point tried to think of ways to differentiate Concepts from its competition that was becoming increasingly familiar. I think when we first started it was really exciting. Now all of the major department stores have followed suit, they all carry high-end brands and an turned-global brand has slowly and methodically rolled out across the world, In much the same manner as New York s Supreme another streetwear shop- assortment from Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc., so it s become watered-down. For expansion to Concepts isn t a matter of global domination, but rather an opportunity to add value to the communities the stores inhabit. us though, we have an insatiable appetite, so we re never really complacent in one spot. As we noticed other stores catching on, that s when we started looking towards New York, because we knew we wanted to be there. When we wanted to take on New York, it was years worth of research and work in order to fit in, and obviously we wanted to be humble being that we re Laying the groundwork for the permanent location that would eventually follow, Concepts debuted a pop-up shop in Manhattan. Part of the challenge and L.A., but we just really wanted to do something different, and I think Dubai from Boston, Point said. We ve gotten opportunities to do Chicago, Miami was how to offer the New York customer a unique experience. kind of encompasses not just who we are, but where we want to go. How do we make it right, how do we make it meaningful, and if we ve waited With much painstaking attention being paid to Dubai, the brand is also trying this long already, let s wait until it s perfect, and that s how the idea of those to grow its own range of branded apparel, which it says will get a major push pop-up shops came about. And again, others followed suit, but at the time later in the year for back-to-school season. Point says the focus will be on when we were doing it, only major corporations were doing it. There were almost no independent companies that really wanted to invest into themselves classic, timeless pieces, adding that Concepts is not looking to chase trends. to the same level we did. Given that Point works with a core team of just four people, the scale of what Concepts has accomplished thus far is certainly impressive, and perhaps Following a good reception in Manhattan, Concepts has continued to latch even a bit menacing to its competitors. But even from as far away as Dubai, onto opportunities but carefully. Late last year the brand had a limited popup in Costa Meca, Calif., but Point says that the brand is mindful of becoming Point says the core values of Concepts are never far from his mind. overexposed. Sneakers are a game of perceived value, after all. We ve always done what we wanted to do, and you know it s great having such a small team. Obviously it sucks when it comes to work time, because I think stores in general tend to grow too fast. A lot of businesses want to we re ripping our hair out trying to get things done in a timely fashion, but the generate income and they want to grow and become this overnight monster, flip side to that is, being that it s so small, we are all in agreeance that what and they lose sight of what got them there in the first place, so we re very got us here is a formula that works. I think we re in a great space and have a conscious of that, he said. lot of opportunity to grow. I think that the sky is the limit. What keeps you passionate about the sneaker business? Point: Honestly, the desire to create. The sneaker business while booming has plateaued. It has become commercialized while getting eaten alive by corporations much in the same way hip-hop once did. At the end of the day, we are creating something that will outlive the bubble. That is still exciting to me. What is it about sneakers that makes collectors so passionate? Point: Sneakers are the new baseball card. They are the stock market of the youth. The unpredictability of it draws people closer to it. At that age, what else is there? It s something the culture invited with open arms and it s too late to close the door. I wouldn t say it s passion, but more so an adrenaline rush. The majority of those resellers barely break even. There are those that are still passionate about sneakers but have been pushed aside by the dominating factor which is the reseller market. Deon Point CONCEPTS GM & BUYER ON KEEPING THE FIRE ALIVE. How far do people s passion for sneakers go? Point: I think traveling in search of particular shoes is excessive but happens frequently. The search for the holy grail that lasts years while checking ebay, forums, and sneaker conventions in search of the sneaker that has eluded you time and time again. All of this to get your hands on the pair you ve wanted more than life only to go do it again. I ve seen kids wait in line over six days in June. It s just mind-blowing the level of commitment these kids are willing to give to attain shoes week-in and week-out. WEBSITE the Look NAOT OTBT PEOPLE MIRROR MIRROR Coming off an Olympic year, footwear designers are giving gold a rest and letting silver shine. This season s metallic is offered in a myriad of materials, textures and levels of brightness, from mirror-like surfaces and animal prints, to crackled leather and brushed hardware. Stark white outsoles play into silver s sci-fi roots, or look for block heels to bring a Mod mood. VIONIC LACOSTE SOREL MELISSA BERNARDO NICOLE crackle textures SEBAGO POETIC LICENCE FIVE WORLDS BY CORDANI delicate gladiators KLUB NICO ATHLEISURE ADVANTAGE SKECHERS PRESIDENT MICHAEL GREENBERG ON BUILDING A GLOBAL FOOTWEAR FAMILY. BY ANGELA VELASQUEZ hile Nike and Adidas duke it out, Skechers has quietly swooped in, sell- comfortable and affordable footwear for all, grasping the concept of Wing athleisure footwear early and with gusto. In 2015, the quiet behemoth raked in $3.15 billion in revenue a 32 percent increase over the previous year. According to Bloomberg, the company is on pace to reach more than $1 billion in performance group sales alone in Athleisure suits the brand s relaxed Manhattan Beach, Calif. roots. Founded by LA Gear creator Robert Greenberg in 1992 the same year he and his son Michael left LA Gear Skechers has successfully built out a series of casual and performance product lines, including Relaxed Fit, Go Walk and Go Run. The lines have been further amplified by a roster of celebrities and sports icons spanning New York Yankees hero Mariano Rivera to Ringo Starr. Celebrity endorsements and offices in plum locations aside, Skechers President Michael Greenberg says he continues to love the footwear industry because, at the heart of it, it is a people business. We have thousands of incredibly talented people working together daily around the world, and we ve all grown into this great global family, he said. VAMP: What other industries do you look to for inspiration? Greenberg: I find inspiration and innovation in a variety of industries. Companies like Tesla are really captivating the world right now; they continue to push the envelope and redefine cars, technology and even transportation s core infrastructure. Starbucks has had a very aggressive retail store rollout strategy, which is admirable. Alibaba in China has built incredible expertise in web and e-commerce, as has Amazon in the U.S. and a growing number of markets around the world. And of course there s Google, whose search platform has grown into every domain, from exploring alternative energy to self-driving cars. VAMP: When did you first start to work in footwear? Greenberg: I started out by working for my dad, Robert (Greenberg, CEO of Skechers), at LA Gear in Since the day I started working for him, he s been a great source of inspiration he had already built a number of companies, and LA Gear was a huge cultural milestone. I learned the incredible attention and endurance that you need to take an innovative product and turn it into a billion-dollar success story and how to steer through the growing pains, peaks and valleys of any business. VAMP: Was there a moment when you knew that you would be involved in footwear for the long haul? Greenberg: LA Gear was an exciting, dynamic business it suited my ambitions well at the time, and I knew that footwear was an industry that I really loved. So much so, that the moment I left, I called my dad asking what footwear business we were going to start next. In a matter of days, that company became Skechers. And Skechers was an even better experience for me because this time, I had the opportunity to start it with him and build the brand from the ground up. VAMP: How have you remained passionate about footwear? Greenberg: Footwear is an incredible, dynamic industry. At Skechers, literally no year is like the next and no season is like the previous. Everyone needs shoes; there s always a new trend waiting to be discovered. Skechers is able to provide product in every space all kinds of designs, all over the world. And with globalization, the opportunities are greater than ever to have billions wearing the same trends from the Americas to Europe, Asia, Africa and beyond. It s an incredible time for our company and the industry. 38 VAMPFOOTWEAR.COM / AUG 2016 VAMP: What is the status of athleisure in Spring 17? Greenberg: Athleisure is more than a trend. Consumers have come to expect comfort in their footwear and athleisure provides it and with the numerous styles available, it s now trendy and acceptable. Even if the fashion-forward want to move on, consumers won t want to. Skechers is developing a wide range of styles for men, women and kids that focus on style and comfort, knowing they will want fresh looks and new takes on what they have come to love. 26 VAMPFOOTWEAR.COM / AUG 2016 popular columns

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