Half a year ago, a brand called Sies Marjan made its initial splash at the 2016 Autumn and Winter New York Fashion Week. After the press conference, the discussion about this brand instantly became a hot topic among industry insiders - Who is Sies Marjan? Is the designer male or female? Why does this brand's work look a bit like Dries Van Noten...
“This is the first time I have seen the audience in the front row of the show not looking down at their mobile phones.” Tiffany Hsu, the purchasing manager of the boutique e-commerce company MyTheresa and a popular street photographer, posted this on Instagram after the Sies Marjan 2017 spring and summer series conference that ended yesterday. In the short video, a model wearing a lake green skirt walked across the catwalk, and the eyes of the audience on both sides were also moving along with her.
Who is Sies Marjan? It can make showgoers living in the age of social media forget to take out their mobile phones! ?
Why is this brand called Sies Marjan?
The brand name is a combination of designer Sander Lak’s parents’ surnames. He believes that on the one hand, this name can show some of his personal inner world, but on the other hand, it will not be directly related to himself. "Using my parents' names gives me a sense of 'anonymity'. I'm not interested in fame, it would distract me. As long as I can work happily with the people around me."
Who is Sander Lak?
The 33-year-old Sander Lak is a Dutchman, and his bones are full of this nation’s unique “dry” humor: “The reason why I do fashion is entirely because I didn’t get into the film school in Amsterdam.”
After studying under the famous teacher Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins in London, he successively worked at Balmain during the periods of Marc Jacobs, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Christophe Decarnin. After joining Dries Van Noten, he served as its chief designer and stayed there for five years. At the beginning of 2015, he left Dries Van Noten and came to New York to establish the high-end women's clothing brand Sies Marjan.
Sies Marjan’s first appearance
At the 2016 Autumn and Winter New York Women's Fashion Week in February, Sies Marjan made its first official appearance. This show can be described as a blockbuster, unexpectedly receiving unanimous praise from the media and buyers. The entire series is deeply influenced by Sander Lak's work experience at Dries Van Noten, but compared to the latter, Sies Marjan is fresher in color and more pleasant in clothing styles. The gorgeous gold and silver embroidery and slightly heavy dark tones that often appear in Dries Van Noten's clothing are gone. Sies Marjan's debut collection uses highly saturated solid colors such as bright orange, bright yellow and dusty pink, as well as classical floral prints in the style of the British countryside. Lak hopes that each piece of clothing represents itself, rather than symbolizing a certain type of woman.
Sies Marjan’s Color Philosophy
In Sander Lak's mind, Sies Marjan currently does not have a specific female image, because he feels that the existing feeling is more of a spiritual level. But what is certain is that if a Sies Marjan woman existed, she would love color. So even if there is no specific female image as a reference, it will not affect Lak and his team to create a new series. They must first start with color. For example, this color reminds people of donuts, and that color reminds people of Fassbinder movies... Gradually, the color will evolve into a concrete expression. Finally, when the team discussed the collected information together, it felt like there were so many weird things that they could be compiled into an encyclopedia.
Behind-the-scenes stylist Lotta Volkova
He also has a senior member of his creative team, the well-known stylist Lotta Volkova. Lak met Lotta after he came to Paris to work for Dreis Van Noten. Lotta is also a person who is very sensitive to color, which can be seen from the show looks she created for Vetements and Balenciaga, which are responsible for another designer friend Demna Gvasalia. Lak felt that the two of them would be very compatible working together, because apart from their preference for color, neither of them likes to reinvent fashion. They are more interested in playing with the clothes themselves - such as a coat, how to take it apart and wear it, and how to re-integrate it into a new look...
Video commercial and lookbook for the debut film
Sies Marjan’s first advertising video features legendary supermodel Guinevere van Seenus. The latter attracted Lak precisely because of her unconventional beauty: "Her elegance and trust in intuition just fit the image of Sies Marjan in my mind."
In addition, instead of choosing big-name models to shoot the lookbook, Sander Lak invited five of his female friends to appear in the 2016 autumn and winter lookbook called "Girlfriends Project".
The people behind Sies Marjan
Joey Laurenti is the CEO of Sies Marjan, and it was he who hired Sander Lak to create this high-end designer brand. Laurenti is also the president of a multi-brand showroom "Goods and Services". Sies Marjan and the showroom are both part of Deia LLC, a holding company founded in 2012 by billionaire couple Howard Marks and Nancy Markf. In addition, Deia LLC's business also includes investment in Ralph Ricci: In 2014, due to Ralph Ricci himself leaving the brand, Deia LLC also announced the suspension of Ralph Rucci's business.
Facing media interviews, the Marks couple did not want to comment or express their attitude towards Sies Marjan. They hoped that the media could focus more on Sander Lak. From this point of view, Deia LLC and Laurenti seem to have given Lak full freedom and mobilized enough resources to build his ideal brand. It's unusual for a well-funded investment firm to launch a new designer brand and go to great lengths to search for a creative director (Sander Lek was selected from 30 candidates). Laurenti believes that the bosses and the board of directors were actually inspired by the high-end fashion field. They felt that everyone in the industry was doing highly similar investment projects, and consumers seemed to be more eager for high-priced products. At this time, they chose to create such a brand to fill the company-level investment gap in this field.
Since taking office in early 2015, he quickly established a team of 30 people. Lak himself is also full of ambitions about this new job, "We are not interested in small things. What we are really interested in is building this brand into a big player in New York City, and even going global."
Lak thinks it is a bit too early to define Sies Marjan, but he has his own experience with the company's cultural atmosphere. He hopes that the team will produce high-end fashion in an orderly time. "For this, I have to thank my former bosses for teaching me one very important thing - not to create products under extreme pressure."
About the 2017 Spring and Summer Series
Compared with the first season, Sander Lak uses more dazzling colors this timeColor, and chose a skirt that highlights the curves of the female body to create a Sies Marjan female image that is still in its embryonic stage. In an interview before the show, the designer revealed some details about the new series. The 2017 spring and summer series will also feature the same thing that he played with in his debut collection - color. However, the color chosen this time will be more psychedelic. He gave a very dreamy example, "When you put an Emilio Pucci vintage silk scarf on the roof of your house in Italy and let it shine in the sun until it fades and turns white. What do you think it will look like?" As it turned out, we did see several dresses on the show that were a mix of pale yellow, pale pink and pale blue. These three colors happen to be the basic colors of Emilio Pucci silk scarf design in the early years.
About show and sales
Two weeks before the start of the 2017 spring and summer New York Women's Fashion Week, Sander Lak accepted an interview with the American version of VOGUE.com. Surprisingly, the popular designer didn't feel nervous at all, and simply expressed the progress of the preparations with an understatement: "Everything is under control." After facing the sudden and huge success, Lak truly and intuitively felt consumers' love for Sies Marjan, and the world's most important department stores were enthusiastically placing orders. Other than that, he was calm. He said that he is not the kind of designer who is constantly adjusting until the last minute. "As long as everything goes according to plan, there won't be too many emergencies." You must know that even senior designers who have been in the field for a long time will still feel anxious before the show starts.
Now, the brand's first series has officially entered stores for sale. As the brand manager, Lak can intuitively understand which design in the entire series is the most popular. Although the company has made internal sales expectations for some products that are practical enough to be worn. The best-selling item at the moment is the white ruffled top worn by Beyoncé. Lak believes that this item will achieve good sales not only because of Beyoncé, but also because of the shirt itself. Although the workmanship is expensive, the fabric itself is not valuable, which keeps its price from being astonishingly high.
Lak has a very interesting understanding of consumers' shopping desires. "Those who like show fashions like the original styles they saw on the shows. They don't want to see re-interpreted versions in stores, such as color changes, fabric changes, especially adjustments in details. Once they walk into the store and find that there is no style they want, won't they feel disappointed?" In addition, Sies Marjan currently does not have its own independent store and does not do marketing, so the T stage is the onlyA place where their work can be showcased. Therefore, Lak also has reservations about the various methods used by designers to present new works.
"If the first season of work has brought us anything, I think it should be to believe in our own intuition! If our intuition has successfully led us to the present, why should we start to question it? It is better to let it lead us to continue going forward." Lak has been emphasizing this sentence. When popular New York brands such as Alexander Wang, Proenza Schouler, and Altuzarra began to stand alone, New York began to search for potential stocks among the new generation of brands. At present, Sies Marjan is, at least in terms of reputation, a good deal that is sure to make money without losing money.
*The above interview content is from the US version of VOGUE.com
