Clothes With The Sean John Name example essay topic

SEAN JOHN COMBS, the rap and clothing impresario still best known as Puff Daddy, a sobriquet he has now abandoned, stood before a conference table in his company's Midtown Manhattan headquarters recently, addressing his designers. Dressed in a black baseball cap, a black T-shirt and black cut-off denim shorts - his only flash a large square diamond stud in each earlobe - he projected a decidedly serious mien. The designers listened intently. When he paused, as he did several times, there were no questions. They knew to wait until he solicited their advice. ' There will be only three 'Sean John' T-shirts in the coming collection,' he said.

A few designers let out wispy sighs at such a seemingly self-destructive edict; after all, clothes with the Sean John name, initials or crest make up a big slice of his company's sales. 'I'm putting you on rations,' he said, laughing. 'From now on, I want people to read the name without seeing the name. You get me?' Messing with the name is no small gamble, nor is it the only one he is taking. Sean John is already a well-known brand - at least in households with teenagers, who spend about $42 billion a year to look good. Mr. Combs's company, Sean John, has about $400 million of that business, most of it from urban styles like baggy, crotch-at-the knee trousers, conspicuously branded T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, or 'hoodies.

' But Mr. Combs, who sometimes goes by the rapper name P. Diddy but is known to associates as Puffy, is looking to expand well beyond the urban niche. A stack of other rap and rhythm-and-blues celebrities from Snoop Dogg to Beyonc'e have decided they have the style to create clothes, but Mr. Combs is the one who analysts say has the best chance of making the transition to the mainstream. That could be particularly lucrative for Mr. Combs, who, unlike most of his competitors, has maintained control of his company. (By contrast, Russell Simmons, another rap impresario, sold his Phat Fashions to Kellwood, a giant clothing producer, for $140 million last year.) 'Sean John felt he has the heft to go it alone,' said Eric M. Beder, an analyst at Break Murray & Company, a New York investment bank.

Going it alone, though, will mean having to tackle some serious problems, starting with two years of more or less flat sales and a net loss last year. That is compounded by signs that the urban wear trend is past its peak, and by basic business problems like disorganized distribution. Then there are the distractions inherent in being part of an informal mini conglomerate that has at times included businesses as diverse as music publishing and advertising and restaurants. Mr. Combs has started to address each of these issues. He began by parting ways with a longtime friend and the executive vice president of Sean John, Jeffrey Tweedy, and replacing him with Robert J. Wichser, the former chief executive of the Joseph Abboud Apparel Corporation. Mr. Combs is also moving to expand beyond urban wear - first into a line of women's clothes, and next into a host of licensed products, including leather sneakers, belts and wheel rims.

The success of this strategy is far from assured, but Mr. Beder, along with other analysts, bankers and even competitors, says Mr. Combs stands a good chance, in part because he is so personally involved. He directs his own designers, and Sean John makes 70 percent of its own clothes; most celebrity-branded gear is made under license by other companies. 'If he can get the women's working, he can become a true lifestyle brand,' Mr. Beder said. 'Sean John can become more than just Puff Daddy's company. ' Before he hired Mr. Wichser in May, Mr. Combs held the title of chief executive. Mr. Wichser had said he wouldn't sign on to run Sean John without that title - and the authority to match.

Mr. Combs has also hired Jon Cropper, a former executive of Quincy Jones Productions, as chief marketing officer of Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment, his recording company. The goal, both men say, is to bring 'synergy' to an empire that Mr. Combs says spans 'clothing, music and lifestyle. ' Mr. Combs has also vowed to pay more attention to the Sean John clothing and accessory lines, a pledge he honored at the recent meeting with his designers. 'When we are doing the Jack Johnson Collection, I want people to think 'champion. ' ' he told them, announcing the coming season's theme, named for a great and tragic black boxer of the early 1900's. 'I don't want you to bring me clothes with the name 'Jack Johnson' on them. We got to get away from that.

And I don't want some kind of retro stuff, like clothes from 1906. I want contemporary. If somebody's wearing one of my track suits, I want it to say 'champion' from two blocks away. ' He is also branching into footwear: three styles of leather-and-suede Sean John shoes, in brown and black, will hit stores soon. (In the Sean John store, on Fifth Avenue at 40th Street in Midtown, a salesman recently described the shoes, which resemble sneakers or lightweight hiking boots, as 'something Louis Vuitton would do. ' ) Sean John's sales have started to grow again, Mr. Wichser said, after a two-year plateau.

But the key to the company's long-term success, many agree, will be the women's clothing line, called 'Sean by Sean Combs,' coming this fall. It is aimed at the contemporary department-store category (read: young and mid priced), but it has some particularly expensive items - like coyote-trimmed leather jackets for $6,000. The line has already received some good reviews, and orders, from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and other stores. Robert Burke, the fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, says Sean John's women's line is more impressive than its men's wear. 'We at Bergdorf have not been - and are not - interested in the men's collection,' he said. 'The women's has more fashion, more sophistication, and a sexier edge to it.

' Mr. Combs says he knows the women's line must be more than just 'better' if he is to make the leap from the category called urban - a name he resents, by the way, contending that is just another way of saying 'black' - to something fresh and great. MR. COMBS, a Grammy-winning rapper, created his first major business, Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment, in 1993. His clothing company came along six years later. It produced clothes that mimicked what many young African-American teenagers had already started wearing: an anti-establishment style influenced by prison inmates, who wore their pants baggy and held up with a piece of rope.

Mr. Simmons, a founder of Def Jam records, started marketing the style through his Phat Farm clothing label in the early 1990's. A basket of new urban brands quickly followed, including Ecko, Rocawear and Sean John. But some of these clothing companies ran into problems in the last year or so. Last summer, Mr. Simmons said in a deposition during a civil court battle over one of his record deals that he had exaggerated the amount of money his company was making at the time he sold it to Kellwood. (Kellwood executives said in a news release that Mr. Simmons was just frustrated at the time, and had always been honest with them.) Whatever the facts of Mr. Simmons's business, several surveys have found that the urban market is starting to decline.

The days of full 'hook ups' - a total head-to-toe outfit of one urban brand - are past, said Richard E. Jaffe, a retail analyst at Legg Mason. Those who still like the look are seeking brand names that are perhaps hipper and definitely younger than either Phat Farm or Sean John, he said. When Steven Brown, who runs a new Web-based urban clothing store called City Boyz, lists his top designers, they are names like Ami Sanz uri and Krush, Caffeine Clothing and Dragonfly. 'I think I have a couple of Sean John belts on the site,' he said, when asked if he carried the brand. That is not surprising to some analysts, who say Sean John may be old hat for the newest fashionistas. Being urban, after all, means being ahead of the fashion wave.

But the masses, including some older, more affluent customers, may just be discovering him. ' It's a really odd thing,' said John D. Morris, a retail analyst who specializes in youth-oriented fashion at Harris Nesbitt, an investment bank in New York. He canvasses the malls and holds focus groups with teenagers and customers in their 20's. 'The teenagers who used to wear Sean John are wearing Ralph Lauren,' he said, 'and the 20-ish stockbrokers are starting to wear Sean John.

' Mr. Beder, the retail analyst, said that 'the whole urban style has been co-opted by preppies. ' Although Sean John is not a public company, Mr. Morris says he tracks it and most of the other urban brands because they are sold in the national specialty chains, which are publicly traded. 'The brand has been slipping,' he said of Sean John. 'Managers in places like T.J. Maxx list Rocawear, Polo, Ecko and Baby Phat as their most popular. Macy's has far more Ecko and Baby Phat than Sean John. Plus, there's been an overall shift away from branded clothes.

We know the kids don't like logos anymore. ' Elina Kazan, a Macy's spokeswoman, said Sean John 'is, and will continue to be, a very important vendor for us. ' Last year, retailers sold about $400 million of Sean John clothes, according to Mr. Wichser - a figure that translates into $125 million to $150 million of wholesale revenue in 2004. The profitability of Mr. Combs's clothing business - which last year got a $100 million infusion from the billionaire Ron Burke - is the subject of much speculation in the fashion industry. Mr. Wichser said Sean John 'incurred a slight loss' last year, but he attributed that to expansion. First, he said, Sean John bought a 50 percent partnership with Zac Posen, one of the hottest and most social of the young designers.

(The price was not disclosed, but bankers said it was about $2 million.) Second, he said, Sean John opened its Fifth Avenue store last year. That store is not large - only 3,500 square feet - and the rent may be cheaper than in it would be in other locations, like West Broadway in SoHo, where other urban clothing retailers have set up shop. To many retailing experts, Mr. Combs's leap last fall to include dressier, more formal styles - notably suits and silk ties and French-cuffed shirts - seems prescient now. Last week, Mr. Wichser predicted that the store would 'break even or be slightly profitable in 2005,' adding that he was 'assessing' the store's future.

Earlier this month, the salesman who compared Mr. Combs's sneaker designs to Louis Vuitton's said that some of the suits had been in Sean John's store since last fall and had been subtly marked down to $495. ('Where's the sign?' he was asked. 'I am the sign,' he replied, with true Puffy bravado.) Mr. Combs, for his part, shrugs off speculation about his empire's health. 'It's all right if people have questions,' he said, 'but sometimes it's not important to give people answers. ' He does, however, answer one question: Is the urban business in trouble? 'No,' he replied.

'The economy is in trouble. ' The story of Mr. Combs's beginnings, as he tells it, sounds like a rap song, especially with the emphasis he places on certain words. ' I come from Harlem, New York,' he said, 'and one of the things Harlem is known for is style, making something out of nothing. Nobody has money but everybody knows how to dress. My mother was a model and a shopaholic. I was definitely a mama's boy; I was dragged into bargain shopping for the right pieces.

My aunt was a seamstress. My uncle George was gay. My grandmother did the robes for the church, and she did the hems for the choir - she did them cheaper than the local cleaners. My father was an alcoholic, and he died when I was three. '.