by Paris – “That’s it, I’m going on vacation.”
After 28 years, 80-something collections, more than 10,000 designs and his first retrospective, Andrew Gn is offering the fashion world au-revoir, he told WWD exclusively.
More from WWD
“It’s been a very long time and I feel like I’m at a really high point in my career, having done a lot and working hard for my company,” he continued. “So I want to take this opportunity to step back, enjoy my life and see what happens.”
His latest collections are Cruise 2024 and holiday capsules which are currently full price in stores. Ongoing orders from private clients will continue to be delivered on schedule.
The brand will remain at its headquarters and salon in Paris for the foreseeable future and will take at least a year to complete operations. Another priority is to make sure the team is properly compensated because “some people have been with us since Day One,” he said.
After that, the company based in Paris will be employed.
Gn said he could “afford to do this because it’s a small average house – but a profitable house.” Although he did not disclose sales figures, his identical label has between 75 and 80 stockists worldwide, including Net-a-porter, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Bergdorf Goodman, Moda Operandi, Saks and Matchesfashion.
“Our choice is to step back; it’s not because we’re not doing well,” he said. That’s also why he has no plans to sign licenses. Keeping his name and independence is “something he travels for”, and for any amount of money he wouldn’t engage in fast fashion because “he doesn’t believe in it,” he said.
While wholesale accounted for 70 percent of the business, the company’s own retail has developed satisfactorily, with its e-commerce site selling accessories and ready-to-wear. Custom and made-to-order business accounted for about 5 percent.
Her Paris-based salon has brought in “pretty big retail business,” especially since the pandemic, when face-to-face meetings for clients over Zoom have generated an influx of ready-to-wear purchases.
Retailers were pulling out of the ad.
“I’m still processing the call from Andrew, letting us know he was closing his retail chapter,” said Bergdorf’s senior vice president of fashion, Linda Fargo. “His last collection will certainly be walking over the news, as there will be an unfillable void in our offering without him.”
“a life of taste and curiosity” Lauding Gn, Fargo said that Bergdorf Goodman was a partner for 23 years who was not out of friendship with himself only because he “consistently designed beautiful clothes, wearable, joy, with touches of exoticism and unabashed glamour.”
While consumers may be disappointed not to find Gn’s designs in store next year, Farfetch executive Elizabeth von der Goltz said [her] so happy to see that he now decides to take a step back,” after Gn and her partner Erick Hörlin “personally put all their passion, effort and hard work” into the brand and business since she met them as a buyer at Bergdorf in 2003.
“Andrew will finally be able to devote himself to family and activities such as collecting art, traveling the world and enjoying delicious meals,” she said. And his retrospective work, which began in Singapore last May, will bring his work around the world, according to her.
“This is not adieu but au-revoir, the beginning of a new chapter of my life,” repeated Gn.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling — sweeter than bitter,” he said. “I’m sad to leave something I’ve been doing for almost 30 years of my life but otherwise, I can breathe fresh air and not focus on one thing. When you’re on the road for a long time, you live it, you sleep it, you eat it and everything revolves around that.”
And don’t call it quits. At first because “I’m too young for that,” he said.
But mostly because the designer’s docket is already full of new projects.
Talks are already underway to bring “Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World” to various museums in the US, and the designer has further plans to bring the exhibition back to Asia. Although he kept mum on the next stop, the whole plan is “taking up at least 10 years of my time,” he said.
The next thing on his to-do list is to establish his own foundation. Gn is an avid collector and has an extensive art collection spanning from the 17th century to the 21st century, currently split between his two Paris apartments and a pair of warehouses.
“I am a Renaissance man. I like a lot of things. I love art and I love anything that is beautiful,” he admitted. Thousands of works of art must be photographed, cataloged and prepared for exhibition.
He and Hörlin are also looking at a Georgian house in Dublin which Gn plans to restore to its full glory. Although it’s not something he’s interested in as an interior decorator, he sees a market for it. “In the times we live in, the castle we build for ourselves is essential,” he said. “Going home and feeling safe.”
Most of all, he is interested in giving back to the next generation. That idea was embedded in his retrospective but he is also looking at ways to share his experience with young designers and “help young people as much as possible. [he] can.”
“There are many organizations that give money or awards to designers without guiding them,” he explained. “It’s great to encourage them, but I learned the hard way that the hardest thing besides being creative and developing all the time is running your own business, the marketing, the sourcing, finding the production and all that.”
“There is so much to do,” he said. “Maybe I’ll be like those rock stars, giving a farewell concert and boom, a new record in three years.”
But first things first. “I’m going to spend Lunar New Year in Singapore for the first time in 30 years in fashion,” he said with obvious joy.
The best of WWD
