Stefan Larsson had a busy branding year at PVH Corp.
He debuted Calvin Klein’s groundbreaking campaign with Jeremy Allen White in January and contributed to the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show in September.
More from WWD
This is not new territory for either brand, but the context, how the businesses sit within PVH and how the company is operating is new.
But it’s a transformation that involved a lot of backtracking.
“We’re trying to go back to the DNA that made these brands beloved and cut through the culture and then make them current,” Larsson, who is chief executive officer, told James Fallon, chief content officer at Fairchild Media Group. , at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit.
It is a two-part process.
“We have a consumer-focused part, which is driving as much desire as possible into the product, marketing and experience and then we build a core business engine based on data and demand,” Larsson said.
Identifying the brand’s DNA to build on was the easy part.
Larsson, who is tough by nature and spends “56 percent” of his time traveling, said people around the world smile when they hear Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
“People are not just aware of the brands, they like the brands and there is an inherent love for the brands,” he said. “Tommy had a completely unique take on American style – he took the classic American style and then gave it a twist.”
Jeremy Allen White in his second campaign for Calvin Klein denim and underwear.
Calvin Klein “essentially created” what Larsson described as “modern American style” that was “confident, essential, minimalist, rebellious.”
“The DNA is so clear and timeless as both brands stand the test of time,” he said. “If you look at what’s happening in the fashion industry right now, I see that there are two places to go. It is the sea of generic brands and generic things and then there are the most desirable brands in the world.”
Larsson grew up in a small town in Sweden, caught the fashion bug and joined H&M’s fashion charge before moving on to Old Navy, Ralph Lauren Corp. and, five years ago, PVH.
In this way he developed a clear perception of American fashion.
“What I love about American fashion is that it doesn’t try to be pretentious about price,” he said. “American fashion to me is about being cool, it’s not about price.”
Great products and great performance have little to do with price, he said.
“It’s the determination to say we’re going to set out to do something great,” said the CEO.
Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger both sit in the premium space in the market, which Larsson described as a sweet spot.
A look from Tommy Hilfiger’s holiday campaign.
“We’re able to offer something great to the consumer at a price that most people can afford,” he said. “The biggest lift is to be intentional about saying anything and everything we do … has to be great. And when you start fixing that fence, everyone else starts upping their game. But the premium space makes it possible to invest in innovation, quality and experience.”
Although the idea is to grow two big brands already – Tommy Hilfiger with a revenue of $4.8 billion and Calvin Klein with $3.9 billion – the umbrella company does not have to be big.
“I want PVH to be the next generation brand building group,” said Larsson. “I want us to be as small as possible in terms of the PVH series and be as brand-focused and consumer-focused as possible. I’m a big believer in leveraging the scale of being big, but working like we’re small is hard and I’m good at it.
“The hardest thing for us as a large group is to be close enough to the customer, fast enough, creative enough, risk enough,” he said.
In a large company it can be safer not to make a decision than to make the wrong decision, so Larsson said that PVH tries to put the decision makers as close to consumers as possible.
“Is this a decision we can quickly learn from and improve upon?” he said. “Okay, so it might not matter if it works or not. Then there is only the momentum of learning and movement. Is it a big $200 million investment? Well, then we have to think about that.”
The idea is to maintain momentum.
“The consumer is always on the move,” Larsson said. “That’s why we need to be able to learn, improve, test, and most big companies are founded to control versus create. That’s why the learning cycle is so important.”
That means learning from and keeping up with the consumer.
Larsson is also learning about himself.
“I rarely have the best ideas today, almost never,” Larsson said, making a rare admission in the high-powered world of the corporate corner office.
“But what I can do uniquely in my role is remove obstacles, give people the confidence to say, get tested, I’ll support you even if that doesn’t work,” he said. . “Can you improve quickly? Can you change?”
At PVH, change is still the order of the day – in the structure of the business, at the brands, among the brand’s consumers and more.
Larsson is also keen to reframe technology and its use in the fashion industry.
“We sometimes talk too much about technology and not enough about creativity,” he said. “Creativity is the heart. A brand is an aspirational world that one dreams of and the product is the physical manifestation of that. Creativity is number one and technology enables that. Technology used to be an infrastructure, but now it’s becoming more and more an amplifier.”
And in an increasingly technological world, he said creativity will go a long way with consumers.
“People want unique, authentic, creative, takeaways,” he said.
The best of WWD
Sign up for the WWD Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkNoPrivacy policy
by 
