Yahoo Finance Rag & Bone’s Dream Team: Robert Geller and Andrew Rosen
“The company has been a little sleepy for a while but now it’s time for it to wake up.”
Those were the words of Andrew Rosen, the garment industry veteran who was recently named executive chairman of Rag & Bone. And the man he has charged with rousing the label from its slumber is Robert Geller.
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Geller, also a well-respected figure in men’s design, quietly joined the company last fall and will be showing his inaugural spring collection at Pitti Uomo. This also marks the label’s debut at the menswear fair.
“With the Guess acquisition, Paul Marciano [cofounder and chief creative officer of Guess] has been very enthusiastic about the opportunity to expand Rag & Bone’s footprint beyond the U.S. to Europe,” Rosen said. “And the best way to do that is to show the men’s at Pitti.”
Rosen added that because Guess already has a well-oiled infrastructure of people and logistics overseas, it will be easy for Rag & Bone to benefit from their new relationship.
As reported, Rag & Bone was acquired in February by Guess and brand management firm WHP Global and is operating as an independent entity within the portfolio. Guess owns all of the Rag & Bone operating assets while the intellectual property is owned jointly by Guess and WHP.
Rosen has held an ownership stake in Rag & Bone for many years and was instrumental in bringing Geller on board as Rag & Bone’s head of menswear design.
“Robert is a great talent and his natural aesthetic is very Rag & Bone,” Rosen said. “His use of shape, proportion and fabric has really helped freshen up the brand. Rag & Bone was always strong in men’s so we’re going from strength to strength.”
The German-born Geller graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001 and worked for Marc Jacobs and Cloak before launching his own collection in 2007, which was nominated for several awards, including the CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year Award in 2017.
In a preview of Rag & Bone’s spring collection, Geller said he started out this season by drilling down to understand the core customer. “It’s a wide group,” he said, but at its core, “it’s a downtown New York creative. There have always been references of English tailoring but our heart lives in downtown New York.”
Rag & Bone was created in New York in 2002 by two Englishmen, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, who met as teenagers in their home country. Although they had no design training, they decided to make jeans, found a factory in Kentucky to bring that vision to fruition, and it worked. The brand ultimately expanded into womenswear, sportswear and a range of other categories. Neither founder is involved with the business today.
“We’re based in SoHo and the founders were English so I looked at Soho in London and the creatives who were there in the ’50s and ’60s and then SoHo in New York in the ‘80s,” Geller said of his inspiration for spring.
What that translated into is a collection where paint splatters several of the pieces, including T-shirts and button-downs that reference the art scene in both neighborhoods. The Avery shirt, a longtime bestseller, has been updated with new treatments and prints.
Denim, which remains a hallmark of the brand, has been updated to offer more of a lifestyle aesthetic with new fits, washes and colors to appeal to an urban and a fashion customer, he said. There is a patchwork print on one style that mimics the popular Miramar women’s jean, while others offer stretch for comfort.
Playing off its denim history, Geller has designed a bomber in a denim wash as well as another that is quilted with military details, also a signature of Rag & Bone over the years.
Other key pieces for spring include a gauzy striped short-sleeve shirt; a long-sleeve shirt that intentionally looks like it’s inside-out with a complementary placket and collar trim; a washed sweatshirt, and a garment-dyed jacket with patch pockets in different fabrics.
“Spring can sometimes be light and flat,” Geller said, “but we are offering beautiful textures and colors.”
Tailoring is a key part of the offering. There are jacquard textured button-down shirts, a very light wool-blend blazer and even some leather and suede jackets to appeal to the diehard Rag & Bone customer.
“We’re going to expand this in the future,” Geller said. “There’s a big opportunity for us in the tailoring world.”
Sportswear has its place and Geller has designed joggers and jackets in performance fabrics as well as shirts with stretch and a pullover anorak with paint splatter.
In its look book, Rag & Bone blends all of these categories together aiming to answer the needs of today’s customer, who is comfortable mixing and matching pieces.
Geller naturally is happy with the way his first spring collection came out, noting: “It’s hard to make a statement in spring but I think we succeeded. It’s not too overstyled but has a point of view.”
And he’s hoping it will connect with the retailers walking Pitti.
Rosen is confident that the collection will find a home overseas. In fact, Rag & Bone has already started marketing both its men’s and women’s collections in Italy, he said. There are billboards at the Florence and Milan airports, and it is taking over the tram in Florence. Outside of Italy, the brand is launching advertising in countries where it has not marketed before including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and advertising will return in the U.K.
“Our plans for marketing are in so many different countries,” Rosen said. “We’re going to have an aggressive campaign throughout Europe. Paul [Marciano] believes in building the brand through great marketing and great product.”
Today, 85 percent of Rag & Bone’s business comes from the U.S., 10 percent from Europe, led by the U.K., and 5 percent in the rest of the world, primarily Korea and Japan. But the opportunities overseas are boundless. “We have a very strong plan for the first collection that will come to stores in August,” Rosen said.
Rosen said he’s a firm believer in the brand, and has been since he got involved in the business in 2006. “I met David and Marcus then and become their partner weeks after,” he said. “I’ve always believed in the brand and its people. It’s something I’ve always been passionate about because of the authority it holds.”
Although he’s taking a more active role today, he stressed that “it’s not substantially different from what I’ve been doing the last few years. I just wanted to make sure this acquisition went smoothly.”
Rosen is confident that the future is bright for Rag & Bone. “It’s a great company and it’s stood the test of time through a lot of transition. What’s been great is that it’s never lost track of what it was and what it stood for. The business is gaining momentum at retail and we’re excited for the future — and Pitti is the first step.”
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