Yahoo Finance Victoria/Tomas Shuttering Business
PARIS — Independent design duo Victoria Feldman and Tomas Berzins are shuttering business operations of their Victoria/Tomas label, WWD has learned.
The duo, who have shown on the Paris Fashion Week official calendar since 2017, will focus on collaborations and other design projects moving forward, they said. Their Paris atelier will also close.
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The pair said the decision was due to a combination of market forces and a desire to shift their focus from day-to-day business operations to concentrate on creative endeavors.
The coed Victoria/Tomas label was launched in 2012 and carried by stockists worldwide including Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols and Le Bon Marché as well as boutique retailers such as Colette in its heyday.
The pair cofounded the label straight out of fashion school and it went on to be selected as a finalist for the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography the following year. The brand had become known for innovative designs, such as its reversible clothing concept rolled out in 2020.
After the pandemic, the pair saw a shift in the business climate with a spate of retail closures.
“Especially after COVID-19, the business slowed down a lot, to be honest,” Berzins said. “We felt like the wholesale was going down, slowly but steadily.”
Contraction of the wholesale market significantly hit their bottom line.
“The industry has had a lot of change, negative change, starting from the wholesale [business], where we were focused mainly for our business since the beginning,” he said. “When the big shops are shutting down, or [filing for] bankruptcy, you cannot replace them easily.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, the company lost 70 percent of its turnover due to order cancellations and shop closings. In the years following, they have seen overall about 50 shops they work with close permanently.
“It really affected the turnover,” Berzins said. “We succeeded to survive many, many seasons after COVID, but we came to a moment when we said, ‘Is it healthy to do that?’ We want to do many, many things. We have a lot of ideas, but when you have this kind of weight of the market, it kind of breaks you and you don’t feel passionate anymore.”
Moving puzzle pieces in the makeup of the Asian market also posed challenges, as Japanese shops currently “are struggling,” Berzins said, while the Korean and Chinese markets are expanding. With a small team of eight, it proved challenging to reach out to buyers and establish themselves in new markets.
Berzins said he and Feldman were spending more than 50 percent of their time on business development instead of design and found the structure of the seasonal calendar system hindered exploring new creative avenues, collaborations and partnerships.
They also found that in-person buying sessions did not bounce back to their previous levels, as buyers continued to prefer online appointments due to the packed fashion week calendar.
“Even with a very central showroom, we couldn’t even see our current clients in Paris, everyone is running around, everyone in a rush, everyone’s stressed,” Berzins said. “It was not like that in 2014 or 2015. It was a totally different vibe.”
There’s also increased competition in the marketplace, while at the same time, retailers were becoming more reticent to buy small brands. As quiet luxury became a dominating trend, retailers were looking for more of a sure thing rather than experimenting with up-and-comers.
“Compared to what we saw 10 years ago, even six years ago, [when] the buyers wanted to take risks, they wanted to buy new stuff to experiment, and to give this platform for a young designer. Today, people are just trying to find fast solutions,” Feldman said.
The reversible concept was initially a hit with buyers, but as quiet luxury became a trend retailers became more risk-averse, they believe. Berzins said they took a look at what retailers they had previously worked with were now carrying, and found a major shift to more commercial styles.
The duo will now shift their efforts to collaborations and design products with existing brands and across categories, such as a successful partnership with fragrance brand Caron. They designed a carrying case for the house’s perfume bottles.
The duo said they are open to all creative collaborations, including high street or sportswear brands.
“We don’t have any limit with it, we don’t have any taboo to where we can or cannot work. It’s just a question of fit with our vision, and with a human aspect [including] the team,” Berzins said.
“We’re very motivated and looking very positively toward the future. We can’t wait for new adventures,” Feldman added.
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