Can Brick & Mortar Fashion Retail Resurrect Itself? A #Video Conversation with #experientailretail — Le Board — Answers the Question
Henri Bendel, a fashion institution for close to 125 years, is shutting it’s doors. It joins a long list of retailers. Living in Manhattan I see the demise of retail, especially fashion retail, all around me as almost every block near my neighborhood displays at least one for rent sign.
The struggles retail are experiencing are not new. Thanks to online shopping, retail, especially fashion retail, it is in bad shape. I’m as much to blame as the rest of us. I really hate clothing shopping. I hate the process of going to a store, then trying to find something, ANYTHING, that fits my body and the look I’m going after. I hate waiting on lines, I hate poor sales help and I hate the atmosphere of being surrounded by loads of clothes that squeeze me. So I stopped shopping. I hired an amazing stylist and we shop online and occasionally run into a store and where she finds me everything.
But I’ve always been a believer in the role of a great fashion shopping experience. I just think most brick and mortar retailers haven’t cracked it. With perhaps a few exceptions out there, most clothing stores see the retail space as a depot to unload their inventory. Yet, physical spaces can offer SO much more, especially more than online experiences. They can offer a sense of adventure, customization, emotion and true style. They we can be meeting grounds and places to experience new sensations. Sure, physical spaces allow us to literally try on the styles. But it’s more than that. It’s only in a physical environment can you feel, smell and examine the the stitching, fabrics and textures. In this era of online-everything, we crave the physical — maybe even more so. We’re still human, and it’s a fundamental need to want to connect with the physical spaces a places around us. In anthropology this need is called “place making.”
And it’s only in a physical environment that we can connect with human beings in a nuanced, deeply emotional way. These humans can be expert stylists who seek to truly understand our bodies; our needs and our aspirations or other like-minded people who want to share — whether that’s their excitement around fashion or feelings about other issues. There’s no surprise there is still love for the open bazaar or souk or shuk. These are places where shoppers shop, yes, but more than that they come together to share in a cultural experience. (I happened to have written my senior Anthropology thesis on the topic so I’m very close to it.)
Good news, I think I found such a retail space that gets it: Le Board. Conceived and developed by Creative Director, Sofia Karvela (who also happens to be my stylist — lucky me!) and CEO, John Aghayan, Le Board is a retail experience that merges fashion with entertainment and, ironically, leverages the medium of immersive technology and human interaction. It can host events like trunk shows, offer immersive tech experiences like holograms and VR “Behind-the-scenes,” and share the talent of thought leaders via panel talks, and art shows. Another bonus? Opening end of September, the store promotes brands of women-led businesses.
Beyond the many different aspects of Le Board, is the the feeling the experience evokes. The ultimate mission of Le Board, Karvela explains, is to provide a place where “women could feel a part of something a little bigger…we created this space so we could bring women together to feel inspired…Women with goals…to give them hope to believe that whatever they want to do can happen. We use fashion as a great to avenue to bring these women together to create a look for themselves to inspire to go out there and do great, big things.”
Let’s hear it directly from Karvela in the interview I conducted at the shop a week ago. (By the way, I’m wearing a latex dress which was related to the event which Le Board hosted, Social China…You can hear it in the background :)) Click image below for interview:
