fashion fluster as retail analyst tangles with giordano again
If you want to be a top retail analyst, like Marisa Ho of Credit Suisse, it's not enough to sit at the desk and crunch the numbers. You have to get down in the trenches, as she does in her latest report on Giordano.
Now, Giordano has always stood for simplicity, which the casual wear chain defines as one of its five core values. If Ms Ho is right, however, it may be getting too sophisticated for its own good.
When temperatures dropped last week, Giordano put more of its autumn/winter line on display. The analyst went down to its Tsim Sha Tsui flagship store to have a look.
As she tells it: 'A housewife in her 40s/50s was figuring out how to wear a piece of metallic purple knitted sweater designed to be buttoned such that it is worn in a halter-neck style with an open back, and layered over either a long sleeve shirt or a tube-top underneath for coverage ... (E)ven with a mannequin displaying exactly how the piece is to be worn and with a sales associate patiently explaining it to her, that customer looked sufficiently confounded ...'
Ms Ho added: 'The challenge seems not just a matter of in-store execution, but also a matter of consumer education and acceptance of the 'new' Giordano.'
