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Tomoko Ogura
Barneys' youthful senior fashior director has spent her entire career getting to know the Barneys customer.
Department stores can be rather magical places to the young and inquisitive. Early impressions of Barneys New York, formed when her mother would take her shopping there during her childhood, certainly lingered favourably in the mind of Tomoko Ogura, who grew up in New Jersey, then moved with her family to Japan at the age of Il, before returning to the States to study economics and German at college.This longstanding emotional connection to Barneys served as a meaningful foundation when, after graduating, she secured her first job as an assistant merchandiser in its fashion office back in 2005. Exposed to pretty much all of the different aspects of the company during her first few years of employment, she rose up the ranks to become fashion director of Barneys Co-Op sub-brand, and was then promoted to her current role as Barneys' senior fashion director in 2012, replacing Amanda Brooks, who had occupied the position at the iconic store for barely a year.
Some industry commentators expressed surprise at someone so young taking on such a prestigious position. But while Tomoko might look young for her 30 years, she is no overnight sensation and had already proven herself an ideal candidate, thanks to a solid track record of spotting and nurturing new designers, a mature business sense and unabashed appreciation for genuine creativity, not to mention her extensive knowledge of the inner workings of Barneys - from the day-to-day shopfloor goings-on, to the less publicly visible territories of buying, merchandising and advertising - garnered during her years working there. Time magazine has cited her as one of the six women who rule the fashion world, while Glamour listed her as one of the top 35 fashion insiders under the age of 35. Furthermore, Tomoko makes a great 21st-century figurehead for Barneys: her own neat, modern and quirkily boyish sense of style is showcased across various blogs.
In conversation, she is quietly spoken yet concise, and her no-bullshit enthusiasm for the Barneys way of doing things feels genuine and infectious. It's clear that her insight into the contemporary practices and philosophies behind buying for such a vast brand as Barneys - which boasts 22 stores throughout America - is second to none.
Can you remember the first thing you bought from Barneys when you were a child? Yes, absolutely. I remember very clearly going to Barneys with my mother and enjoying it very much. The first thing I ever bought there was a mini-backpack, in orange plaid canvas, back in the day when those things were hot! I can remember appreciating the Barneys environment and the beautiful things there. I don't think my interest was necessarily fashion-related then, but I liked things that looked beautifully designed and of great quality.
How was it when you first started working at Barneys, years later, as a merchandising assistant? It must have felt like quite a shift after having studied economics at college. I think in any new job you are anxious, but at the same time Barneys is a very wonderful place to work and very welcoming. There's a closeness here, which is why you see so many people staying with Barneys for a long time. My main responsibility with fashion merchandising when I started at Barneys was a whirlwind: I was exposed to so many different things! I worked with all the different departments: advertising. marketing, buying. It was such a great first position because I was able to see all the workings of Barneys and how the company functioned from an insider's perspective.
What made you want to become a buyer? I think the exposure to product is the most enticing thing: all the beautiful products and all the wonderful designers. Also I think my business background in economics means that it makes sense for me to be working on the retail side. But for me, there's a very nice balance of business and creativity.
People have commented on you being quite young to have such a powerful position. Does that bother you? You know. I have heard those comments. I think I feel challenged by them. Maybe 30 as a number seems quite young. but I have been working at Barneys for my entire career. So in that sense I have seen a lot of things and worked with so many merchants within the company and have good relationships there. And I grew up with the other assistants at Barneys, so I feel grateful that I have those strong relationships with them, because we all came to Barneys at the same time. That is very unique, and having that growth within a certain company gives you a lot of different exposures and experiences in fields that you might not have had if you'd been working for lots of different companies.
How do buyers typically interact with designers? What goes on behind the scenes? The level of interaction and degree of intimacy that we have with designers differs depending on how established that designer is. So it's always a different dynamic with each designer. For example, you are often working with jewellery designers - I think people sometimes forget that we are not only working with ready-to-wear designers. And a lot of designers don't actually have catwalk presentations or shows, so it's much more of an organic and consistent conversation that we have with them - we don't just see them twice a year. Buyers often have conversations with designers on a weekly basis to talk about their performance and what they can do to improve it, and that is regardless of whether or not it happens to be Fashion Week. And yes, we are very fortunate to be invited to preview collections sometimes, and at those times we give open feedback about what we feel are voids or open opportunities. Designers will often present colour stories or sketches and we can respond honestly to them at those times.
Do you work with new designers to help them. for example by putting them in touch with factories to help them meet orders? Again, it is a case-by-case situation, but there have been times in the past when we help - with regard to payment terms, for example, so that designers can produce their collections in a timely manner. We might pre-pay a designer part of the order, enabling them to move forward with the production of it.
Do buyers put pressure on designers to increase the flow of new stock coming in to stores? Certain designers have mentioned that they only moved into producing pre-collections, for example, as a result of buyers suggesting the idea to them. It's definitely true. May, June and September are some of our best| months and customers are looking for new, fresh merchandise during these times. It also coincides with our sales. but we have a customer who wants to shop for new things at those times too, so it's really important to keep our floor as fresh as possible to satisfy that. Pre-collections are becoming much more important in terms of our investment and we are shifting our budget into those deliveries, because we have longer periods of time to sell on our floor. It's important to us to encourage designers to produce pre-collections because I think that's when people want to shop, and it gives designers the chance to really do some business and create some volume in terms of their own business as well.
Do you notice an increasing awareness of business and commerciality among young designers? And do they listen more to buyers now than in the past? The overall retail environment is so much more competitive now, so in order to stay in the game you have to be aware of what is commercially acceptable and successful. Yes. I do think that we see much more positive responses from designers. Even the established designers have teams trying to do all this research for them, to find out how they can keep things growing and make their businesses successful.
Are buyers now more influential in the fashion industry than perhaps they might have been in the past? Retailers always say things like. 'Buy now, wear now, for example. Those phrases don't come out of nowhere: we really believe that. That's how our customers shop all the time. So, you know, I feel like we've had this conversation again and again over the years about fall - it's not just about fall. Think about when fall actually comes in to the stores: July, August, September, when it's still hot. And I think the designers teams are responding to that, they listen to us talking about fabrics and colours.
It's almost like the buyer is now part of the design process, if they are having that sort of input… I also think that for young designers, they have a much shorter period of time in which to succeed now. So for them to have that conversation with the buyers early on and for retailers to tell them about opportunities for them on the floor is invaluable. Maybe before they would have had more time to prove themselves and become profitable, but now everyone is cognisant of the fact that we need to make money at the end of the day, and so we can't be as flexible in terms of hand-holding designers. We want to, but there is only so much budget and so much real estate that we can afford to give to designers.
There are so many stores in the world's major cities, attracting customers from all over the world. How has does the global reach of fashion affect what they might buy? I think they are looking for special products when they come to Barneys. E-commerce is such a vital and important part of the way people shop; everything is so accessible now. So for us, our strategy is a point of differentiation - we should offer customers things they can only buy at Barneys and things that feel special. We need to give them a reason to shop here. I think one of the challenges is also that we want to reflect as much as possible our in-store experience online. Obviously, it's not going to be exactly the same, so moving that forward is a challenge.
You have your own personal sense of style, but how do you square your own taste with the aesthetic of Barneys? Is it difficult to detach your own taste from that of people who might want to buy and wear things that you wouldn't necessarily want to wear yourself? Buyers in general have to be objective. They all buy what they believe in and not necessarily in accordance with their personal wardrobe, but sometimes it happens to be something that they love. We have an incredibly talented bunch of merchants: some of us have been here 30 years and some are just a few years in, and it's this mix of people with creative vision that is reflected on the floor. I wouldn't say it was about personal wardrobe. But I think everyone has a unique sense of style and instinct in terms of what they are buying, and so again it’s that mash-up that makes it interesting at Barneys.
Do the various buyers thoroughly discuss and sometimes disagree about what to invest in for Barneys? We all have naturally different reactions - especially in the showroom. when we are all reacting quite instinctively to all the individual styles and pieces. But I think at the end of the day everyone states their opinion, and it's the buyer's responsibility to make the most informed choice about what they really believe in. And they also know, historically, what the performance on the floor of the different brands is. So they have that historical knowledge as well as sensing what feels right in the moment - you know, just because something sold well three seasons in a row doesn't mean it's going to sell the following season. Maybe the customers will be over it at that point. That is more of an innate sense that the buyers have.
In fashion there is always an element of things being a gamble: peoples tastes change quickly, things go in and out so fast. Does that worry you? In terms of how customers react, that's one of the most invigorating parts of the job. You have strong feelings for certain trends, or certain designers, or certain collections, or certain pieces. And then six months later, you are at the store and you see the sales reports and sometimes you are shocked and sometimes you are disappointed. But this volatility and hedging your bets makes your job exciting and challenging every season. When we are in season and we are looking at the collections in the showroom, everyone is quite confident in their decision-making. But at the end of the day, the customer chooses and we can't necessarily anticipate those decisions six months ahead.
Do brands ever put pressure on the buyer to purchase parts of a collection that the buyer isn't necessarily interested in? And if that happens, how do you handle that situation? This happens all the time, and the merchant team always has a dialogue with the designers. Sometimes the designers feel really strongly about something that it turns out we don't want to order, but we will order it because we want to be supportive. Sometimes we are confident and we need to put our foot down and say it doesn't make sense for Barneys: incorporating that particular style will not make an interesting or practical statement for us. It really differs with each scenario. Sometimes buyers go back and forth in terms of submitting orders, multiple times, to get it exactly right and to make everybody happy.
Can you elaborate on a buyer’s instinctive feeling about what is 'right? What informs this? I think everyone is informed by different things. For me. personally. my eyes have developed from seeing so many things over the years but also from having listened to and observed so many well-versed and knowledgeable buyers at the beginning of my experience at Barneys. For me, the origins of that instinct can be traced back to, for example, my parents and all the things I was exposed to. I was born and raised in America, but my family tried to keep me informed about Japanese culture and they made such an effort to expose me to all the beautiful and not-so-beautiful things that come from Japan. So I think innately I have an appreciation for quality and things that are well designed: my instinct stems from there. In addition, I always say my perspective and vision doesn't just come from seeing all the beautiful things we buy at Barneys, it is just as much informed by the things we don't buy and by all the other stuff that is out there that is relevant in someone's environment, even if it is not so relevant to Barneys. That enables me to have a wider perspective in terms of the general fashion environment. I do believe that the buyers all buy what we believe in and we all have an emotional connection to the product and sometimes to the designers or to the story - but it always comes back to the product, and that's what informs our instinct.
Have you ever been surprised when something you bought that you thought would be niche proved to be massively popular? And have you ever got it wrong: you were confident about the product, but it proved to not be so popular? Yes, honestly, both scenarios happen all the time. We are sometimes surprised by it. It keeps us on our toes. We know sometimes things can be wrong. I don't think anyone takes their job so seriously in the sense that they would not be able to handle something not working out.
What role do buyers have today in terms of establishing trends? You know, trends help to inform the buys but they aren't necessarily what establishes what we offer at Barneys. They help to communicate with the customer, but at the end of the day the customer chooses what they want to buy. Sometimes it is something trendy but often it is something that they love which is timeless. So our intention is to embrace trends which are relevant to Barneys, what we feel makes sense at the time, as more of a communication tool.
Do emerging designers and the bigger-name brands both benefit from being displayed and sold alongside each other? Yes, absolutely, because I think what often happens is people come to Barneys to look for something interesting or exclusive or different, and on that particular day they might find that they don't want something from an emerging designer but in fact they buy something from a more commercial designer, and vice versa. And for us, we want our customer to shop across the entire floor.
Is a buyer's success mainly determined by having the minimum amount of products left on the shop floor or rails at the end of the season? It is a balance of being able to represent designers visions in a way that makes sense, and that is at the core of Barneys aesthetic as well. How do you buy something and represent a designer's collection, without having to buy every single piece? Because, obviously, we can't do that. And then in order to sell the things that feel a little more straightforward or simple, you know, I think you have to have both in order to entice a customer to walk up to the rack.
Similar to a designer featuring show pieces on the rumvay, to bring interest to the less dramatic pieces from their collection? Yes, exactly. And for designers I think it's how to represent the strength of your runway show and your vision and interpret them into more commercial pieces, that's always a challenge.
I’ve asked you a lot of questions specifically about buying, but could you talk me through some other things that you do in your job? This week, or any week, part of my day is often doing interviews and press things. Later today, I'll be travelling to our store in Boston as we have an event there tomorrow morning with some of our top customers: a charity event to promote Barneys and the designers we have, and to introduce the local customers to the things we believe in and love for spring. Tomorrow night I'm flying to Detroit because we have a new collection were going to be showing, a watch brand, and I want to visit their factory. Typically when we start to work with a new brand I will visit their HQ. It's part of my job to seek out new collections and find new designers. After Detroit, I'll be flying to LA to our store there to celebrate Cédric Charlier who is one of the designers we launched there last year, so we will be celebrating his spring collection together, and then I will be visiting some of our other stores out there.
You mentioned you do lots of interviews. How do you feel about doing interviews? It's naturally part of my job, but it's not especially natural to me on a personal level! It makes sense for me to represent Barneys in this way because I am exposed to so many different parts of the organisation and work so closely with the buyers. So yes, I suppose it makes sense for me to be ‘the voice’.