Earlier this year, Cadillac announced it had forged an alliance with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to set up a Retail Lab complete with physical space at the brand’s Cadillac House in New York City. Today, the next class of designers has been announced for said space.
Cadillac and the CFDA announced the next five designers to take part in the Retail Lab mentorship program: Cushnie et Ochs, Public School, Tanya Taylor, Pamela Love and Prabal Gurung. Each will be a part of the 2016 and 2017 rotation with three months allotted in physical retail space.
“We’re excited to be the next brand participating in the CFDA’s Retail Lab at Cadillac House,” said Carly Cushnie of Cushnie et Ochs. “As we formulate our plans to open the first Cushnie et Ochs retail store, it will be immensely helpful for us to learn from the experience of opening and operating a pop-up retail location and to benefit from the guidance and expertise of the Retail Lab’s mentoring team.”
The designers are selected through a competitive application process to gain experience under well-known fashion experts. Retail Lab is also supported by way of store fixtures provided by Alu, mannequins from DK Display, hangers from Henry Hangers and innovative technology and retail business solutions from Prism, Axis and KWI.
If you’re in the neighborhood, Cadillac would love to have you. The Retail Lab is located at 330 Hudson Street in New York City.
Comments
Sorry, but much to do about nothing!
So don’t even bother to comment then, please.
I’m struggling to understand how the benefit of a ‘pure fashion’ design hangout is of benefit to Cadillac.
I guess I’d be more impressed (and able to see the connection) if they offered an intership semester or two to students from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Their students are schooled in graphics, fashion, film, music, industrial design and automotive design.
Oh, and Pratt School of Design in NY, too.
If Cadillac House wants to be a cauldron of youthful hunger and creativity, I’d argue for a wider ranging influence that injects more into the system than fabrics and fashion.
Maybe I’m wrong (it’s happened before!), but I’d opt for a stew of creativity, vs a recreation of Project Runway. The House can be more than just a fashionista hangout. Should be more.
Check out the websites for Art Center, and RISD and Pratt. I suspect they’d bring fashion to the table and a whole lot more.
Exactly! Total waste of $. How this is selling Cadillacs and improving the image is beyond me!
Over on several different motorsport websites today, many people are laughing at Bernie Ecclestone for being retained by F1’s new owners after saying “I don’t know how to make money from social media”. You probably don’t see how this fashion pop-up thing is the exact thing that Bernie doesn’t “get” but Uwe & Johan do “get”.
Wow, don’t have to be an expert in anything to see this squander of money has not resulted in INCREASED SALES. Without those results, it is a failure!
Old Trombone – maybe Uwe and Johan do “get it” – here’s the fall collection from “Public School” – a cutting edge fash house in Manhattan Cadillac House works with.
From the looks of things, , their target market is hip, urban Amish and Mennonite men; have a look and we can try to match up which fashion-styling best matches up with the various “Dare Greatly” vehicles.
http://publicschoolnyc.com/pages/mens-fall-2016
So we’ve got “Captain Carl’s” anonymous opinion, great, that’s what a comments section on a website is for. Amish/Mennonite, oi-geddit! How about real people with real names, and as Smrek says, real money? Does “Public School” have any?:
Victor Cruz – Giants wide receiver
Kendrick Lamar
Mick Jagger
Swarovski/Council of American Fashion Designers Award
Vogue/CFDA $300,000
Knicks merch’ contract
President of J.Crew
(Source: NYT Jan-7 2014)
Me? I’m going with these guys, not “Carl” and his weird friends from Pennsylvania. Their hats are cool, though.
CC, that would be funny if current Cadillac management is targeting Amish/Mennonite men, since Amish do not own or drive cars (some Mennonites do, but Cadillac may be too flashy for them).
I admit that I don’t get this whole “Cadillac House” thing. As you said further above, it looks like they are bringing a “Project Runway” bunch of young fashion designers in, but to what point? Do a lot of fashion designers wind up in the car design (or engineering) business?
I continue to hate the fact that the current top 3 men at Cadillac (de Nysschen, Ellinghaus, and Smith) continue to have Cadillac run away from its American roots and none of them are in fact American. So Cadillac is supposed to be for snooty latte-drinking Manhattanites? Do they even own many cars there? My cousin lived on Manhattan for many years, and never own a car while there (despite making plenty of $$$, felt no need to own a car there). As an American and additionally so as a Midwesterner, I find the lack of respect for Cadillac among current Cadillac upper management baffling and somewhat insulting, but that’s life.
I don’t understand why the powers that be at Cadillac feel they have to trash the former/existing brand, in order to cater to a small elitist group. That’s not exactly going for a big market, it’s simply putting their personal taste at the top, rather than the public’s. Alex Luft (this website’s founder) has claimed that Cadillac is smart to abandon its former aim in vehicles, because that market is aging and will eventually die off and will never be replaced (never mind that the Chinese also like the traditional Cadillac ride over the Euro-sport one the new guys are chasing). I don’t happen to agree, to me that’s like assuming that if someone lives in the city while young, they will never move to the suburbs in middle age, and never will move to Florida (etc) in retirement. People’s tastes and needs do change as they age, not to mention not all young and middle aged people want sport-ride cars.
Current Cadillac seems fixated on selling only to young, hip, urban dwellers who want sport-riding cars. But at the same time, they are aiming to sell Cadillacs at even higher price points (relative to the market) than in the past. Now maybe things have changed, but in the past the young people had the least amount of money to spend, having greater spending ability as they aged. So the target market segment of current Cadillac management must be tiny – if they are locked on only young, hip, Amish/Mennonite, urban, latte-drinking, sports-car-seeking, and ultra-RICH Euro-wannabes. Yet a few cheerleaders seem to think de Nysschen and his foreign, Euro-loving crew can do no wrong, so we”ll see over time if this strategy works. If not, I’m sure they will have been paid handsomely while destroying the soul (and perhaps existence) of an iconic American brand.
Well, the be-hatted gents are Public Schools models. As for casting a wider net than Victor Cruz, the schools I mentioned have a wider, deeper bench. Wealthier, too. But, to each their own. We’ll see if purely fashion focus is the right call, in the meantime.
Straw Man Argument! I never said, nor has Cadillac said, that they have decided on a “purely fashion focus”. Don’t put that on us! They (and I) say this is one small part of 21st-century marketing. We are trying to call “wrong” on people who say “don’t do this at all”. You are saying that we want “only this”.
Here’s how syllogisms work:
Reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion, e.g., all dogs are mammals; all mammals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs. NOT all four-legged creatures are dogs, my cat has four legs, therefore my cat is a dog.
Ok. You might be right, but for the sake of argument, let’s just agree you’re wrong and drop it.
Now everyone knows how you really argue – with your aggression rather than any intelligence at all.
Hey, sorry. Feeble attempt at humor.
Let’s see if their plan works. Have a good weekend.