Herschel Supply’s built a brand that evokes heritage and old world craftmanship, but for the modern consumer.
The 14-year-old company’s now taking that concept one step further with the redesign and relaunch of many of its halo SKUs. The release of its New Classics will archive first-generation silhouettes in favor of the 60 updated pieces made with their EcoSystem recycled fabrics.
“We really wanted sustainability at the forefront,” co-founder and Managing Director Jamie Cormack said. “It’s something we had always talked about, and how do we implement that in the line? When do you take the dive into truly switching over all of your fabrications? And that’s hard to figure out when you’re growing hand over fist and moving so quickly. But COVID paused everything for a second. And we couldn’t have found a better time to really look at our entire range.”
The New Classics, retailing from $65 to $120, help take Herschel from about 6% recycled fabrications to roughly 95%, according to Cormack. The line was “well received” by retailers during the pre-buy, he said, with the New Classics sold across the wholesale channel, including Zumiez, Tilly’s, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, and Urban Outfitters.
Herschel began testing its EcoSystem fabric in some products over the past four years. However, it was the company’s Heritage Hardshell Luggage, which launched in April, that marked the first collection to be made entirely with EcoSystem. New Classics further builds on that sustainability push.
Ultimately, the new designs, while streamlined for the future, still retain what Cormack said is the brand’s DNA. A big chunk of that is the town of Herschel, Saskatchewan in Canada from which the company gets its name and where the Cormacks grew up.
“It’s a pretty special place,” he said. “When you grow up in a city, you have so many rules and borders and boundaries. But when you go to somewhere like Herschel, it’s open. There’s so much more open space and a totally different mindset.”
Pieces from Herschel Supply’s New Classics line. Photo courtesy of Herschel.
Revamping a Whole Line
Although the idea for modernizing those signature silhouettes had always been there, Herschel began the work on that in earnest about six months into the pandemic.
“I think when you have bags consistently in larger wholesale partners, it’s hard to refine them all the time because there is replenishment and you’re constantly feeding them in. You can’t make a lot of changes,” Cormack said. “So, for us, we had spoken about it for a long time. Since the beginning, we’ve always tried to build things properly and been aware of what our environmental footprint is, but how do you do it? How do you make sure that it’s going to make sense?”
Ultimately, every department within the company in some way had a hand in helping develop the New Classics line, from sourcing and design to finance and sales.
The company is working with the same fabrication partners in producing the New Classics pieces.
“It was a lot of conversations,” Cormack said. “I won’t call it a pain. I’d call it – work is never going to be easy; it’s always going to be a little bit hard. But I think that’s why not everybody does it. You’ve got to go out there and really dig deeper with your suppliers to find the fabrications – you want to get the right feel and patina.”
Herschel’s Flatiron store on Fifth Avenue. Photo courtesy of Herschel.
A Pause to Strategize
Herschel’s team used the pandemic downtime to plot for the future.
“It’s the first time we’ve had a pause at this brand,” Cormack said. “We’ve been growing every single year since 2009. Slowing down just allowed us to take a deep breath and re-look at the entire range.”
In addition, the company used the pause to create a retail growth strategy that focuses on opening clusters of stores, according to Cormack’s brother, Lyndon, the company’s other co-founder and managing director.
Called the “epicenter” plan, the expansion creates store clusters focused on high streets, malls, outlets, and real estate that caters to both tourists and local traffic. The hubs allow the company a certain scale that creates efficiencies when it comes to logistics and distribution, Lyndon told SES in March.
A store in Los Angeles is expected to come online in the summer ahead of the back-to-school selling season, with Lyndon adding that places such as Chicago, Atlanta, and Texas are also up for consideration.
Other work done for the business during the pandemic will continue to make its way into the marketplace as the year continues.
“I’m not one to look in the rearview mirror,” Jamie said reflecting on the work done during the pandemic, “and we didn’t know exactly whether COVID was going to be there, but I want to drive the business. I want to look through the windshield.”
Kari Hamanaka can be reached at kari@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com.
