The Reformation’s Best Kept Secrets
This is @breez_lance (pictured left). Her real name isn’t all that important to the story (sorry, Brianna) but her impeccable cool girl aura is. In fact, it’s downright addicting. She loves cats, fur coats that make her look like a Muppet, 60’s French aesthetics, Adidas tracksuits, and her “wife;” @fingermonkey (a French-born-sometimes-Victoria’s-Secret-Model — name also not important to the story). Oh and her resume? She sings and plays guitar in an all girl band called “Bad Girlfriend,” she is Creative Director and Design Curator at The Mirror Cube, Editor at So It Goes magazine, and most importantly to this story, she has been the Creative-At-Large for the clothing, nay, lifestyle brand, Reformation, for 6 years now.
So, what’s so important about that last detail? It’s the reason why I know all these otherwise creepy things about a person whom I’ve never met. The Reformation does an incredible job connecting their consumers to their brand, always staying top of mind, without blasting sales messages in their faces on a regular basis. You see, the Reformation knows EXACTLY who their consumer is, both ideal and wistful. She’s the girl next door, if the door next door is home to a Brooklyn brownstone. She’s read all of Salinger. She looks to Jane Birkin, Francoise Hardy, and Charlotte Rampling for style advice. She dresses like a liberal arts student in the 1960’s because she understands the cultural implications of this choice; intelligent, artistic, rule-breaking, confident. It’s because of this serious approach to dressing that she needs a brand that is willing to be just as serious… in a way that looks effortless and chic. Duh.
This is why the Reformation is so smart about their marketing. It’s not marketing. It’s a consumer experience. They know that their consumers like to know secrets. Secrets that the girl next to her on the Brooklyn Bound F train doesn’t know, or has never yearned to uncover. They have purposefully (or not; maybe I’m insane) introduced employees of their company thru their Instagram over it’s lifetime and those that were intrigued enough by the details, “followed” them (this is 2015 — do I really need to put ‘followed’ in quotation marks anymore?). Instantly we are taken on a personal tour of their brand thru their employees. We go on brunch dates with them, we know what music they listen to, what restaurants are the coolest (Jack’s Wife Freda, anyone?), but most importantly; we know what they are wearing. Every. Single. Day. And we love it. And every now and then a piece comes along that’s so incredible, so perfect, so everything you stand for as an aesthetic freakazoid, that you just know it must be Reformation. They are showing you what’s next, in the hippest, secretest, most obsessively clever way — except we all know. Because after all, we’re #refbabes.
The Reformation found it’s place in the fashion world by creating sustainable fashion. All of their fabrics are deadstock vintage, eliminating all kinds of waste while saving all kinds of water, along with a whole bunch of other great environmentally friendly things. They have built their brand on the premise that their consumer cares how their products are made. So may I ask you; what could be smarter than positioning the very makers of their clothing as their main brand advocates, their models, their marketers, etc. in addition to their jobs held at the company? This maintains a consistent fascination with how their products are being brought to life, never letting us forget the socially responsible manner in which they are crafted. Mix their do-gooder efforts with impeccible design, and you’ve got a recipie for Cindy Crawford sharing your brand’s sweatshirts on Instagram. And that my friends, is smart social media.
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at NC State Poole College of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
