Angela Taylor George’s Post

Holy Wholesale! Around five years ago, if you had told me that wholesale would be experiencing a resurgence, I would not have believed you. As someone who has been involved in practically every aspect of the fashion commerce wheel, from the shop floor to the high-level corner office of my own brand, I witnessed the decline of brick-and-mortar retailers and the subsequent slow death of wholesale. Welcome to 2024, and wholesale is on the rise and omni-channel is back in our vocabulary and buzzing. Hooray! But wait, the vast majority of native DTC brands are stuck like deer in headlights. When all you had to do was get a product somehow, pop open a Shopify site or hop onto Amazon, crank up the ad spend, and off you went to DTC bliss. That was until Apple changed its privacy policies for users in 2021. You’ve seen the pop-up on your phone: “Ask app not to track.” Good for you, but bad for brands using paid performance marketing to acquire customers. If you put a dollar in the slot and got four back, amazing. Today, that’s no longer a given for most brands, and it’s costing more and more to acquire a customer. In my trails, I’ve listened to brands on podcasts saying they’ve done the math, and between all the CAC for online sales compared with selling wholesale, the math shakes out to be almost the same profit margins. I, for one, am happy. I did not relish witnessing the death of physical retail. I started my career journey at the store level in the eighties, worked my way up the ranks to retail buyer, and then on to founding a wholesale showroom representing brands in ‘89 named Times Two. We launched the hottest '90s trends that are back now, like baby tees and grungy floral dresses coined the California look back then. In 1997, I founded my brand, Alice & Trixie, B2B, and started a supplemental DTC business around 2015. I write all about this and more in my book "Haute Pursuit," available on Amazon. I believe that today’s brands need to integrate wholesale B2B into their distribution strategy for optimal growth. Customers want to see and feel the product in real life and you can reach them where they are physically. It kind of puts you in the driver seat not having to hope and pray that your creative is compelling enough and can pierce through all the noise online. And let’s not forget having to contend with the algorithm gods. It’s more competitive than ever to stand out in a chaotic and crowded marketplace. On the flip side, shopping in stores has always excited me: seeing how products are merchandised, all the different silhouettes, fabrics, and colors—candy for the eyes. That experience is sorely missed in the virtual world of online shopping. So yes, I am happy with the way things are moving. #entrepreneurship #dtc #wholesale #brands

What Steve Jobs wants you to know. (Part 2 of 3) Excerpt from the biography by Walter Isaacson. My all-time favorite business book. Steve's own words here... "I hate it when people call themselves entrepreneurs, when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public so they can cash in and move on. They're unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That's how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now. That's what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last not just to make money. That's what I want Apple to be...." #business #entrepreneur #brand

What Steve Jobs wants you to know. I've literally read more than 100 books in the last four years on business and entrepreneurship. These books covered topics from branding to storytelling & messaging, product positioning, starting up lean, game-changing categories, content marketing & superfans, creativity, and starting with why. With all that said, the best book I read that encapsulated all these concepts and more was my favorite: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. This book is beautifully written. Herewith, I present to you the end of the book, in which Steve tells in his own words what he hoped his legacy would be. (only partial due to character limits. I'll follow up with more in subsequent posts) It's a cliffhanger. :) "My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit because that was what allowed you to make great products, but the products not the profits were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything. The people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings. Some people say give the customers what they want, but that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse. People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page. Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I liked that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact, some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the 70s, computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. People pay us to integrate things for them because they don't have the time to think about this stuff 24/7. If you have an extreme passion for producing great products, it pushes you to be integrated to connect your hardware and your software and content management. You want to break new ground, so you have to do it yourself. If you want to allow your products to be open to other hardware or software, you have to give up some of your vision...."

Hard facts. An era of explosive top line growth with little to no profits for DTC brands is behind us. This article drives home the harsh facts about selling your company’s soul to venture capital. Conversely, often times slow and steady wins the race.

So excited to share my recent interview on the Madison Savile Podcast with Diana Nguyen! She asked amazing questions that got me to dig deep and share my well-worn insights. Enjoy! #behindthescenes #FashionIcons #FashionTrends #EntrepreneurLife #FashionEntrepreneur #FashionDesign #FashionPodcast #FashionIndustryInsights #BrandBuilding #IndustryTrends #FashionBusiness #FashionEvolution #StyleInfluencer #FashionAuthor #FashionCareerTips #fashionworld

I’m reading a little excerpt from my book Haute Pursuit: A True Tale of Fashion, Fortune & Fierce Ambition in New York City.

Behind the scenes of the why behind my new book, Haute Pursuit! Coming to you live from NYC! 💕😎

Outtake from this morning where I was a guest on a podcast called Tailoring Talk with Roberto Revilla! The episode will drop on Tuesday, August 29th. Roberto was a delight and I’m excited for you to hear the rest of the podcast. 😊

A little bit of behind the scenes of the writing of Haute Pursuit: A True Tale of Fashion, Fortune & Fierce Ambition in New York City!