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| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Apparel & Textile Products |
| Founded | September 3, 1982 |
| Founders | Kenneth Cole (designer) |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people |
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| Website | www |
Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. is an American fashion house that was founded in 1982 by Kenneth Cole.
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Kenneth Cole - "The Birth of a Shoe Company"
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Kenneth Cole Men's Automatic Watch (KC9342)
Transcription
1982 is when I started my company and there was a that time a downturn in the economy and I had just a little bit of money and I knew I needed to move quickly because then not much different than today most companies -60 to 70 percent- don't survive the first 12 months of business because they invariably underestimate the time it takes the resources that it takes to survive and the cost that it takes to survive that amount of expenses and the time it takes to do it. So I knew I needed to move quickly and so I named and I had to go to Italy to manufacture product because I knew I had a far better chance of getting credit from Italian factories that needed business than from American banks that didn't. So I named the company after myself because I needed to have a name, and you can usually get your own name registered more quickly and I couldn't take the chance that I'd go down all the steps for it and that I wouldn't clear all the trademark regulatory requirements. So I named the company Kenneth Cole, incorporated it, made business cards made stationary, went to Italy connected with certain factories made the product came back had to sell it. And I knew at the time there were two ways that people did that. They either took a room at the Hilton Hotel which was what most did but that was very expensive and one would be amongst eleven hundred other companies at the time and invariably buyers would walk 30 floors and there are 30 some odd companies per floor and they would pretty much see similar product in every room very hard to distinguish oneself and not at a small cost and the other alternative is to take a big fancy showroom within a 2 block radius of the Hilton Hotel which I clearly neither had the money or the time to make that happen so on a whim I called talk to a friend of mine he was in the trucking business, I said if I could figure out how to park one of your 40-foot trailers on the corner of 6th avenue and 56th street during market week next week, would you lend it to me? He said sure, jerk this new York, you can't park a bicycle fifteen minutes let alone a truck on the corner of 6th avenue and 56th street but if you could figure it out I'll not only lend it to you I'll help you decorate it. So I called the mayor's office, it was mayor Koch at the time and I said, "Excuse me Mr. Mayor, how does one get permission to park a 40 foot trailer on the corner of 6th avenue and 56th street?" they answered, "Sir we don't, this is New York, we give permission only under two circumstances A) if you are a utility company servicing our streets, AT&T ConEd or if you're a production company because we're going through an I Love New York Campaign in the early 80s." and hung up the phone, thank you Mr. Mayor, it wasn't actually the mayor. and that afternoon I went to a stationary store and changed the letterhead from Kenneth Cole Inc. to Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. okay and the following morning I filed for a permit to shoot a full length motion picture called The Birth of a Shoe Company and our models, our aspiring models becomes the actresses they aspired to be we hired a director sometimes there was film in his camera, sometimes there wasn't and we put up stanchions and we had two New York City policemen compliments of Mayor Koch and we sold forty thousand pairs of shoes in two and a half days we made every body wait by the way that came because that was in the spirit of building demand and and the company the company to this day is still called Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. and hadn't told that story in a little while but we continue to remind ourselves that invariably the best solutions are usually not the most expensive, but the most creative and and the company seems to have been performing various productions since. The company started in a recession and we were clearly refreshing a creative alternative at the time to others and the results spoke for themselves - more doors opened more feet got in those doors than we had shoes to put on them.
History and operations
Cole originally named the company Kenneth Cole Incorporated in September 1982[1] and planned to showcase his new line of shoes during market week at the Hilton New York Hotel. Finding that he could not afford to purchase a hotel room or showroom to exhibit his line, he borrowed a truck and asked the mayor’s office for permission to park two blocks away from the Hilton Hotel in front of a fancy shoe building. Upon learning that permits were only granted to utility companies and production companies shooting full-length motion pictures, Cole changed the name of the company to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. and applied for a permit to shoot a full-length motion picture entitled “The Birth of a Shoe Company”.[citation needed]
With Kenneth Cole Productions painted on the side of the truck, they opened for business on December 2, 1982, in front of 1370 Avenue of the Americas. They had a fully furnished forty-foot trailer, klieg lights, a director, a rolling camera, models as actresses, and two NYPD policemen as doormen. A velvet rope allowed a limited number of people into the trailers and in two and a half days they sold forty thousand pairs of shoes. The company remains Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. to this day to honor this unusual beginning.[2]
In 1984, Kenneth Cole opened his first store on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan,[3] followed shortly thereafter by another store on Union Street in San Francisco. Kenneth Cole retail and Company Stores can now be found worldwide in countries such as Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Morocco, South Africa and India.
In 2013, Elana Drell Szyfer was named executive vice president of global brand strategy for Kenneth Cole Productions and, before this, she was CEO of Ahava Corp.[4]
Kenneth Cole Productions announced in November 2016 that it would be closing all of its outlet stores within six months to focus on e-commerce and other lines of revenue outside of operating physical stores. Two full-priced stores would remain open in New York and Virginia.[5] In January 2017 Kenneth Cole Productions closed the balance of their outlet stores to pursue its e-commerce business.
In September 2021, Kenneth Cole announced a partnership with Nogin to re-platform their e-commerce business, which would help decrease costs and add AI-generated technology to its website.[6] However, in December 2023, Nogin eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, blaming deals on some of its retail partners that required Nogin to purchase their inventory.[7]
Advertising
Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. is well known for its socially conscious and often controversial advertising. Campaigns often incorporate topical issues, such as addressing Imelda Marcos's shoe fetish in 1986 with the line, “Imelda Marcos bought 2,700 pairs of shoes. She could've at least had the courtesy to buy a pair of ours.” In 1994, the company ran its first partisan political ad for that year's New York state gubernatorial race featuring George Pataki and Mario Cuomo, Cole's father-in-law. The ad was an image of a muddy boot with the words: “Next time you hear George Pataki speak, might we suggest the appropriate footwear.” Pataki did end up becoming governor and Cole received some backlash for his decision to run the ad.
Not all of their ads are as overtly political, but most have a humorous tint to them, often incorporating word plays or puns. Some of his better-known lines include: “What you stand for is more important than what you stand in,” “Are you putting us on?” and “Today is not a dress rehearsal.” Popular topics in his advertising include HIV/AIDS, homelessness, gun control, abortion, the environment and same-sex marriage.
The current advertising campaign uses the tagline “We need more than a surface mentality. The writing is on the wall.”
Charity and social causes
Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. is active in charities and often uses advertising, publicity and other corporate initiatives to support charitable causes. He is a longtime board member and current Chairman of the Board for The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). His involvement with amfAR began in 1985 when he organized a public service campaign that was photographed by Annie Leibovitz and featuring high-profile models such as Christie Brinkley, Paulina Porizkova and Andie MacDowell. The tagline was, “For the future of our children. Support the American Foundation for AIDS Research. We do.” At the time, AIDS was still a relatively unknown and misunderstood disease. Cole managed to procure nearly 3 million dollars worth of donated exposure and press. In 1987, he was invited to join amfAR’s board.
In 2005, Cole spearheaded the “We All Have AIDS” awareness campaign with advertisements photographed by Mark Seliger and featuring Nelson Mandela, Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Elton John, Sharon Stone, Richard Gere, Elizabeth Taylor, Alicia Keys, Desmond Tutu, Natasha Richardson, Eric McCormack, Ashley Judd, Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Belafonte, Greg Louganis and Rosie O'Donnell as spokespeople. He also has annual World AIDS Day promotions in his retail stores.
In August 2006, it was announced that Kenneth Cole Productions would stop selling fur in all of their garments for the Fall 2007 Fashion Season.[8]
Cole is also active with HELP USA (his wife Maria Cuomo Cole is currently Chair of the Board), a non-profit organization that is the nation’s largest provider of housing, jobs and services for the homeless. He partnered with rock star Jon Bon Jovi to create a line of jackets, T-shirts and fragrance under the Kenneth Cole New York label. The proceeds from the sale of these items supported HELP USA.
Other charity campaigns include establishing relief funds for victims of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina through the sale of T-shirts, giving discounts at his retail stores for donating shoes or clothes to the homeless and hosting numerous charity shopping nights at retail stores throughout the nation.[9]
Criticism
Kenneth Cole Productions has occasionally experienced difficulty adequately staffing its stores in order to properly rotate employees through mandatory rest and meal breaks. For example, on April 16, 2007, the Supreme Court of California unanimously affirmed a trial court judgment requiring the company to pay an additional hour of pay for each day that a store manager had been forced to work a nine-hour shift without a break.[10]
References
- ^ "Kenneth Cole Productions Inc.: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
- ^ Cole, Kenneth. "The Birth of a Shoe Company." Kennethcole.com (accessed November 18, 2008).
- ^ Cole, Kenneth (2003). Footnotes: What You Stand for is More Important Than what You Stand in. Simon and Schuster. p. 44. ISBN 9780743241779.
Kenneth Cole opened its first store in Columbus Avenue Manhattan.
- ^ Lockwood, Lisa (December 2, 2013). "Kenneth Cole Productions Taps Elana Drell Szyfer". WWD. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ "Kenneth Cole to Shutter Almost All Stores". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
- ^ "Kenneth Cole Re-Platforms to Nogin Intelligent Commerce". Nogin. September 29, 2021. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
- ^ "Ex-SPAC Nogin Goes Bankrupt, Plans Sale to B. Riley Unit". Bloomberg. December 6, 2023. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
- ^ (2006)"Kenneth Cole Gives the Boot to Cruelty, Pledges to Go Fur-Free" Archived January 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine August 18, 2006. Accessed online March 26, 2008
- ^ Kenneth Cole Charity. "Kenneth Cole Awearness." Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Kennethcole.com (accessed August 20, 2007).
- ^ Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. 40 Cal. 4th 1094 (2007).
External links
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This page was last edited on 6 December 2023, at 23:13