Interviewing Benetton's new Creative Director, You Nguyen

As I told you a few days ago I was invited by the Benetton Group to Milan to meet the brand's new Chief Merchandising Executive and Creative Director, You Nguyen and Alessandro Benetton himself.  You can see more about You Nguyen's career here but let me just tell you that one of the previous positions that he held, was Levi's Global Senior Vice President of Merchandising and Design and that he was actually the one who strategized and launched Levi's Curve ID globally. 

My personal impression is that he is a very smart man and I absolutely loved his style (how cool are his orange pants?!). Anyway, I gathered some of the most interesting quotes from our 30 min. talk so that you can judge for yourselves. So here we go!

On Benetton: Benetton is and will always be about the classics

There are companies that should be known for Fashion. Like H&M and Zara. I don’t go to Benetton for that, I go to Benetton because I will find the most beautiful colours. I will go to Benetton because I know that I’ll buy a sweater it will last me more than one season or two wash. That’s what we should be. 

On quality: It starts with the yarn. What kind of yarn do we use, the staple that we use. We tend to use  very long staple yarn, because the shorter the staple the more fragile, it breaks up easily.

So It starts with the material, what yarn or fabric and then second how do you put the yarn together, how do you construct the garment.

On Art and Architecture: I go back to what was and still is Luciano and the family’s passion. If you come to the Veneto area, if you come to where we work, their passion is into art and architecture. He (Luciano) gave to Tobia Scarpa, when Tobia Scarpa was not a very well known architect a major project because he believed in art, he believed in architecture. Fabrica was designed by Tadao Ando. So if that’s their passion how can I approach building garments like I would build a building?

  

I worked with Issey Miyake and at that point he said to me (although I was way to young to understand what the heck he was talking about) "the clothe is important on the outside but the essential element of clothes is the space between the body and the clothe. That’s what when women move or men move that makes it interesting" that’s architecture. 

A house protects a human being , clothes also protect a human being.

On Italian Style: Benetton is an Italian brand so we need to be able to express our italieness. 

My muse is people who live in Italy. There’s no age and no economic class, it’s how they engage with clothes. 

Italian style is taking very classical elements of the wardrobe but wear them with such individuality that you go “wow!”, the play of colours. So when you say do I have a consumer in mind, I have a muse that I want the brand to focus on and I have a consumer that could be 18 could be 50 could be 65 but they love quality, they love classic elements that allow them to express themselves. That’s what I’m hoping to get. (While saying that he took his iPad and showed us amongst others this pic by the Sartorialist so that we could understand what he meant by wearing classics in one's personal way)

On the Benetton Stores: I don’t believe in the one- store concept. The essence has to be the same but the concept has to be kind of part of the community that exists in. Pick Paris: A store in Champs-Élysées has to be different than a store in Le Marais. That’s what I would hope for our store to become: part of the community in which it exists. 

On e-Commerce: With the advance of digital people keep talking stores versus digital. I personally don’t believe it’s an either / or. I think they work together and they complement each other. I’ve seen so many researches where consumers go on the net to do research and then they may choose to buy online or they may go to the store. To me it’s a complementary relationship. And our store can be that. I also want our store to become a platform for young artists, to say something. What prevents me from giving a window for a certain period of time to a young student from a design school and say here’s my collection, here’s my brand, this is the frame work, have fun! Can we do that in 6,300 stores? No, this would be uncontrollable; but if you look at the key mega cities in the world, you could do that. 

On Big Cities: People talk a lot about global. Actually I don’t believe in Global, I believe in big Metropolitans. The cities become more important than the countries

On Bloggers: The thing is it’s always editor versus blogger, it’s really not. It’s different medium but the content is the same. I think that what bloggers have accelerated though is the conversation and the involvement of consumers into the brand. No longer can I have a kitchen and a big door that sais you cannot enter here because this is Benetton kitchen. I think what blogging and digital has forced the door to be open so now I have to have the courage to open my kitchen for people to come in and work with me and having the courage to have a conversation. Now if someone sais something about you in a blog you have to have the courage to say something back like“I appreciate your point of view, would you like to share with me why you like it or why you don’t like it”. 

The days that I’d say "I’m the brand come see my collection, I’m great" are over. If you go on your blog and say "I saw a great sweater at Benetton" I tend to believe you more than I believe the brand. Is there danger in this? Of course! But it has always been there. Your collection cannot be appreciated by everyone, nor should it. When you try to attract everyone you become nothing.

On Celebrities: Celebrities sometimes act like a shortcut. Angelina Jolie is an amazing woman. I mean she’s beautiful, she managed to have a family, she managed to have a career.  So let’s say she happened to be wearing a Benetton sweater and she gets caught wearing it. Is that going to make me want to check Benetton?  Absolutely! Where I’m a little nervous and cautious is when a brand goes to a celebrity and say I will pay you to be wearing my clothes. I would be crazy to think that it doesn’t happen or it doesn’t work. It does work. But in the end I think that the consumer gets more savvy in the end. 

That happens to some of the most influential blogs. At the beginning they endorsed on their own. Then, when the blogger becomes so powerful that certain brands connect with them and they become spokespersons for the brand, in the end  I think it hurts the credibility of the blogger. So I think that the relationship with celebrities is a dangerous one. The second thing is how do you define celebrities: if the people that I admire from this brand are artists and architects, if Jean Nouvel happened to like what I do, that to me is really powerful. If a musician, if a designer – OMG if Damien Hirst wore a sweater by Benetton, that to me would be fabulous endorsement!