When PYMNTS’ Karen Webster sat down with Alex Angelchik, the Newtimes Group CEO made a bold case for why American luxury needs a reset. His approach to relaunching Robert Talbott hints at a playbook far different from what today’s fashion incumbents expect.
Transcript
This is PYMNTS On Air, a PYMNTS Podcast. In-depth conversations, expert panels, and exclusive research brought to life by PYMNTS Intelligence. In this episode, Alex Angelchik, CEO of New times Brands and Managing Director of New times Group, joins PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster to share how heritage brands can modernize without losing their identity.
Karen Webster:75 years ago, Robert Talbot was born out of California craftsmanship. Hand-tailored shirts, silk ties, and a quiet kind of luxury that didn't need to shout. Fast forward to today, and the definition of luxury is being rewritten. Consumers are trading down, dupes are in. The line between aspiration and accessibility has never been more narrow. And yet here's this heritage brand opening a flagship on Madison Avenue, not pulling back, but instead leaning in. For this episode of The SKU, I'm sitting down with Alex Angelchik, CEO of New times Brand and managing director of New times Group, one of the largest sourcing and manufacturing organizations in the world. Alex has a front row seat to what it takes to modernize a legacy and make it matter in a market where everyone's rethinking what luxury even means, especially the consumer. Alex, welcome and congratulations on 75 years of Robert Talbot. We'll talk about that and many other things as part of our new SKU episode. Thanks for taking the time. So, Robert Talbot, for those who may be unfamiliar, is a retailer you acquired in 2021, relaunched in 2023. The question to start off the conversation today is why did you want to buy a retail brand? And what made it the right moment to put a new stake in the ground on Madison Avenue?
Alex Angelchik:Oh, good question. Um so we were just coming off of COVID, and um there was a lot of brands that were having trouble. There was a, you know, a great value proposition to buy the brand at that time. It had been um, I wouldn't say abandoned by its previous owners, but the bank took it back. So the IP was available. And um we went through a bidding process and we acquired it. I I just I grew up with the brand. I knew the brand. I'm I'm originally from Arizona. They had a you know a presence in a few, a few men's retailers in Phoenix when I was growing up. And um it's just it's an iconic menswear brand. And I thought I'm not gonna have a better opportunity to buy uh an American men's luxury brand um that was not damaged right by a succession of ownership. So um so I went ahead and I bought it and then um took took our time to figure out when was the right time to launch, what were the right products. Um, hired a merchandiser, I think a year, year, year and a half before we actually launched the brand in 23. And uh Nick, the merchandiser, worked with me to put together, you know, with our teams um the right type of products. I mean, I should say that that that I bought the brand in partnership with Newtimes, which is the company that I run in Hong Kong. And Newtimes is one of the world's biggest uh production houses. So we produce for most American wholesale and retail brands in one way or another. And um so from from a backing standpoint, we were you know quite prepared to develop the brand.
Karen Webster:But but why Madison Avenue? Why the storefront in New York?
Alex Angelchik:The storefront in New York that we selected was actually the storefront that they um gave up in 2018.
Karen Webster:Oh, really? Interesting.
Alex Angelchik:And it just happened to be available. And um Karma. Karma. And I'm uh I'm a superstitious person, I guess. I thought I thought it would be a good idea to be, you know, in the same location. Um they did, they had success there. We have the numbers, right, uh of what they did in that store. We wanted to launch the first store in New York because it's Madison Avenue, it's making a statement, it introduces, reintroduces the brand, which is quite different now than it was, you know, you know, five, six years ago. So that's why.
Karen Webster:But but what does it mean to modernize a brand like Robert Talbot? 75-year legacy in history. So a brand with equity, but yet to your point, you really needed to rethink the brand, rethink the merchandising, and rethink what it means to really deliver luxury in men's in men's clothing.
Alex Angelchik:Right. So, you know, Robert Talbot was founded on ties, right? Audrey Talbot was an artist. She, you know, she started with ties, and then they branched into men's shirting. Um, they they they branched into all kinds of ready-to-wear for men, luxury ready-to-wear. We wanted to have the same value relationship that Robert and Audrey, you know, built, which is American luxury at kind of an entry-to-luxury price point, entry to higher luxury, right? This brand is on the very high end of mid price and on the low end of high price. And that's where it's always, that's where it's always been. In fact, most of the pricing by category we kept almost almost the same as it was before. So then the challenge was how do we take um ties, which, you know, I have to admit, was not my first thought. I in in 21 and 22, we weren't really looking at ties because people weren't wearing them.
Karen Webster:We weren't wearing ties, no.
Alex Angelchik:But we did, we said, you know, what are we going to do with ties? We we connected with the manufacturer who'd produced um ties for Robert Talbot for 50 years. They had the old blocks, the patterns, they had everything. So that was, you know, an easy kind of slip into, you know, what they were doing in ties and just make sure our width right on our manufacturing was correct for that. The men's shirting was um incredibly oversized by the time they shut down. It was, it was kind of out of date. Um, it was, I think that customer had gotten older and bigger, and the shirts, you know, along with him, got older and bigger. And it is, it was just, it wasn't appropriate for today. So we we wanted to have shirts that you could wear outside that you could wear inside. We wanted to have um a very strong sports shirts presence as well as the dress shirts. And in a dress shirt, obviously you would wear the tie sports shirt, you could as well. But and so we we we were very careful and meticulous in choosing fabrics and silhouettes that would hopefully appeal to the old customers, but bring in a younger generation of customers. And that was about, and then adding those layering pieces, whether it's a t-shirt which I'm wearing today, or a sweater or um or suede jackets, we, you know, we were very careful to design everything for that guy, for example, who commutes in from Connecticut, who works in finance, or who's an attorney. Um, you know, he's a he's a 45 to 55-year-old guy. Um he's got, you know, he's got a body of a 45, 50-year-old guy like me, right? And um, and we wanted to make clothing that look good on him.
Karen Webster:Right. Yeah, because that is that is the trick, right? Especially when you're talking about menswear, you want to be in style and fashion, but you you need to look you need to look like you're in style and in fashion as opposed to trying to fit into something that isn't appropriate.
Alex Angelchik:Right. There's there's for me, right? I'm 60. And when I, you know, put on something and I look in the mirror, I'm I'm rarely pleased, okay, because of my age. But, you know, I have like a normal six-year-old body, and I don't want anything that's too slinky. I don't want, I don't want to show my uh my roles, right? So we definitely design clothing that avoided that, you know, the fabrics are a little more um forgiving. Forgiving, I would say, yeah. Forgive. That's a good word. Forgiving and without being too oversized, right? Because that's that was the problem before. Right, right. They just kind of put a tent over it before, and that's not and that's not appropriate either. So everything, everything kind of has the right shape for this guy. And um, I wouldn't say it's we have a contemporary shape. I don't think that's the right word. I think it's a classic, classic American um look that's that's fitted appropriately. And it's somewhere between where Robert Talbot was and where the Italian brands are, right? Yeah, somewhere in between, not too tight, not too loose, is what we were aiming for.
Karen Webster:What defines American luxury today from your perspective? And then how does that fit into the broader perspective? Because there is a debate now about what is luxury and who is that luxury consumer?
Alex Angelchik:There's very few American luxury brands in menswear today. True luxury. I would say like a Ralph Lauren purple label would be true American luxury. And what that means means and meant to us was um styled for an American consumer, right? Not um not it's not an American luxury brand differs from, let's say, an Italian or French luxury brand by the shape of the garments, by the um the hand feel of the garments, American luxury garments.
Karen Webster:By the price of the garment.
Alex Angelchik:In most cases, yes. In some cases, no. I mean, there um we have an American consumer that has gotten used to spending a lot on European luxury. And it's not the the white spaces it's not quite right for him, right? Like, you know, for me, I don't want to live in a world of gray and beige, for example, right? An American guy likes color. He's um, you know, we tend to be migratory. So we've lived in California, we've lived in New York, this luxury guy, we've lived in Florida, right? And so he's used to seeing color and wearing color. And we grew up in America, I think, with quite a bit of color, right? Our team uniforms, our and so we have a specific eye for it. But the Italian brands are much more subtle, they're much more quiet. It is a sea of Bayesian gray, right? Which has its place, right? Nothing wrong with it. But what we saw was an opening for that American guy who does want to have color. Robert Talbot was always about color, right? It was developed by the artist, Audrey. And that whether you're talking about shirts or sweaters or ties, there was it was a it was a statement about color. And so without going overboard, we've reintroduced that.
Karen Webster:What what makes real luxury worth paying for for your consumer, especially the younger generation, that you're trying to attract with the brand, with the reinvention of the brand, yeah, who is looking at Italian menswear luxury and can get it, you know, on the real real or these other, you know, reclaim sites at a different price point. I mean, how do you how do you think about the value of the price? Yeah.
Alex Angelchik:Yeah. Good question. And I think that's the question a lot of people in the United States in particular are asking themselves today. Luxury has gotten so outrageously expensive. The blazer that I could buy from you know a top luxury, Italian luxury brand um five years ago perhaps was $3,000, and today it's $7,000. And so to me, it makes no no economic sense whatsoever, right? Well the product that that the Italians or the French luxury brands and that we're producing as well, you know, have quite expensive raw materials and trims, right? Now, should that should that blazer be $7,000? Absolutely not, right? But their formula is to sell a few and to make as much money as possible on those, on those lower volumes. Um, we're priced at the at the entry to luxury. So that blazer in our portfolio is somewhere between $900 and $1,300, $1,400. So it's uh it's, I think, quite affordable when you when you look at luxury. And we're using the same luxury fabrics that they are. We buy our fabrics in Italy, um, with the exception of our Made in America, which is actually the fabrics made here in the in the US, the buttons are made in the US is fantastic fabric too. But it's rare to find that type of fabric in the States. So I would say to answer your question, make a long answer longer, the the fabrics and the trims and the the needle, the turned armhole on the jacket or the shirt, right? And one last thing, like when I um when I look at men's shirting, right? You have a Zenia and uh Brunello Cuccinelli, you know, that are selling men's shirts for anywhere from six to eight hundred dollars, right? I I I was online yesterday, I saw a shirt that was a thousand dollars, just a men's dress shirt, okay? And so, you know, we offer that men's dress shirt in in the same fabrics with a turned armhole, which is very sartorial. It gives you a lot of movement in your shoulders without having to wear slinky stretch fabric for under $300, right? $295. So I do think we're we're from a luxury perspective giving a lot of value.
Karen Webster:How do you get people to recognize that? Because sometimes people say, well, it must be really good because it's $7,000. And is something that I can buy for $1,300 really as good?
Alex Angelchik:Yeah, that's that's a good point. So, so, you know, there there has to be a story, there has to be romance around it. We hired the store manager um in New York, and during the interview, he said to me, um, what makes your clothing special? And I started talking about the you know, Robert and Audrey's story and you know, and the turned armhole and and the fabric. And he said, he said, I need romance. I can't get the guy to walk in the store without a really romantic story that I can, you know. And so, you know, the turned armhole and the fabric are great. The history of the brand and the brand recognition, which which I think is quite good in the United States, hopefully will get that guy into the store, you know, at the very least to look at ties and hopefully to see our shirts and our blazers. Um, it's an education process, right? And I I have a my feeling is that European men are educated by their fathers in a very different way when it comes to fabrics and the value of owning fewer pieces, but you know, the best piece. And so, and I think that that goes for for food and furniture and clothing, right? And my father, my father was French. So I I kind of had a hybrid um experience with him. But uh it's an education process. You've got to get them to wear the garment and understand how great it is. Yeah. And and by the way, I'm not saying that our $1,300 blazer is identical to, you know, uh uh uh Brunello Cuccinelli's $7,000 blazer. I I can say that it holds its own and the fabric could be identical or or you know within the same ballpark. Yeah.
Karen Webster:You have to get people to go into the store based on the story and then feel comfortable wearing the brand with the brand, with with with the brand, with the brand label. And you know, there is this backlash as you alluded to with you know, things are so expensive, and why really is it that expensive? Um so I do think, and you're seeing that in the numbers. I mean, you know, the the luxury industry is not exactly um thriving at the moment. No, um but but but you you have a also a broader perspective because you your business is about production and sourcing. And I'm curious what's going on now with with with sourcing and production given the dynamic global trade environment with tariffs, um, and and how that is influencing how retailers are thinking about what they want to make to put into their stores and how they're buying right now.
Alex Angelchik:So you know, when the tariffs were announced in April, we had um so many cancellations and um takedowns of orders for the second half of the year because retailers were just freaked out about they they didn't know how the market would react and what they would have to upcharge to sell these garments. The garments were also designed in the normal process, right? Um meaning they were designed for a certain price point. So it you know, is that $59 gene going to be worth $69 or $79? Um, and so uh they needed a moment, I think, to to think that through. And and what they have found, as we have found, and you know, and you know, we own uh women's wear brands like Coldwater Creek and Soft Surroundings, and Ashworth Golf is a menswear brand. And what we have seen in our portfolio, and I think mirrors what they've seen, is that um for the most part novelty holds its own with a slightly higher price, let's say a 10% increase in price. Core doesn't always hold its own, meaning the core t-shirts, the core, you know, the opening price point jeans. And so they they the first step for our retail partners, I think, was to um reprice the novelty that was coming in and take a good look at core, but keep core more or less try to make the the margin up in novelty, and and which is what we did as well. And then relook at core to see what kind of value we could give that consumer in a core. Do we move from cardiac to comb cotton or to pima cotton, right? It we also needed time to figure out the new sourcing matrix for the brands. So if we had product in China, could we move it to Vietnam? Could we move it to Cambodia? Many people move product to India and were very shocked that India ended up with a 50% tariff, right? So that may amount to a double move. Every time you move product, you have to redevelop it, you have new patterns, you have to get trims there. So it's been a very laborious process for us as agents and us as brand owners to keep up with what's happened in in the tariff world. And then you have lead times, right, that you have to account for. So I would say that, you know, on so many levels, this has shaken up the market a little bit because you've had to reevaluate fabrics and trims, where you're manufacturing the lead times, and then the whole, you know, pricing structure of your of your brand.
Karen Webster:You know, as a as a consumer, it it's tedious to shop now because everything is the same. It's you know, it's the same cardigan represented by different brands. You know, it's uh it's really very it's a sea of sameness. And I think um, I think that's that's a lot to do with you know your point about the core. People are buying sweaters, they're buying t-shirts, they're buying jeans, and it really just, you know, who's your favorite retailer and what's your favorite brand, and is that what you that's is that what you end up sticking with? Um, but I think scarcity is also something that I've seen. It's if you know, there's only a couple of things in any particular size, because I think retailers are managing inventory in a different way now, too.
Alex Angelchik:Very much so, right. Right. So so what you're saying is exactly correct. There there is a bit of scarcity, and and because they lowered their order quantities, because they weren't sure about the economy, and in some cases they couldn't get back into the goods that were selling well, um, they were, you know, everyone is being very, very careful with inventory. And we went through a period during COVID where everyone had too much inventory. COVID hit, everyone got out of goods, then bought way too much in 21 and 22, ended up with way too much inventory in 23, finally figured it out in 24, and now we're in the middle of this tariff thing. So it's been it's been complicated.
Karen Webster:Roller coaster. What does owning a retail brand um tell you about the broader retail industry and your sourcing and manufacturing business? I mean, you're you're obviously operating, you own brands, but it seems like Robert Talbert, you're really taking more of a of an ownership mantle and really involved in the product, the merchandising, the sales strategy, and and all and and distribution. What are you learning from that?
Alex Angelchik:I'm I'm learning that um my previous thought that it was much easier to be on this side of the business than to be in production was wrong. Yeah, that's my my overarching general statement. It's really complicated, right?
Karen Webster:And you're and you and you have both, I mean you can you have both sides, you control both sides.
Alex Angelchik:I have there's very few companies that are better at um fabric and clothing development and production and quality and logistics than us. So we've really mastered that. We've been in that business for 65 years. And um I we just you know, my my initial thought was I I have designers, I have fabric, I have um money, the resources to do this. And so what what I don't have is a brand. And then at the same time, there were so many brands that couldn't pay their bills, which is, by the way, still going on today. There's kind of a credit crunch, you know, in the in the apparel industry. It's not a very sexy industry for private equity and banks to invest in right now. And so I had an opportunity to kind of jump over and buy a few brands. And um it's it's the the rewards are are far greater than in manufacturing because the margins are greater, but the risks are much greater, right? Inventory is a huge issue and risk for us. It takes a tremendous amount of capital to fund a brand. Finding people in the US that are passionate about product and and understand how to restart a brand has been complicated. I've been very fortunate with the team that that that I've assembled. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people, and our company knows a lot of people, and we have a good reputation. Um and and the fact that we're a debt-free company, right? I'm not borrowing money to start these brands or to run them makes a huge difference. So I don't spend my time begging, begging for resources, right? We can make good decisions, which a lot of people don't have that luxury. I I I've learned a lot, you know, surprisingly. It's been very exciting for me to see this side of the business and retail, actually owning a store. This is our first store we've ever owned, right? Um, I I went into it with open eyes. I didn't think that was going to be easy. Um so far, so good with that. And I think being able to communicate directly with the consumer gives us so much, so much information.
Karen Webster:Yeah, based on what you know, and and we'll wrap in just another minute. But what do heritage brands get wrong when they try to modernize? Because we've seen this movie before. And and often it doesn't end well.
Alex Angelchik:Yeah, it doesn't end well. I I it's really hard trying to make your old customers happy and trying to bring them along in that journey. You you do have to um understand that you're gonna lose half your half your old following um and and hopefully pick up pick up new followers. I think a lot of brands a lot of brands don't follow the ethos of the original brand. There was something special about our brand, right? The way that they valued craftsmanship, the way that they were slow to introduce new styles or fabrics, the customer service that they provided their wholesale partners in particular, and not to mention their their retail customers, but their wholesale partners, you know, the the way they lived for this brand is, I think, hard to replicate today because it's a different world. It's not 1960, you know, it's very complicated for us. But I think that trying to not just modernize the the apparel within a reasonable space, you know, not getting, we're not a contemporary brand, right? We're still an American menswear brand. But living by the standards and the and and the ethics that our our founders established, I think is very important for us. And and by the way, those ethics were were so attracted to me and to our company because we we live by those at our at our parent company as well.
Karen Webster:And what and what are they?
Alex Angelchik:First of all, you take care of your people. Number one. You take care of your customers. Mission impossible. What they what they ask for, you try to you try to do. And mission impossible is actually written on one of our walls in our in our headquarters office. Get it done. Move fast and move smart. Right? Don't hire people. Don't hire people who are supposed to know about sweaters that are gene specialists, right? Hire the right person for the right job. Right? Provide the best value you can for what you're charging. Don't be greedy. Right? Big, big part of our business, especially in production. We are always counseling our factory partners. Don't be greedy. It's a long-term relationship. It's a long-term relationship with our consumers at Robert Talbot. We don't want to be greedy. We want to pass on the value to them.
Karen Webster:Is that your advice to retailers today?
Alex Angelchik:It would be my advice if they if they had asked me.
Karen Webster:Well, maybe they will.
Alex Angelchik:No one asked the production guy what to do, right? They just asked me about costing. But yeah, and and I have to say, most of our customers that are very successful live by just what I said, right? They're very careful to offer the right value relationship to their customers. Yeah.
Karen Webster:Alex, what a what a great conversation. Thanks so much for your time. Best of luck with Robert Talbot, and we look forward to uh to tracking the success as um as it's nice to see men getting dressed up again.
Alex Angelchik:It is.
Karen Webster:Isn't it good? I think it's nice.
Alex Angelchik:And they have so much more freedom now than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Men can wear so many more things. Um I think it's great what's happening. I agree with you.
Karen Webster:It was great, great, great to chat. Thanks again for your time. Goodbye now.
Narrator:That's it for this episode of the PYMNTS Podcast: The Thinking Behind the Doing. Conversations with the leaders transforming payments, commerce, and the digital economy. Be sure to follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also catch every episode at payments.com/podcasts. Thanks for listening.