Esprit CEO William Pak details the ambitious relaunch of the nostalgic apparel brand, focusing on shedding its fast-fashion past and re-establishing itself as a high-quality, design-led label. The episode covers the strategic restructuring, the move to New York City as a global creative hub, and the plan to leverage 80s and 90s nostalgia while appealing to new generations through refreshed product assortments and experiential retail openings.
Esprit was once a luxury California apparel brand, but it has had a rough couple of decades. In its heyday in the '80s and '90s, it was known for its high-end clothing like sweatshirts. But most of its U.S. business dried up in the 2000s, and the company's German and Hong Kong business began to lose their luster with shoppers. As part of a major restructuring beginning in 2021, William Pak became CEO. Earlier this year, the company posted its first profit since 2017. And now Esprit has big plans to relaunch in the U.S. Pak joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about his plans for the brand refresh. "What happened was prior teams or management have kind of changed Esprit from a bold, creative, high-quality product into what was prevalent at the time, which is fast fashion," Pak said. Esprit is the first apparel brand Pak has worked for, but he and his wife have spent much of their professional life helping businesses on the brink. "We've done a lot of business turnarounds, and expansionary business plans," Pak said. "We're quite an optimistic couple, so we like to [take on] optimistic projects." The first phase of the plan was a complete business restructuring, and bringing the company back to profitability. Now that's finished, and Pak is focused on the fun part: rebranding. With that, Esprit is moving its entire business to New York City, with the plan to make it an apparel leader once again. "Whe brand will globally be created, designed, thought through, photographed all in New York City," he said. "And it will resonate globally from there." Currently, Esprit has a pop-up in Soho, but it plans to open a new flagship store next year. What's more, the company is completely refreshing its assortment, and plans to unveil all the new designs later in 2023. In Pak's estimation, now is the right time to relaunch such a brand. Decades like the '80s and '90s are in vogue these days, which gives Esprit the chance to resonate well with multiple generations. Bu