Vogue: Wholesale retail has faced many challenges since the pandemic. Are you finding a need to get to your customer more directly?
Erdem: There’s tremendous power to having a space of your own, which allows you to show your customer your world. A show only gives you eight minutes to take someone into your world, and it’s fleeting. A space is much more permanent. Direct-to-consumer is over a third of our turnover. We have a handful of owned and operated retail spaces and we live in a very unstable climate.
Vogue: You are longtime partners in life, but also, this isn’t the first time you are working together. What is it like working together? What are the learnings and what are the challenges?
Philip: I would say it’s different this time actually. When we did the first store, I actually left my previous job that I’d had for 10 years to start my own practice. And the South Audley store was the first project. There was a lot of pressure in that moment because it was our first project together, our first moment to express ourselves. This time around, we’re an established practice, and that means we are kind of calmer, wouldn’t you say, Erdem?
Erdem: Philip has seen every single collection of mine since I graduated. He used to design the show spaces before we moved to showing at the British Museum. Who better to build a world around the brand than the person you’ve grown up with?
Vogue: How do you feel the brand has changed in the last 10 years, since you established South Audley?
Erdem: There’s a kind of a roundedness to her that maybe wasn’t there 10 years ago — there’s now more knitwear, tailoring and accessories, for instance. But in a way, she’s also constant.
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