The three Ms of eluxe: merch, mag, marketing
The offices of Toronto’s online retail fashion pioneer eluxe.ca, are, fittingly, in one of the warehouse buildings in the city’s dwindling garment district that used to house furriers and dressmakers.
In the open space dotted with cubicles on the third floor, it looks like the workplace of a dot-com enterprise, or perhaps a magazine — or perhaps somewhere in between the two, which probably most accurately describes eLuxe’s business. Four floors down is a showroom/shipping warehouse and photo studio, which is where, in the words of eLuxe fashion director Susie Sheffman, “the magic happens.”
“This is where we get all our exercise,” says Sheffman, bounding down each level of the century-old stairs in a pair of pointy-toed stilet- tos as if they were slip-on Keds.
Indeed, Sheffman, one of the country’s most celebrated stylists, for many years the key visionary at Fashion magazine, was lured away from the print magazine world to the new digital frontier a little more than a year ago by eLuxe founder and entrepreneur Joanna Track, after the pair bonded in the slackers’ row of a workout class at upscale Track Fitness, the uptown club owned by Track’s brother, Larry. “Joanna is the math geek and all I know is fashion math,” jokes Sheffman.
The entrepreneurial Track’s first venture, the defunct sweetspot.ca, a style and trend e-newsletter, was purchased by Rogers. It gave her the industry know-how and skills to get eLuxe up and going. Says Sheffman, “The word in the office is that one of us is the left and the other is the right brain.”
What they create together, says Sheffman, is “shoppable magazine content,” and she is right on. Unlike at a fashion magazine, where a mystique surrounds the art of image making, there is little divide between creating an image of a garment and actually selling it in the world of online retail. At eLuxe, as at other editorially driven fashion sites, such as shopbop and net-a-porter, visuals are both the store and the sales pitch. “Our product is our content, and our content is our product,” says Sheffman, who describes the shift from the world of print magazines to online retail as “more holistic.” “All those years in the fantasy world of magazines, I was never really aware that what I was doing was selling. There was this divide between ‘church and state.’ Here, there’s much greater responsibility and more commitment.” In some ways, an online entity like eLuxe is exactly like a magazine. “Every Monday morning, we have a 3M meeting,” says Sheffman. “Three Ms, for merch, mag and marketing.” At this meeting, everyone comes together to discuss, in Sheffman’s words, “What needs love, what we need to focus on and what kind of stories are we going to do?” As at a magazine, stories can be news driven. “The celebrity angle is huge,” says Sheffman. “What It girls like Gwyneth or Jennifer Aniston or Miranda Kerr were wearing in an airport, for instance, what bag were they carrying, what shoes did they have on is key.” “If they were all in distressed jeans, we will show a picture of one of them, and highlight our JBrand distressed denim.” Given the gossipy world of the web, it is unsurprising that the biggest etailing sell is celebrity. Says Track, “When Kate Middleton wears a Smythe jacket, that’s huge for us.” Other features are product driven, in the manner of a magazine piece on “Hot Buys For Under $500” or “1 shirt, 3 ways.” What is clear to both Track and Sheffman is that their customers couldn’t give a fig about runway trends. “It’s my job to be up-todate on the runway and then interpret that for our shoppers in a real-life way,” says Sheffman.
Where eLuxe differs most significantly from a print magazine is in its immediacy. “We’ll get a piece in on a Monday, shoot it on the Wednesday, copy is written and the story is designed and up online Friday morning,” says Sheffman, who describes the mad all-handson-deck rush to accomplish this for up to 100 garments per week as “a bit like those old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movies where they put on a Broadway production in the garage.”
And behind the screen at eLuxe, it is oddly like an old-fashioned small business. Sheffman and her team also do the buying. Clothes are shipped in and out on the lower level right next door to the photo studio in order to ensure a seamless experience for the Canadian online shopper, who is typically still a bit leery of e-commerce.
“We didn’t grow up here with catalogue shopping as they did in the U.S.,” says Track, who, for now, is still patient. “But with all the U.S. retailers already up here like JCrew and Target, and more to come such as Nordstrom, this is only heading one way.”
In Sheffman’s opinion, however, the lean approach of etail is its advantage.
“Magazines cannot be this nimble. In the digital world, magazines are like the new coffee-table books. Lovely to look at, but it’s online now where you get the news.” Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. Contact her at kvh@karenvonhahn.com.