Interview with former CEO of Wilis & Geiger

The Great Lost Expedition Brand
http://www.vice.com/read/the-great-lost-expedition-brand-000212-v20n2

I used to be a fan of Willis & Geiger, the old expedition clothing company, before Lands End shut them down. I stumbled upon this fairly recent interview with Burt Avedon, the former CEO of Willis & Geiger. I’ve always wondered why Lands End, instead of just sitting on the name after shutting it down, didn’t just sell it to someone else. Burt reveals that they got more than 48 bids from major quality companies, but LE purposely mothballed it to keep from being embarrassed if it became successful. Seems like a useless waste of brand with tons of history and esteem.

He also made a highly astute note that a company has to be headed by people in tune with the brand’s essence and heritage. Something I think is lost on the many other companies that have tried to ape and imitate W&G's image..

"It’s all speculation, but they were afraid that we would get it back and embarrass them by making it into a phenomenon."

And they didn't want to cash in themselves...and now, neither does the Sears-K mart combine. Shame on them.

Someone who's seriously passionate about the W&G type of clothing could probably keep the brand on track, but they'd have to be a marketer to get in the door, and there are barriers to that kind of taste and passion in the marketing game. Burt, OTOH, is a throwback to an era when one guy who understood how to sell style could push thru all the fashiony-statusy crap. Today that crap runs the industry like never before.

Given how much trouble S&R is in right now, a good, aggressive team could probably pry the name out of them. If it ever happened, W&G, so long as it wasn't taken down the seamy path Abercrombie and Fitch was taken, would very quickly rise to the top of the market. Something along the lines of "American made; expedition grade" would quickly go world-wide. Burt took them from brick and mortar to catalog. Nowadays, throw in Internet sales and it would be a gold mine.

Even if Sears were willing to sell off the brand - companies have egos; many would sooner half-arse a thing themselves than let someone else do it right - a marketing team that was wide-awake and hip enough to really do such a project might never get the chance. Mass marketers only talk to, and only deal with, other mass marketers.

Anyone with the right stuff to revive W&G would never even get close to Sears. I suspect the most attractive suitor - the best capitalized, with a track record Sears could relate to - would be one who would make it into a pseudo-upscale, fashion-trash brand along the lines of A&F.

Long story short, the market is there. The product line is there. The pitch is there. But the industry is in no position to recognize it.