Q) Do you think the hierarchy at adidas realised what goes on in the markets of the UK, and thought, Lets push certain items towards the UK because this is happening? What I’m thinking is in the mid 80s didn’t they start bringing out leisure trainers. Trainers that weren’t specifically for playing tennis in any more, they were more for walking the streets.
A) There is no doubt that adidas slightly fought against it in a way as they were number one for sportswear, they were a purist sports company. But it was such a huge development. I think adidas UK wholesale was about thirty million pounds in 1983/84 so that’s sixty million retail. But by 1998 when I sold Wade Smith adidas were doing three hundred million just in UK wholesale, that’s more than half a billion in retail. Nike and Reebok were doing the same also. It was just a phenomenal wave of growth, rising ten fold, so they had to let go away from being the purist sports company as Nike did too, to become a leisure industry brand. It was a street growth where an industry couldn’t fight against it. It became dependant on it, in actual fact adidas very nearly went bust in the early nineties. This was due to Nike and Reebok coming along which made the market shift into other jeans wear labels. It is a tiger’s tail really, if it becomes too big and it changed and then you find yourself in the fashion business, it is dangerous territory and adidas were always uncomfortable with it and to this day you do wonder if they are still uncomfortable with it.
Its better to be in a more stable sportswear market rather than sometimes being in this fast moving fashion market. I think they have got the balance about right these days.
Its quite nice for adidas who having founded the trainer business have got probably a third of half their business in the Originals which is nice. So they have got that heritage and they have also got the technology as well so they have got the best of both worlds.
Q) During those boom years, how difficult was it to keep up with the ever changing fashions? Like we spoke of a lot of labels and a lot of different trainers there.
A) Yeah, I think it was always very difficult. I could never quite spread the business. The reason why we closed Wade Smith in the end was because our brands really wanted their own stores.
In the mini-department store there was the Armani area, the Ralph Lauren area, the Paul Smith area, and obviously the sports building with the adidas shop and the Nike shop. But I could never get away from 80% of the business being in the top twelve big brands. Once they wanted their own stores, which many of them have now got, it is very difficult to keep up with. But we were always trying to develop new products.
The seeds that we were planting with Timberland and Rockport in the late eighties came to be credible businesses. I remember the founder of Timberland, a guy called Sydney Schwarz, who came over from America to see me when we opened the Timberland shop in the big sportswear building. He came over in 1996/97 when we did the outdoor athletics store. He gave me a Timberland watch with the Timberland and Wade Smith emblems. We were selling more Timberland shoes than anywhere else in the world so he wanted to come and visit this store that was selling, at its peak, one hundred pairs of Timberlands a week. You know that’s fifteen thousand pounds a week just on Timberland boots. So Sydney Schwarz came over thinking where the hell is this place? And we kept doing it with lots of things. Obviously the Trimm Trabs first and then the Marathon TR, and certain cultures like the Reebok workout and the leather classic. I think we sold something like five thousand pairs of leather classic from 1990-93.
So I could never get away from a big chunk of my turn over coming from certain items. The Timberland boot was just mind boggling really. Obviously Armani jeans was also a cult thing. I think we held the record in the world for selling more Armani jeans than any other store. You know, one hundred quid a pair. And we were selling them in 1990-91 right through the early nineties. The Ralph Lauren pique polo shirt, the Armani shirts, incredible businesses and later on the Prada shoes at two hundred quid a pair.
So we could never get away with certain items being a big part of the business. It was actually the Achilles heal it always was. My old chairman said to me when I left adidas, “What are you going to do if adidas open their own shop? Because you know it will put you out of business in a oner” To which I responded with, “Well I would have spread the business across many other brands by then.”
But even at our peak we had fifty brands from all around the world, all the best brands. But 80% of the business was coming from the top twelve mega brands. I was always a bit uncomfortable with it but that was the reality and like I say as soon as the brands wanted their own stores that was really the end of the Wade Smith. We had a wonderful time with it and we should have developed the Wade Smith brand more and we had done certain products like Wade Smith T-shirts, jackets, jeans, but it was only a tiny part of the business so we really should have developed that more. It is something that we would develop later on with all of my children, I have four children and they are all very keen to do the Wade Smiths brand for ourselves. I think that’s going to be an exciting era. Coming up soon.
ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009