Survival of the Fittest

One course of action I have noted is the two brand shop. It’s an interesting concept, in theory they’ll both benefit from pooling resources and if the brands are similar, each other’s customers. Like two friends having a joint party, their respective friends are bound to mingle happily.

The example I’m thinking of is BolongaroTrevor and Religion who have a 50/50 split proposition with three stores called B+R. The locations house both labels mixed up and merchandised together (I’m not sure if this is good for each brands definition) but conversely the B+R website links out to each respective brand sites separately.

At the launch of the Islington store, my old pal Stuart Trevor (who incidentally also founded All Saints), told me that BT had been doing better than Religion in that location.

It seemed that the BolongaroTrevor guests were the only ones who brought an analogical bottle to that week’s party. In this scenario perhaps the brands complement each other enough for this “friendly” cannibalisation not to matter.

Any kind of bricks and mortar venture is a big investment and with the rising cost of supplychain, oil and the impending environmental regulations, it seems logical for these two edgy labels to get into bed with each other for an east London, rock’n’roll, sartorial love-in. Their bed is the stuff of young boys & fashion editors dreams with the likes of Daisy Lowe, Leah Wood and their respective model/rockstar friends all queuing for a roll around in the clothes.

Survival of the “fittest” in every sense.