Philipp Plein Wants to Blow Your Mind
On Saturday, two and a half days before his first show in New York, the German designer Philipp Plein sat behind a long table crowded with Starbucks coffee cups, Red Bull cans and Atkins energy bars in a rented office space on Madison Avenue and 55th Street.
To his left sat Carine Roitfeld, a former Tom Ford collaborator and former editor of French Vogue, and the creator of CR Fashion Book. To his right was his girlfriend, the Romanian model Andreea Sasu, whom he calls “Poof.” Members of his inner circle, like the photographer Dylan Don, the publicist Karla Otto, and Mr. Plein’s sister Gloria Dieth, rotated through the chairs behind them over the course of several hours, chatting quietly or observing.
Everyone’s attention was on the fit models who stood patiently as Mr. Plein and Ms. Roitfeld debated how to style each of the show’s 80 or so looks. Ms. Roitfeld’s two assistants, the label’s heads of design for men and women, and various others also offered opinions.
The stakes, after all, were high. Mr. Plein would have to top the increasingly ostentatious shows he has thrown in Milan since 2011 (with Jet Skis, swimming pools, roller coasters and performers like Snoop Dogg and Rita Ora).
The decision to swap cities was part of the brand’s expansion into the United States, a new frontier for the label, which counts Asia and Eastern Europe as its top markets. As part of the push, last year Mr. Plein hired Graziano de Boni, who had previously held high-ranking positions at Giorgio Armani and Prada USA, to be his chief executive of North and South America.
“I tried to avoid it for a very long time because the American market is very developed and the consumer is very spoiled,” Mr. Plein said. “Markets like Russia and China are much more open to new brands and much easier to enter. They’re hungry to consume.”
But after 18 years in the business and 120 store openings, Mr. Plein decided it was time.
”We didn’t want to lose money,” Mr. Plein said. His company has no investors and he owns it debt-free. “We had to wait until we were a little bit more mature, and I had some gray hair, as you can see, to come here and start this experience.”
Experience is one way to…