Friday, March 6, 2009

Lambertson Truex Redux

It's never simple, this business of fashion. I was ruminating over their situation all afternoon and started to see a slightly different angle to this unfortunate turn of events. In many ways this is yet another cautionary tale. Here's a 10 year old company who sold a large stake to Samsonite. Then the old store roll out routine. Grow , grow grow til you bust.
The numbers bear out this problem. Samsonite opens store in L.A. , Las Vegas and NYC. Rents are exhorbidant.Sales don't support the overhead, and next thing you know assets are in the 1million dollar range with liabilities soaring in the 10-50million dollar range. Any math majors out there? So there you have it. I believe guts and a willingness to protect your business will win in the end. In this case I certainly hope so. LT just needs to keep their collective eyes on the bag and not on the fast buck.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had noticed that my local store had stopped carrying LT last year, and I couldn't recall seeing them at Saks recently either. Their bags and clutches are such a perfect fit for American sportswear--what Micheal Kors leatherwear should be instead of the loaded-down-with-metal-grommets-and-dodads bags he normally makes.