Grapefruit On The Daily Hoodie
Floral Backdrop Pace Rival Crop and Gator Green Cool Racerback
Inner Essence Crop, All Tied Up Tank
You might wonder why I’m drawing your attention to a Jezebel article about Nasty Gal but I promise you it is a more than a little bit relevant. I wrote a post last week after the Q1 earnings call talking about certain reorganization that is going on at Lululemon behind the scenes (here) and how there is a major shift to not only ‘cut the fat’ but also make it a less ‘elitist’ working environment and a bit of a morale issue. The overlap in the story is that the former Lululemon Chief Product Officer Sheree Waterson that was fired during pantsgate is now CEO at Nasty Gal and there are some not so flattering descriptions in the article that are reminiscent to a lot of what was going on at Lululemon a while back. Those of you that are ‘OG’ to this blog and lulu addicts blog will recognize a lot of the complaints we had of the product back in 2012 and 2013. Also, be sure to read the comments in the article because there are a few lululemon employee comments.
Excerpt from Jezebel article:
In March 2014, Sheree Waterson was hired. Waterson came from Lululemon, where she was fired in the wake of See-Through Pantsgate, for which she was held personally responsible. In January 2015, Amoruso stepped down as CEO and appointed Waterson in her place. (Amoruso said at the time that she’d continue leading the creative and brand marketing wings of the company, as well as acting as executive chairman of the board.)
The longtime employees say that while Waterson is deeply intelligent, she has little sense of what made Nasty Gal so successful.
“She’s not really listening to the Nasty Gals and what they wanted,” one says, referring to longtime, loyal customers: “the hardcore Nasty Gals that brought us where they are.”
Several former employees say that Waterson’s focus is on raising the Average Unit Retail (AUR), the average cost of an item in the store, even though a cornerstone of the business has always been inexpensive clothing. The AUR at Nasty Gal is now around $100, the former employees say, which is the highest it’s ever been, and up by 50% from this time last year. The sales volume, they say, has plummeted 40% at the same time. Waterson, who is 58, reportedly blamed that on “inexperienced merchants,” but one former employee says the real problem was that she pushed styles she personally liked without paying attention to what actually sold.
The former employees describe nightmarish marathon meetings where Waterson tore down everything about the brand’s current look. One told Jezebel:
Sheree prevented anyone from doing any real work by keeping us in 3-5 hour meetings where she would tear down all the products on the site, which was literally based on nothing but her own 58 year old opinion. Even when people presented her with legit selling data on items she deemed irrelevant, she would brush it off and push the merchants to invest in styles that she personally liked. She would show up late to meetings (or leave after 10 minutes), talk for about an hour about nothing in particular, and then comment about how terrible everything looked.
Thanks to Ms. N for her awesome photos of the Gator Green Cool Racerback to Wren and Heathered Wren Cool Racerbacks. Solid Gator Green is such an awesome neutral that pairs really well with tons of unexpected colors. Pinks, oranges, purples. I also love that this is a color that can be worn casually or for working out in.
Gator Green Cool Racerback to Wren and Heathered Wren
I ordered my much anticipated Crosscourt Petal Cool Racerback (obsessed with that print!) and checked out before looking further and actually there are quite a few pieces I was anticipating tonight that didn’t show up. The Grapefruit What The Sport Tee or the Gold What The Sport Tee that Hong Kong has (I noticed that one online yesterday), the Grapefruit On The Daily Hoodie that is in US stores today, no Grapefruit Cool Racerback and Canada didn’t get the Floral Backdrop Top Speed Crops. I was thinking of ordering those Top Speeds after seeing numerous great photos of them today and having a few of you comment that you picked them up in store. That print is just very striking in those crops. I’m looking at those Gator Green Studio Pants with lust but I don’t typically wear Studios. If I did, those would be a definite must have for me. Overall I think this looked like a smaller upload for both sides but we did get tons of new CRB’s after a very long drought. Ever since we got the Heathered Lullaby CRB we’ve gotten a few CRB’s per upload but this CRB upload was the biggest. Luckily both US and Canada got the Gator Green CRB’s – I hunted that one down locally on Friday.
Cool Racerback
Stylist. please quit it with the half top knot in all the CRB photos.
What The Sport Tee Gator Green
Pace Rival Crop Full On Luxtreme
Studio Pant *Regular Gator Green
Crosscourt Petal Jet Crop Slims
Get these! I love them.
Dottie Dash Roll Down Wunder Under Pants
Australia got the Grapefruit Cool Racerback which I decided deserved it’s very own post below this one.
Time Warp Tight Denim Blue/Grapefruit
Serenity Pant Modal Cotton
I have these in green from last year and they are the softest silkiest sweat pants I’ve ever felt.
Let’s ignore the distracting top knot in this photo and discuss the fact that a Grapefruit Cool Racerback does indeed exist and is hopefully coming to North America soon.
