by PARIS — “That’s it, I’m going on vacation.”
After 28 years, more than 80 collections, more than 10,000 designs and his first retrospective, Andrew Gn is calling the fashion world au-revoir, he told WWD exclusively.
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“It’s a very long time and I think I’m at the highest point of my career, having done a lot and worked very hard for my company,” he continued. “So I would like to take this opportunity to step back, enjoy my life and see what happens.”
Their latest collections are the 2024 cruise and vacation capsules that are currently available at full price in stores. Ongoing orders from private customers will continue to be delivered as planned.
The brand will remain at its Paris headquarters and salon for the foreseeable future and will take at least a year to close operations. Another priority is ensuring staff are offered adequate compensation, since “some people have been with us since day one,” he said.
After that, the Paris-based company will go dormant.
Gn said he could “afford to do this because it is a medium or small house, but profitable.” Although he did not disclose sales figures, his eponymous brand has between 75 and 80 stockists worldwide, including Net-a-porter, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Bergdorf Goodman, Moda Operandi, Saks and Matchesfashion.
“It is our choice to step back; It is not because things are not going well for us,” he added. That’s why there are no plans for him to sign licenses either. Maintaining his name and his independence is “something he treasures” and for no money would he connect with fast fashion because “he doesn’t believe in it,” he said.
While wholesale accounts for 70 percent of the business, its own retail trade has developed successfully, with its e-commerce site selling accessories and ready-to-wear. Custom and custom-made businesses accounted for about 5 percent.
Her Paris-based salon also generated “quite a significant retail business,” particularly since the pandemic, where one-on-one appointments for clients via Zoom generated an influx of ready-to-wear purchases.
Retailers were reeling from the announcement.
“I’m still processing the call from Andrew, letting us know he was closing his retail chapter,” said Linda Fargo, Bergdorf’s senior vice president of fashion. “There will surely be a release of his latest collection in the news, as there will be an unfillable gap in our offering without him.”
Praising Gn’s “life of taste and knowledge,” Fargo said Bergdorf Goodman had been a partner for 23 years not only out of friendship but because he “consistently designed beautiful, wearable, joyful clothing, with touches of exoticism and unabashed glamour.”
While consumers may be disappointed not to find Gn designs in stores next year, Farfetch executive Elizabeth von der Goltz said she “did [her] I am very happy to see him decide to take a step back now,” having seen Gn and his partner Erick Hörlin “personally put all their passion, effort and hard work” into the brand and the business since she met them as a buyer at Bergdorf in 2003.
“Andrew will finally be able to dedicate himself to family and activities like collecting art, traveling the world and enjoying delicious foods,” she said. And his retrospective, which began in Singapore last May, will take his work around the world, he believes.
“This is not goodbye but an au-revoir, the beginning of a new chapter in my life,” Gn reiterated.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling, more sweet than bitter,” he said. “I’m sad to leave something I’ve been doing for almost 30 years of my life, but somehow I can breathe some fresh air and not focus on just one thing. When you are in a trend for a long time, you live it, you sleep it, you eat it and all the topics revolve around that.”
And don’t call it retirement. First because “I’m too young for that,” she joked.
But above all because the designer’s agenda is already full of new projects.
Talks are already underway to bring “Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World” to different museums in the US, and the designer has plans to bring the exhibition back to Asia. Although he didn’t say anything about the next stop, the entire plan “is going to take up at least 10 years of my time,” he said.
Next on your to-do list is to create your own foundation. Gn, a keen collector, has an extensive art collection spanning the 17th to the 21st centuries, currently divided between his two Paris apartments and a pair of warehouses.
“I am a Renaissance man. I like a lot of things. I love art and I love everything that is beautiful,” he confessed. Those thousands of works of art will need to be photographed, cataloged and prepared for display.
He and Hörlin are also studying a Georgian house in Dublin that Gn plans to restore to its full splendor. Although being an interior decorator is not something that interests him, he does see a market for it. “In the times we live in, the castle we build for ourselves is essential,” he commented. “Coming home and feeling safe.”
Above all, he is interested in giving back to the next generation. That idea was woven into his retrospective, but he’s also looking for ways to share his experience with younger designers and “help the younger ones as much as possible.” [he] can.”
“There are many organizations that simply give money or prizes to designers without guiding them,” he explained. “Encouraging them is fine, but I learned the hard way that the hardest thing, besides being creative and evolving all the time, is running your own business, figuring out marketing, sourcing, production and all that.”
“There is a lot to do,” he continued. “Maybe I’ll be like those rock stars, giving a farewell concert and boom, a new album in three years.”
But first things first. “I’m spending Lunar New Year in Singapore for the first time in the 30 years I’ve been in fashion,” she said with obvious excitement.
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