The men’s fashion company that’s part apparel, part big data
Corner Office from Marketplace
Marketplace
4.8 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2018
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Subscription box services may be the big apparel movement right now, but tech and data are allowing at least one company to go in a very different direction: custom tailoring. Colin Hunter is the CEO and co-founder of high-end men’s fashion company Alton Lane, and his goal is to make that retail experience personal — like, really personal. His company uses body scanners to get your body measurements in a matter of seconds, which are then sent to fabric makers who construct garments to order (which, of course, is not cheap). Also, the company’s showrooms have bartenders on duty to serve drinks. Hunter tells us why his company’s brand of retail could be the future, and how customer data could change the role of retail as we know it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody, it's Kai. |
| 0:11.6 | Thanks for listening to this Corner Office podcast. |
| 0:14.1 | A brand new episode for you today. |
| 0:15.9 | This time, what the retail of the future might look like, men's retail, specifically clothing. |
| 0:21.5 | I'm talking to the guy who thinks about that a lot. His name is Colin Hunter. He's the CEO and |
| 0:25.2 | co-founder of a company called Alton Lane. It's a tailoring company for men that mixes a little bit |
| 0:30.5 | of the old school with a little bit of the new. We're expecting you. What do you have a seat? |
| 0:36.2 | Ready to go to work. |
| 0:39.9 | Colin Hunter, welcome to the program. |
| 0:41.0 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:43.6 | Give me the elevator pitch for this thing, would you? |
| 0:51.5 | Yeah, so we are an upscale men's wear brand that is all about making shopping less painful for men. |
| 0:53.1 | I'm in, right there. |
| 0:53.4 | I'm in. |
| 0:57.5 | Perfect. Tell me, though, why you felt you needed to do this. I mean, give me the business model. Give me the, you know, your advantage in the |
| 1:01.2 | marketplace, if you will, and then tell me why. Yeah, you know, it's really quite simple. When we |
| 1:07.0 | looked out at the menswear space, we saw this multi-billion dollar global industry that wasn't taking into account this basic truth that we all know that most men hate to shop, but every guy still wants to look good. |
| 1:19.8 | And so we said, let's actually break down the industry and build it back up the way that makes sense for the consumer and doesn't necessarily make |
| 1:28.1 | sense for the fashion industry. So all of our stores are private one-on-one appointments. You have a |
| 1:33.7 | dedicated style expert working with you. And then we have some really cool technology. We utilize 3D |
| 1:40.1 | body scanning technology to capture over 300 measurements in about 30 seconds. And what that does is |
| 1:46.3 | it allows our tailors around the world to actually see your body when they're creating your |
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