How Samui's fashion buyer does business in a pandemic
Clodagh Shorten, the founder and director of Samui, a fashion boutique on Drawbridge Street, Cork. Picture: Miki Barlok
Fashion month is the busiest month of the year for buyers. New York, London, Milan and Paris transform into consecrated grounds for the next season’s luxury wares with fashion buyers filling gilded parlours and airy gallery spaces to purchase what we see in stores six months later.
Clodagh Shorten, the founder and director of Samui, a fashion boutique tucked away on Cork’s Drawbridge Street, is one of those buyers who attends the trade fair in Milan and Paris each year, spending her days engaging in extensive negotiations with designers’ sale agents as she deliberates what will best suit her clientele. These private appointments take hours to complete and the minimum spend can be upwards of €20,000.
From lockdown to travel restrictions, the fashion buying process that involves perusing rails of luxury clothing takes place over Zoom.
Despite change, the expectation remains the same: beautiful clothes with longevity that justify their lofty price.
Ahead of sales appointments, Shorten acquaints herself with the styles, colours, prints in each collection on JOOR, an online wholesale platform, where she can see a 360-degree view of the garments to get a sense of how they move.
She entrusts sales agents, some of whom she has known for years, to communicate the feel of the new season. They spend hours walking through the collections virtually and, in the space of a few days, the decision is made about what will make it to Cork.
Her familiarity with a designer’s work abates difficulty in selecting pieces but tactility is still paramount in luxury fashion. A firm believer of touch and feel when it comes to shopping fashion, Shorten initially found it challenging to work online.
Previously, travelling to Milan and Paris was not only about buying but research. “Travel is always important for me. You can see new collections, you can talk to people and hear about new things, and street style is really important,” she said.
Almost a year into the pandemic, the process is more seamless. Appointments can be trimmed down as the form of communication is more familiar and the technology becomes more accessible.
Fashion buying is as scientific as it is emotional, Shorten said picking the best pieces involves “following your gut.” Considering the pandemic has cancelled events such as conferences and weddings, getaways, and fine-dining, not only is Shorten buying differently, she is searching for an entirely different wardrobe.
She notes that tastes have shifted completely over the last year.
Her clients gravitate towards a Hayley Menzies long cardigan they can wear over jeans, a cashmere fine-knit from a brand like Castanea with a Rick Owens jacket over their joggers, or trainers from Ghoud or Golden Goose.
For spring/summer 2021, the current season, which she shopped last September, she steers clients towards chic jeans from JBrand and AG Jeans, alongside some sharp but playful lineup of blouses, knits, and trousers from Zadig & Voltaire, Zoom-friendly floral printed dresses from Saloni, and jackets from Dorothee Schumacher. The focus is centred on a relaxed offering that will uplift lockdown lives.
New to Samui includes uncomplicated dresses with clean lines from Belgian designer Sophie D’hoore and a casual offering that includes bohemian chic from Isabel Marant Étoile. Shorten was familiar with Sophie D’hoore from previous buying trips to Paris and Samui previously sold Isabel Marant Étoile which made the process easier.
She adds unfussy daywear from Leon & Harper and cool footwear from Good News London to the roster.
As a buyer, Shorten is as cautious as she is experimental, a blend of shrewdness combined with an affinity for the risk and potential reward of new labels and styles. When the financial crisis toppled businesses over a decade ago, she elevated her offering — delicate cashmere and Moncler jackets — while others pursued the contemporary market. Samui was one of the few left standing.
The other significant change to fashion buying in the last year is forced store closures. When Samui first shut its doors last March, Shorten imagined it would be for two weeks. Like many, her eagerness was apprehended by the extension of lockdown. By then, all the spring collections had arrived. At that time, Samui’s Instagram was underused while the website was outdated. Things had to change.
Instagram became a platform for retail manager Mary Claire O’Sullivan’s unmatched charisma, giving the promotion a personal touch. It had the effect of unmasking the often oppressively exclusive mien of luxury shopping as the team dressed up in new season clothes, scanned the rails, and laughed amidst the madness.
The endeavour attracted new clients from across the country with whom the team at Samui built up relationships over months.
Shorten operates with the added advantage of receiving feedback directly from customers on the shop floor, or from through her six-person staff. In essence, it dilutes the risk to a certain extent. Now, the response comes from online channels.
Furthermore, clients can avail of styling appointments over Zoom and FaceTime where Shorten and her colleagues can try on clothing for customers. She said orders over the phone and through Instagram have a 95% success rate. (When Samui reopened between June and October, and again in December, “the sales took care of themselves.”)
Late in 2020, Samui finally launched a web-store that houses many of the pieces found in-store from Rick Owens jackets to skincare from Aesop. The site is regularly updated with new stock.
It was on March 23, 1999, when Clodagh Shorten first opened the doors to Samui. Over the last twenty years, she has transformed the business into a premier shopping destination. Having earned her stripes as a retail assistant at Monica John, a former ladies’ fashion boutique in Cork City, many of her clients followed her to Samui, enamoured with her personalised approach to selling designer fashion.
A relentless determination for newness, Shorten favours exclusivity. Samui is the only place in Cork you will find Dries van Noten’s beautiful patterns, luxurious leather jackets from Rick Owens, and the flattering silhouettes of Pleats Please Issey Miyake. She is the only stockist of the Japanese label Sacai in Ireland.
Needless to say, Shorten didn’t anticipate celebrating her twentieth anniversary during a pandemic. She had plans to host an in-store event as she did in 2011, but the likelihood of that happening became increasingly uncertain as the date drew closer and the Irish government extended lockdowns.
It takes a discerning eye like Shorten’s to cater to luxury clients especially during a pandemic when the purpose of our clothing shifts towards comfort.
She attributes the success of the last year, humbly, to her team — Mary Claire, Irene, Kathryn and Annemarie — and loyal customers. “I wouldn’t be here without my team and my customers, both old and new.”
Although Moncler is known for its shiny puffer jackets, this khaki trench coat bears the brand signatures. With down padding and feather fill, an outer shell designed to withstand the elements, the jacket would be a sophisticated alternative amongst traditional styles.
Nothing says Rick Owens like an asymmetric biker jacket. The jacket, a forever purchase according to Shorten and the team, features a particular tanning method that gives the jacket a unique, varied tactile finish.
This Rick Owens dress is not for the faint-hearted. However, the optimists among us, yearning for the post-pandemic day when dressing up is the norm, might get some mileage out of this one. Or for those who have rewritten the rules of dressing up for dinner or the office at home. The ‘Sarah’ dress is close-fitted and features a coated denim fabrication that gives the impression of faux-leather. Glamour is something we can cling to unlike ever before.
Japanese label Sacai, designed by the virtuosic Chitose Abe, is renowned for its unconventional reworking of traditional garments, having ascended to the upper echelons of design at Paris Fashion Week. Samui is the brand’s sole stockist in Ireland. Here, the blouse is given a relaxed, Zoom-friendly update with a draped cut, mock neck, and dazzling graphic print in shades of pastel pink and teal.
Another dress for those earnestly preparing for better days ahead, or those with a penchant for unfettered elegance in their daily lives. Aglow with pretty blooms of coral blossom, London brand Saloni injects a much-needed dose of colour into one’s wardrobe.
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