0.cached.png
By Ben Whitford
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
If you're invited to a planning meeting at the typical corporation, you'd be wise to pour yourself a big cup of coffee and bring your BlackBerry. But if you somehow secure a seat at the bimonthly product-review sessions at the Bendon Corp., prepare yourself for a show that's better suited for pay-per-view on cable. Bendon is the New Zealand manufacturer for Elle Macpherson Intimates, the high-end lingerie brand headed by the Australian supermodel nicknamed "The Body." At these meetings, the agenda is simple. "Off come the clothes and on go the underwear!" Macpherson says, describing when she tries on prototypes and offers critiques on fit, comfort and style. The Bendon products that survive this scrutiny form the cornerstone of a growing business empire. Last year Macpherson's brand hit $76 million in sales.
It wasn't that long ago that supermodels worried mostly about two key metrics: their measurements (35-23-35, says the conventional wisdom) and their day rate (ideally $10,000 or more). But like athletes, models' days on the catwalk are limited by age. That's why 21st-century
cover girls worry as much about their brand as their bodies, and they're increasingly focused on managing their careers to provide a revenue stream that stays buoyant long after key body parts start to sag. The brown-eyed and blond Macpherson, 42, is the latest supermodel to succeed in this diversification strategy, and her business has begun to blossom. And while she's no CEO, she's getting involved in strategic planning, as well as getting a piece of the profit action.
Read More on News
Her product line--a big hit in New Zealand, Australia and England--has now entered the United States, selling at stores like Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdale's. Its global sales are growing at an annual rate of 23 percent. Next comes a line of Elle-branded moisturizers and lotions. Today Macpherson rarely struts the runways, but colleagues say as a manager, she's hitting her stride. Says Alex Carter-Silk, her London attorney: "We're moving from Elle the model and Elle the talent to Elle the businesswoman and Elle the celebrity CEO."
Macpherson, born Eleanor Gow, was raised in Australia and came to the United States at 17 to model. Entrepreneurship runs in the family: her father founded a successful Australian chain of music and electronics stores, and her brother has made several fortunes launching technology start-ups in Australia. Elle rose to fame as a fixture in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue in the 1980s, but today she says she never really liked modeling. "Most of the time I'd see pictures of myself in a magazine and think I looked terrible--I was hypercritical and self-conscious," she says. "I didn't want to do half the stuff I was asked, so I just put my rates really high." Today she considers herself a mom first (her sons are 3 and 8) and an entrepreneur second, but she still spends time in front of a camera to help sell her merchandise.
When NEWSWEEK visited with her at a recent photo shoot for Australian GQ, she spent hours on a Ducati motorcycle, clad in tiny leather underwear and surrounded by a group of male models--many of them less than half her age. As much as she might scorn modeling, the fact is she remains an icon, even at her advanced modeling age.
Supermodels are a familiar feature of the celebrity landscape, but in fact they're a species of recent vintage. Until the mid-19th century, merchants showed off clothing using only "mannequins." But then London designer Lady Duff Gordon hired tall, gorgeous working-class girls, training them in deportment and carriage, and giving them exotic names like Corisande; soon they were staples of gossip columns. The business had changed little by the 1960s, when models like Twiggy earned $600 a day for fashion shoots. It wasn't until the '80s that models became "super," moving beyond runway work to ads, MTV and perfume lines.
From a business standpoint, the most successful of this breed is 43-year-old Kathy Ireland, whose modeling heyday ran from 1984 to 1994. Today her company--Kathy Ireland Worldwide--employs 37 and sells everything from window blinds to sofas. Annual sales run to $1.4 billion, and Forbes estimates Ireland's annual take at $10 million. "I never felt comfortable earning a paycheck off of how someone perceived that I looked," Ireland told NEWSWEEK. "I always knew I belonged on the other side of the camera." Ireland disputes the common notion that supermodels' businesses mostly consist of choosing among a steady flow of licensing deals and then pasting their names onto products they've had little to do with designing. When she left modeling, "nobody was offering me endorsements,"Ireland says.
Macpherson's business education began when she was in her 20s, and some of her most valuable learning experiences have come through failure. In 1994, she signed a deal to invest, with other models, in Fashion Café, a themed restaurant modeled on Hard Rock. The venture fizzled and she's still upset about it. "I learned a lot about how not to prostitute a brand," she says. Her current business began in 1990, when she hooked up with Bendon. At first, Elle Macpherson Intimates (EMI) worked as a traditional licensing deal, in which she contributed little beyond name and image. When she'd suggest ideas, she says, Bendon management would tell her: "Stick to your position--you're the person who puts on the underwear and gives it your name, and that's all we need, thanks very much."
Over time, though, she's become more hands-on. "What they didn't know was that I was passionate about lingerie," she says. At her first design meeting, she "arrived with a suitcase full of bras and knickers" she'd collected from around the world. "I dumped them on the table and said, 'Let's go to work.' They were, like, 'Wow, is this some weird lingerie-fetish woman?' They were surprised they'd found somebody who was appropriate for them--and they didn't understand how appropriate they were for me." In 2003 she hired Carter-Silk, a copyright specialist, to revamp her contracts. The result, according to Silk: "It isn't a fire-and-forget relationship--it's very much a bilateral relationship that requires considerable direction and input from her." Bendon's new CEO, Stefan Preston, welcomes her growing involvement. Financially, she's traded the sure thing of upfront licensing fees to take a bigger slice of the back end, giving her more upside if her ideas take off.
She's also rebuffing opportunities to diversify away from her own branded company. Stu Cameron, her longtime manager, passes along a constant stream of pitches from companies--sunglasses makers, fashion accessory companies--that want her to endorse their wares. "She never goes near them," Cameron says. "She's focused on the business she's been growing for 20 years." Macpherson sees the trade-off, in part, as an investment in her own education. "I may not have made as much money," she says, "but I've had more pleasure and I've learned."
As a manager and as EMI's creative director, Macpherson admits she has much left to learn. "This idea of being a businesswoman is kind of funny--I suppose it conjures up images of a woman in a suit who has an M.B.A. and is a ball-breaking, decision-making, financially obsessed person, and I don't really consider myself to be that," she says. Still, her increased involvement stems from confidence that despite having skipped college, she's smart enough to help her team make good calls. "When I was younger I did suffer from a complex where I didn't want to be perceived as unintelligent [and] I'd be afraid to ask questions, because that might be interpreted as me being stupid," she says. Now, she says, she understands that "asking questions is what intelligent people do when they don't understand."
In Britain and Australia, her lacy underthings are prominently on display in most department stores. Some of the brand's hits originated with Elle. After her children were born, she lobbied hard to launch a nursing bra, but Bendon worried that a maternity product might undercut her line's sexy positioning. She recalls: "Whether it was expensive or cheap, big name or not, whether it was made for maternity or just a big bra, there was nothing that worked for me." Bendon executives complained she was too "glamorous" to be offering something "frumpy." She kept pushing, they eventually agreed, and now her nursing bras (priced about $50) are a big seller.
She also says she was responsible for the Boudoir range of exotic lingerie and the Afterwear line of pajamas; the latter was another challenge for her, as PJs traditionally were relegated to the sleepwear floor. "Are you doing sleepwear or lingerie?" frustrated department stores initially asked. Today she's involved in deciding everything from which kind of hangers stores use to display her clothing, to ad campaigns, to meeting with representatives of Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue. As with Martha Stewart--who also started as a model--Macpherson acknowledges that some people whisper she can be a control freak. "The reality is, I'm just really curious," she says. "I didn't want to control the outcome but ... I wanted to have some input other than just standing there and saying 'Buy me'."
In the United States, brand identity will be trickier. Giant Victoria's Secret has nearly 1,000 U.S. stores and controls about 40 percent of the $10 billion market for women's undergarments. Macpherson is busy envisioning how far she can go beyond bras and panties. Last fall her line of The Body lotions--Fruit and Honey Exfoliator, Sunkissed Body Balm--went on sale in upscale London stores. It's likely the beginning of a host of brand extensions--for things she'll produce, not merely stamp her name on. Ten years ago her trademarks were limited to clothing, but in 2004, her name was registered for use to promote future products ranging from flatware and antiperspirant to wallets and spatulas. In Australia, she's already launched a line of men's underwear called Macpherson Men. As with every celebrity, there are limits on the possibilities. "If they start launching insurance companies or car-hire companies, they'd be asking the brand to stretch a bit too far," says Hamish Pringle, author of "Celebrity Sells." But for a woman who spent years making a living on the basis of her looks, the chance to stretch her mind is a welcome change indeed.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines