CLAD Men is now open for business
C. Benjamin
2011 is official the year of the menswear editorial store. Earlier this year, we saw luxury womenswear store Net-A-Porter launch Mr. Porter, full chock full of editorial pieces that displayed a level of wealth so great it made Watch The Throne sound like a Christian Children’s Fund commercial. In July, Park & Bond, the full priced retail arm of Gilt Group, opened it’s e-doors with a similar blend of editorial content with more of a casual, American bend. Park and Bond aligned itself with GQ from the get go with “Editor’s Pick” products and cross promotion on GQ.com. Park & Bond also maintains it’s own editorial arm separate from GQ. Esquire took it to the next level by officially parterning with J.C. Penney– yes, that J.C. Penney — on a new venture named CLAD Men, the first online store effectively managed by a major publication. Here is a bit about the store from CLAD:
Driven by consumer insights derived from over a year of research on the underserved online menswear market, CLAD offers the best designer brands in menswear and advice and product recommendations from the editors of Esquire magazine, the authority on men’s style. CLAD represents a new generation of editorial commerce: a first-of-its-kind collaboration between an editorial publication and an online retailer working together to create an online shopping experience from the ground up.
Just perusing the site, CLAD certainly has a solid line up of brands including Billy Reid, Red Wing, Simon Spurr, and even their own in-house CLAD brand (which at the moment appears to be just socks). While CLAD’s retail experience is vastly different than the J.C. Penney retail experience, Esquire’s editorial fingerprints are all over their advice section, rather aptly named “Damn Good Advice”. There you will find… well.. some good advice as well as general pieces on men’s style and dressing for success. What does this all mean? Well first and foremost it means that men have more options when it comes to online retail AND online editorial on style and trends, which is always welcome. Certainly there is a frustration that comes with opening your favorite magazine, seeing something you like, and not being able to find it anywhere because it’s only in a showroom or flagship store in NYC. It will be interesting to see how CLAD positions itself against it’s other competitors in the e-commerce/editorial space. Both Park & Bond and Mr. Porter entered with considerable buzz built off of the success of prior online retail outlets. Park & Bond has also been pretty aggressive in the way that it has reached out to the menswear blogging community, securing bloggers to pen editorials and even bringing on Lawrence Schlossman, of Sartorially Inclined and How To Talk To Girls At Parties fame, as their social media editor. Then there is the question of the ever blurring line between unbiased editorial and advertising, though considering all three sites present themselves as stores there should be no confusion that they are seeking to sell product. At the end of the day, it’s a win-win situation for guys looking to dress better but that don’t have access to a SoHo, Georgetown, or Michigan Ave.
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