Farewell For Now Esprit
One of Esprit's celebrated mid-1980s ads.
Esprit Holdings LTD. announced yesterday that it would close all of its North American Esprit stores, which includes more than six shops in California. The North American retail operation had been losing money for more than 8-years according to a company statement, which was released Sept. 15. The Hong Kong and Germany headquartered Esprit will focus operations on Asia and some of the more fab parts of Europe.
Any store closing is sad news. And at Apparel News, we fondly remember Esprit’s Real People advertising campaign of the mid-1980s, when celebrated photographer Oliviero Toscani made headlines for shooting Esprit retail workers modeling the then wildly popular brand. It was the first time civilians, not models, dominated a fashion campaign. We also remember Esprit’s San Francisco roots. It debuted in the foggy city in the early 1970s.
I’m not so happy about Esprit’s retail workers perhaps being the kept in the dark on plans to close the stores. When I called a couple of Esprit’s Southern California locations on the schedule for shuttering store doors, the sales people answering the phone said that there were no plans to close the boutiques.
“We are here and we are open,” said a saleswoman at the Esprit’s Third Street Promenade location. I hope she was just putting on a brave face when confronted with bad news.
