PARIS — “That’s it, I’m taking a holiday.”
After 28 years, 80-something collections, more than 10,000 designs and his first retrospective, Andrew Gn is bidding the fashion world au-revoir, he told WWD exclusively.
“It is a very long time and I think that I’m at the really high point of my career, having done a lot and worked very hard for my company,” he continued. “So I’d like to really use this opportunity to step back, enjoy my life and see what happens.”
His last collections are the cruise 2024 and holiday capsules that are currently at full price in stores. Ongoing orders from private clients will continue to be delivered as scheduled.
The brand will remain at its Parisian headquarters and salon for the foreseeable future and it will take at least a year to wind down operations. Another priority is ensuring that staff are offered proper compensation as “some people have been with us since Day One,” he said.
After that, the Paris-based company will be put in dormancy.
Gn said he could “afford to do this because it’s a medium-small house — but a profitable one.” Although he did not disclose sales figures, his eponymous label counts 75 to 80 stockists worldwide, including Net-a-porter, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Bergdorf Goodman, Moda Operandi, Saks and Matchesfashion.
“It’s our choice to step back; it’s not because we’re not doing well,” he added. That’s also why there are no plans for him to sign licenses. Keeping his name and independence is “something he treasures,” and for no amount of money would he hook up with fast fashion as he “doesn’t believe in it,” he said.
While wholesale accounted for 70 percent of the business, the company’s own retail developed in a satisfactory manner, with its e-commerce site selling accessories and ready-to-wear. Custom and made-to-order business represented some 5 percent.
Its Paris-based salon also brought “quite a sizable retail business,” particularly since the pandemic, where one-to-one appointments for clients over Zoom generated an influx of ready-to-wear purchases.
Retailers were reeling from the announcement.
“I’m still processing the call from Andrew, letting us know that he was closing his retail chapter,” said Bergdorf’s senior vice president of fashion Linda Fargo. “There’s sure to be a run on his last collection over the news, as there will be an unfillable void in our offering without him.”
Lauding Gn’s “life of taste and connoisseurship,” Fargo said Bergdorf Goodman had been a partner of 23 years not out of friendship alone but because he “consistently designed beautiful, wearable, joyous clothes, with touches of exoticism and unabashed glamour.”
While consumers may be disappointed not to find Gn’s designs in store next year, Farfetch executive Elizabeth von der Goltz said it “made [her] so happy to see him decide to take a step back now,” having seen Gn and partner Erick Hörlin “personally put all their passion, effort and hard work” into the brand and business since she met them as a buyer at Bergdorf in 2003.
“Andrew will finally be able to dedicate himself to family and pursuits such as art collecting, traveling the world and enjoying delicious meals,” she said. And his retrospective, which kicked off in Singapore last May, will take his body of work around the world, in her opinion.
“This is not an adieu but an au-revoir, the beginning of a new chapter of my life,” Gn reiterated.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling — more sweet than bitter,” he said. “I’m sad to leave something that I’ve been doing for almost 30 years of my life but in a way, I can breathe some fresh air and not just focus on one thing. When you’re in a fashion for a long time, you live it, you sleep it, you eat it and all topics revolve around that.”
And don’t call it retirement. First because “I’m too young for that,” he quipped.
But most of all because the designer’s docket is already full of new projects.
Talks to take “Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World” to different museums in the U.S. are already underway, and the designer has further plans to bring the exhibition back to Asia. Although he kept mum on the next stop, the whole plan is “going to take up at least 10 years of my time,” he said.
Next on his to-do list is setting up his own foundation. A keen collector, Gn has an extensive collection of art that spans from the 17th to 21st centuries, currently split between his two Paris apartments and a pair of warehouses.
“I’m a Renaissance man. I like many things. I love art and I love anything that is beautiful,” he confessed. Those thousands of artworks will need to be photographed, catalogued and prepared for exhibition.
He and Hörlin are also looking at a Georgian house in Dublin that Gn plans on restoring to its full splendor. Although being an interior decorator is not something he’s interested in, he does see a market for that. “In the times we’re living in, the castle that we build for ourselves is so essential,” he remarked. “Going home and feeling safe.”
Most of all, he’s interested in giving back to the next generation. That idea was woven into his retrospective but he’s also looking at ways of sharing his experience with young designers and “helping younger people as much as [he] can.”
“There are a lot of organizations that just give money or an award to designers without guiding them,” he explained. “Encouraging them is fine, but I learned the hard way that the most difficult thing other than being creative and evolving all the time is running your own business, figuring out the marketing, sourcing, production and all that.”
“There is so much to do,” he continued. “Maybe I’ll be like those rock stars, giving a farewell concert and boom, a new record in three years.”
But first things first. “I’m going to spend Lunar New Year in Singapore for the first time in the 30 years I’ve been in fashion,” he said with obvious relish.
