Recently I attended The Frye Company's Spring '14 preview at the Chateau Marmont and here is what I found. The company's iconic footwear updated for the season with Chanel-inspired Western detailing, chic cropped booties and the perfect men's boot (I need it for my styling kit!). And I was even luckier to have the opportunity to catch up with Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Michael Petry. The ultra talented designer (his resume includes Prada, Ralph Lauren and Adidas - just to name a few) was as nice as he is talented. I got the inside scoop on the Spring '14 collection, Frye's upcoming collaboration with Burton and how Chanel's Dallas show is influencing fashion. And...I previewed the The Frye Company's incredible 150th Anniversary book. Scroll down for the Q&A and pics from the Spring '14 collection.
More images after the break
Michael Petry, The Frye Company's Creative Director
The Frye Company Spring '14 Preview at the Chateau Marmont
The Frye Company's 150th Anniversary book
Caught on camera interviewing Michael Petry
Men's Spring '14
Q&A WITH MICHAEL PETRY, THE FRYE COMPANY'S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR:
What was the inspiration for the Spring collection?
The inspiration is always driven from something American or Americana. So we always first go back in our archives and look at where the brand’s been over the last 150 years. We dwell typically in American-inspired things. For Spring we looked at Hudson River Valley paintings [which had] this real earthy feel to it. So there’s a little bit of a Western influence going on, but really subtle in terms of the lines and the pattern work. And if you look at what just happened with Chanel in Dallas….you can see it coming on. It’s not true Western, but it’s American and Western inspiration.
It seems like Western has been around for awhile, but now it’s back again.
I think what happens is it’s just iterations. When people think of Western, they always think of cowboy boots and that’s not actually what’s trending. It’s more of these subtle details and lines. I think it goes back to denim and patchwork and that kind of rustic feeling. So, whether it’s Ralph Lauren or even the Chanel collection, which everyone is screaming about and talking about, we’re all on the same page I think - which is nice.
Would you say the core DNA of The Frye Company is American heritage?
Yes, always. And when we look at inspiration we feel like there is so much great stuff in the United States, we don’t need to go outside [of it] to find inspiration. We could get inspiration from the Guggenheim or MOMA, but we could also go to the Grand Canyon, we could go to Santa Fe or we could come here to LA. Inspiration is all over the place. We have 12 designers, so we wind up having a lot of people in a lot of different places, so we draw from all of it. It’s always a plethora of inspiration flowing. But this time we tried to keep it more local and kind of with this Hudson Valley, New York feel. And within that you have music like The Band or Dillon and all these things, and even when you look at movies, like the Coen Brothers’– “Inside Llewyn Davis” that had that Dillon quality to it, we felt like that was what our collection was about as well.
How do you feel about workwear for Fall?
Men’s or women’s? I believe in all of it. I think work is a never-ending category. It’s a category in men’s that doesn’t die - it’s what guys wear every day of their lives. I [also] really believe in it in women’s. I think it’s so totally right on. And I think it can be as heavy duty as an engineer boot or even a women’s work boot. You see a lot of lace-up boots happening for women. I just think that work is such a great category - especially because we are in such a giant denim run - and I think that’s where work really transcends and really translates well.
What are key women’s silhouettes for Spring?
Key silhouettes for women are short boots, short boots, short boots and more short boots! A lot of sandals and then also simple lace-ups. The way we had the collection segmented are the short boots, the lace-ups and the open sandals, which have this real earthy feel to it. Those were the big highlights for us.
What about men?
For us, we’re totally into work. We really feel it coming on and we really feel like it’s indigenous to what the brand is about. So we have a lot of work styles and we’ve done a lot of classic, more tailored styles, but with a lug bottom and heavier, more rustic leather. So, that was the inspiration there.
Who is your core customer?
Good question. For us we have such a broad demographic because we are a 150 year-old brand, so we’ve had people that have worn [Frye] since the ‘60s and we have newcomers to the brand. The core customer is somebody that really appreciates value and understands how the products are made and that they’re going to last for a long time. So, I don’t think that has any kind of demographic to it, I just think it’s somebody who appreciates quality and has an expectation when they come to the brand that they’re going to get a quality piece of leather and a really well-made product.
What do you love about being a Creative Director?
There’s always something different everyday. That’s the beauty of being in design and that’s the beauty of being a creative director - no two days are alike. It’s awesome. You get up everyday and you know something new is going to happen and you’re going to find inspiration or you’re going to have an idea or someone’s going to bring you something that’s going to spark another idea. So I think that’s part of what the coolest part of being a creative director is.
Where did you work before The Frye Company?
I was at Prada before here. I was the Design Director for Linea Rossa and before that I was at Polo for six years. I was the Design Director there. So, it’s been fun. I started at Adidas... I was an athlete my whole life - which is what got me into shoes. But then I really wanted to get into something other than athletic shoes, and that’s why I graduated out of athletics and into brown shoe land here - which has been great. It’s really fun. It’s a great brand. We really consider ourselves a leather goods brand and not just a shoe brand. Our bag business is really coming on great, our small accessories are doing great. Men’s, women’s, kids - so we talk leather all day, everyday in our building. I think we bought about eight million square feet of Italian leather last year. We only buy the best Italian leather there is, so it’s a fantastic place to work.
What do you think people will be wearing at Sundance?
I think Sundance is going to be really interesting. I think there’s this whole ‘back to the earth’ movement happening. That’s why I think even a lot more American feeling products [will be trending]. You see it coming out of Japan and you see it with some of the more European designers. We have a lot of fur and vege-tan leathers like we’re using here. I think that Chanel collection really highlighted it for us. You have a French brand looking incredibly American and doing a show in Dallas. That is what I think you’re going to see a lot more of coming forward in ’14.
People were shocked the Chanel show was in Dallas. And yet, Dallas is part of Chanel’s history, which is what Karl Lagerfeld always tries to tie-in with his international shows.
I think the show itself was so right on the money though and I think it’s funny because if it was from Ralph Lauren it would be like ‘Oh, of course.’ But it was such a dramatic change from what you see from Chanel, and I think you’ll see a lot more of that in ‘14. Even somebody like Isabel Marant is doing those same kind of looks, but more in a French way, not in a straight American way. She has a lot of Western-inspired [looks], but it’s still the same basic premise.
What other designers do you look to for inspiration?
We look at everybody (laughs). It’s funny we have such a broad spectrum of products that we make. We have 2000 skews in our collection. So, we look at everybody - we pay attention. But by and large we try and keep to ourselves. We have to recognize that we’re probably one of the few [brands] that does this kind of organic design within. We’re a 150 year-old brand and we always have to be true to what the brand is about. We don’t do runway shows where we could change the direction, so we really have to be true to ourselves. I’m super interested in sports. I’m super interested in music - anything. It’s like the cliché you never know where inspiration will find you. We have twelve designers in our group. Some of them are fashion designers. Some of them are industrial designers. So we have a whole range of people looking at all kinds of crazy products.
Are you inspired by celebrities?
We really have an affinity for creatives – whether it be a musician or an actor or anybody that’s in a creative field. We feel that we’re kind of like-minded in designland. You have a preconceived notion of how you think something should be worn, but then when you see a celebrity, they tend to style it differently than what you would think - and I think that’s so fascinating. It always sparks another idea. It’s like ‘Oh, I hadn’t considered it like that. Oh, we could do more.’ I think the other thing about celebrities is they’re not afraid to actually tinker with your product. They’ll cut something, they’ll change it, they’ll do something kooky with it, and it’s like ‘Oh, yeah, that’s cool.’ So with celebrity, whether it’s an actor or musician, we’re inspired.
What about street style and bloggers?
Yeah, all those guys, we’re totally into that...The whole social media aspect is really fascinating in design. I think it has really sped up the design process in a really great way because you can get anything from anywhere at anytime. You can find out what’s happening in Japan right now and be inspired by that. It could be Jay-Z standing in Japan and it’s like ‘Wow, that’s totally different than what we thought.’ So it’s this real interesting form where it’s just fascinating and you can use the inspiration in any way you want. Celebrities are on [social media]. I think it’s cool. For us, we’re really trying to get back into a movement [where] we’re partnering with a lot of creatives. We consider ourselves a creative brand. We’re really an artisinal brand in the way that we make things. It’s not a mass produced collection of shoes. These are items that are all hand made, and people actually make them with their hands - it’s not a machine-based process. When you get into anybody that creates anything we feel that we have a real affinity with those kind of people and we’re like-minded too, so it’s always fun to watch how they do it.
Are you working on any particular collaborations right now?
We just finished one with Burton, which is a really good one. It’s a totally different one from where we’ve been. It’s a great boot collaboration for us because they are going to do a technical snowboard boot. It’s going to be one of our classic patterns, a core pattern, that they took inspiration from and they’re going to show it out at SIA at the end of the month. It’s something so fun because it’s completely different for us and it’s a really good avenue for us as well - it’s a women’s only [boot]. The Burton girls and Burton riders wear all our stuff. We’ve been giving people product over the years so we felt there was a real correlation there. And that’s another thing…Whether it’s a skier or snowboarder, all those action sports people - they’re creatives in their own right, so it was a really easy process for us. We have such a great time with them. We’ll do it for 2014 and we’ll probably redo it again for another year because we had so much fun with it. We have a couple others that are perculating right now. I have meetings when I go back [to New York] with two other collaborations which I think are going to be very, very fun and really good for us.
What key criteria do you look for with collaborative projects?
We haven’t done a lot throughout the years, but we’re starting to drift into it a little bit more. Most of them are hopefully creative based kind of stuff. I think you can take two different paths…. you can do a for-profit, money making exercise or you can do one that’s more art-based and for art. And that’s where we feel more at home. Obviously we are a for-profit business and we want to make money off of things that we produce, but at the same time we want to make a product that we’re really proud of and that’s what really drives us every day of our lives, is making great products and making a collaboration that makes sense. And when the consumer says ‘Oh, of course, that was a natural for these two to get together,’ - that’s what we’re looking for. And that’s what we felt about Burton, it was such a natural collaboration for us and that’s why it was so easy. We’ll do a lot more of them going forward. We’re having fun.
