March 30, 2013 |
Interviews can be a tricky beast. You either know too much about someone and are not sure what to leave out, or you know too little and are not sure where to start. Then, of course, there’s the subject’s mood on the day: will he be open and interesting, or monosyllabic and obstructive?
The interview with Jeremy Langmead, the editor-in-chief of Mrporter.com, did not bode well. He not only insisted on seeing the questions in advance (thus removing any chance of spark and spontaneity), but asked, too, if his PR manager could sit in on the interview. Considering we were here to talk about fashion, this seemed a little precious. What did he want to be protected from? Was he scared he might say his preferred colour is navy, when he should have said emerald? Would there be an almighty political fall-out if he said his favourite collections this autumn were by Ami, Gucci and Michael Bastian? One can only imagine.
We conduct the interview in Mr Porter’s vast, monochrome offices in west London, which are a little reminiscent of the baddie’s lair in a Bond film… you half expect to find Natalie Massenet sitting at one end on a large swivel chair, stroking a white fluffy cat, and surrounded by television screens flickering with images of Isabel Marant dresses and Yves Saint Lauren shoes being fired at in fashion hot spots all over the world.
Langmead arrives fresh from having his photograph taken. It took quite some time – “It was tricky to find a spot where the light was kind,” whispers the photographer’s assistant – and he apologises for being late. He takes a sip from a glass of Vita Coco water (predictable) and we start the interview.
“Do you like having your picture taken?” I ask, to break the ice. Langmead looks concerned and then whispers to his PR. She explains that he was unprepared for this question as it wasn’t on the list we sent over in advance. I apologise for my underhand approach and eventually he agrees to answer anyway.
“Not really, no,” he replies. “I hate looking at myself.” One glance at his Facebook page proves otherwise, but I don’t like to say anything. He continues, “I think my dislike for being in front of the camera is linked to my former career as a male supermodel. To me, it just reminds me of the past, and I only like to look to the future.” Both myself and his PR look a little surprised. Neither of us were aware – and, with the greatest of respect, would have guessed – that this might have been the case. In fact, once the interview is over and I spend a few hours researching the possibility on Google, my suspicion is confirmed: Langmead never was a male supermodel. Enquiries to his office later that week reveal that there was a small misunderstanding; apparently, he had been referring to the time he once appeared in the background of a print advertisement for British Gas. The word “supermodel” was, the PR explains, a slip of the tongue, lost in translation. “Lost in translation?” I ask her. “But he’s British.” “Yes,” she explains patiently, “but he spent much of his childhood in Norway.”
It seems it might be easier to stick to business. Langmead was hired in 2010 to help launch Mr Porter, the brother site to Net-a-porter.com, as the global online retail destination for men’s style. The creative agency Wednesday had pitched the idea of launching a men’s site, along with the name and the look, to Natalie Massenet 18 months earlier. The e-tail entrepreneur, impressed by the pitch, and instinctively feeling the time was right for a male shopping site, immediately set about putting together a team, and Langmead, then editor of UK Esquire, soon received a call.
“When I received a call from Natalie’s office asking if I could come and see her, I knew what it was about immediately, or certainly hoped I did. We had met before and I had always been charmed by her, but hearing her talk so passionately about this project, and realising how sharp and on the ball she was, not only about retail but also how men tick, I came away utterly in love with her and the job.” Before I can say anything, he adds: “Yes, I know, it’s really ass-licky to say you love your boss, but I don’t think there are many men who don’t fall a little bit in love with Natalie.”
Why? I ask.
“Because, yes, she’s attractive, but more than that, she has that unusual combination of steely determination and emotional intelligence. For the four months before we launched Mr Porter I was in the office every day from 9am until 2 or 3am the following morning. There was so much to do, a whole team to hire and train, a new language and landscape for me to navigate, a whole Mr Porter world to create, and absolutely no room for failure. One night, at about 11pm, shortly before we launched, with my hair sticking up all over the place and my spectacles askew, I bumped into Natalie by the office vending machine. ‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘When you first started, you were so glamorous and now look at you.’ She then gave me a big hug and pottered back to her office. I like the fact that she was sympathetic enough to care that I was knackered, but also more than happy for that to be the case if it meant the business would launch on time.”
Was it hard working in a digital format after spending 20 years in print?
“Yes and no. I was still responsible for creating content, visuals, communicating clearly to a consumer, and managing a team – all part of what I’d done before, but what I had less experience of was the digital and retail worlds, especially the language and internal workings of them. In my first week, people were asking me to approve wireframes, advise them on PID production, help plan Google search options, email marketing programmes, and hire a social media writer. The latter is a job that didn’t even exist until recently, so how on earth would I know how to hire one?”
How did you get up to speed with all that?
“The Net-A-Porter Group is a fast-paced one and they expect you, in the most charming way possible, to get up to speed with how it works very quickly. And so you do; you have to. And actually it was very refreshing, at the age of 34 [another Norwegian ‘misunderstanding’ – he’s actually 46], to leave my comfort zone and learn something new.”
So how did you approach a shopping site for men?
“Whilst using all the knowledge and insight our sister site had accumulated, we started all over again with Mr Porter. The site needed to be created, plotted, designed and thought through from a completely different perspective. Men think, and therefore shop, differently from women, and so we needed to understand, in great detail, what they would intuitively want, expect and enjoy from a retail site made for them. Everyone from the tech teams, the user experience teams, marketing team, the buyers and the creative desk had to study, research and test every element of the site. We were going to be the first global big player to enter this market and so it really was a step into the unknown. And, all the time, there hovered that big scary question – would men actually want to shop online?”
Well it seems, by all appearances, that the answer was yes…
“Phew, phew, phew. Thank God it’s taken off. And quickly. Much more quickly than I had hoped. We now have 1.2 million visitors to the site a month, and 115,000 customers. In hindsight, of course, it has worked… Firstly, most men don’t like to shop and so we enable you to avoid most of that experience and do it seamlessly and easily from your desk or armchair. Secondly, as a gender we hate the thought of seeming ignorant. With all the editorial, advice and product information we give on the site, you can ask a load of questions without anyone knowing you asked them, and then carry on shopping armed with a wealth of information and inspiration. Thirdly, we put a huge emphasis on service – same-day delivery in London and Manhattan, beautiful packaging, and we pick it up from you for free if you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit.”
What have you learnt about the way men shop?
“With every season, we are armed with more and more information – not only about how men shop, but what they want to buy. Our customers are very vocal, they ask a lot of questions and, when they get the right answers, will happily spend a lot of money. They like to have access to all the big-name designer brands, but are also eager to discover new niche brands – we see Givenchy shark sweatshirts fly out the figurative door at the same speed as Loro Piana cashmere sweaters.”
So, do you love your job?
“I love the fast pace, the competitive spirit, the global reach, the amazing team we have put together here, working with the buyers on what to buy each season, and the fact that we get to produce daily content that entertains, informs and inspires on a digital platform, and in a retail arena, that enables us to measure, very quickly and very clearly, if we are connecting with people. I feel that now I am having a dialogue with the consumer, rather than a one-way conversation.”
This interview sadly feels more like the latter. And I am about to pose another question when the PR lady interrupts and apologises for the fact that we’ve run out of time. Mr Langmead has, apparently, got to attend a very high-powered meeting with a top international designer. He stands up to go, shakes my hand and says he’s so sorry that he has to rush to meet someone much more important. Ten minutes later, after a heated debate with the PR about how we never agree to give copy approval, I stroll through Westfield shopping centre and, to my surprise, spot Langmead sitting in the window of Pret A Manger. He’s not talking to a top-level designer at all, he’s stuffing his face with a cheese and pickle baguette and reading a copy of FHM.
Text Jeremy Langmead
