Perry Ellis’s CEO Oscar Feldenkreis on Sports, AI and Department Stores [INTERVIEW]

WWD: It’s been a while since we’ve talked, how’s business and where are the areas of strength?

Oscar Feldenkreis: Today, 60 percent of our business is geared toward sports: anything that’s golf, swimwear with Nike, pickleball, tennis. We actually have 12 ambassadors who wear our product within the sports world. So that is definitely a big opportunity. When we relate our brands to sports, they do extremely well. It’s not only the publicity we get, but also the opportunity to talk to a different customer that relates to the brand in a different way.

WWD: I didn’t realize you had such a big sports business. Which brands do you have?

O.F.: Callaway, PGA Tour, Ben Hogan, Grand Slam and Jack Nicklaus are the five brands that we operate. Original Penguin also has sports product and it’s celebrating its 70th anniversary next year.

WWD: What about your other businesses, how are they performing?

O.F.: Our other businesses are doing well when it comes to Perry and Original Penguin. Now that people are back in the office, our Perry dresswear and dress casualwear are doing well. We also have a new team in place under Michael Miille. He’s in charge of creative and he finally knows the brand well so he’s able to articulate the needs and the DNA. The same goes for our Penguin team.

WWD: You’ve had different president running Perry Ellis over the years including Jason Zuckerman. Who’s running it now?

O.F.: I’m running both Perry and Penguin. I don’t have presidents anymore — we eliminated that. I’m much more involved, working with the teams so I can train them. I’d rather help teach and mentor people for the future, rather than hiring others that I have to train, teach and mentor. Of the team that we have in place today, some are new, some have been here for a while. On both sides there are people who have been here 15 years or more, so I’m very blessed. I’m more hands on, I can make decisions quicker. I don’t need to go through a committee.

WWD: And you’re not public anymore, so you don’t have to answer to shareholders.

O.F.: I recently went on Bloomberg and they asked me if I’d ever go to the public market again and I said, “No, God no.” The regulations are so, so different today than they were 1993 [when we went public] and even when we left it in 2018. [As a private company,] you can invest for the future and look at the long-term strategy. You don’t look at your quarterly numbers to see if they’re going to hurt your EPS and monthly earnings.

WWD: Do you own the business in its entirety now?

O.F.: Yes, we own 100 percent — we bought out our partners last September, so it’s family owned, and our employees and associates are much happier. We’re going to institute an advisory board in the very near future to help and assist us. They’ll be people in fashion, legal, real estate, financing.

WWD: Speaking of real estate, how many stores do you operate today?

O.F.: We have 81 stores today between Perry, Penguin and Cubavera. They’re regular and off-price, golf and tennis stores. And we’re also testing Golf Apparel stores, we have four now and they’re more for liquidation than anything else.

WWD: How is business overall at Perry Ellis International?

O.F.: In July and August, we really started noticing a slowdown in the business and the traffic in the stores, depending on the market. It was a very wet summer and rounds of golf were down in the Northeast. But whenever we have delivered newness, the performance has been good. The consumer goes through a period of time buying clearance or marked down product, but the new product is actually performing well. Today, you have to be very strong in innovation and newness. Consumers want as much newness as possible.

WWD: Perry Ellis is primarily a department store brand and that channel has been pretty challenged. What are you experiencing?

O.F.: I still feel good about department stores. I think consumers will always find the reason to go to a department store. And they themselves are changing and adapting to what the consumers are looking for. Many of them invested a lot of money during COVID-19 on e-commerce platforms, which I think has helped them and will continue to do so. But it’s also up to the brands to come up with the newest and the greatest product, to understand the values of the consumer that shops in the department stores and the demographics. The demographics in the state of Florida, as an example, have changed dramatically after COVID-19. You have more people that have come from the Northeast or California. So you have to adapt the marketing. It’s not the same as it was in 2018 or 2019, and sometimes we forget that in our industry. It’s not only about delivering product to a single store. If you’re in Macy’s, you’re in 50, 70, 100 doors and you have to understand the demographics of those markets. I always tell my people to visit stores — the more knowledge you get, the better.

WWD: Looking at the industry today, the brand management firms like Authentic Brands Group are the biggest players when it comes to acquiring brands. Are you interested in buying anything to add to your portfolio?

O.F.: Yes, we would love to buy brands. We have no problems either buying brands or licensing brands, wherever the opportunities are.

WWD: What categories appeal to you? Is it more sports labels?

O.F.: I would do sports. I would do accessories. I would do apparel. We’re in men’s, we do ladies, we do a little bit of kids. We just went into golf accessories and we do tennis accessories. All those paddle sports are very popular now. Buying or licensing brands is still in our DNA. I wouldn’t go into ladies — it’s not our expertise, but anything in the men’s world, we would definitely be interested in.

WWD: Where do you see the company going in the future? Do you see yourself expanding your international footprint?

O.F.: When it comes to international, we’re making a very big push in Europe and India, which has become the new focus. We have a lot of distributors worldwide for Callaway in Europe for instance, and we just started shipping Nike into China. We signed a distributor in Southeast Asia for PGA Tour as well as Ben Hogan. Perry is in Latin America and we’re in the process of taking it into Europe and Australia, but that would be more on the casual side.

WWD: Are you satisfied with where the business is today?

O.F.: In general, we’re very happy. We’re able to focus on our future and make investments. We’re installing new planning systems using AI wherever we can throughout the corporation. That’s going to be important. You’re going to be able to develop designs and patterns, and eventually merchandising plans with AI. You’ve got to stay ahead of the game. The only thing that separates you and the consumer is innovation and being fast. You’ve got to be extremely nimble. Look at the wealthiest companies today. They’re all led by young people who can make decisions fairly quickly.

WWD: It seems like you see a bright future.

O.F.: I think our industry has definitely turned around. Some of our retail partners are going through a transition right now but I’m confident they’re going to find success in the very near future. I have the utmost respect for the new executive leaders at many of these retailers. I think they come with a fresh, new mindset and vision, and you have to be open minded to listen.