Mytheresa Gets Real, Tapping Creatives, Entrepreneurs for New Men’s Campaign
LONDON — What does the Mytheresa man look like?
The retailer answers the question in its spring men’s campaign, which features eight individuals whose interests and careers couldn’t be more different. There are artists, designers, entrepreneurs, a former professional footballer and even a circus performer.
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Despite their different backgrounds — and ages — they have a love of luxury in common, and are pictured wearing brands such as The Row, Saint Laurent, Jil Sander and Bottega Veneta, all of which are top performers on the Mytheresa site.
Chief executive officer Michael Kliger said Mytheresa chose to focus on successful, non-celebrity men because customers are “less inspired by models or digital talents” than they are by real people.
“Online luxury shoppers are often professionals with a busy lifestyle, and thus, they get inspired by other people who have achieved something, whom they admire or who are good at what they do. We wanted to capture this idea with our new campaign,” he said.
The campaign, which breaks Wednesday on Mytheresa channels, was directed by the retailer’s chief creative officer, Julian Paul, and photographed by Jana Gerberding.
It echoes the 2020 men’s launch campaign, which also showcased eight different characters drawn from various age groups, and with different professional backgrounds.
Kliger said menswear accounts for more than 12 percent of the overall Mytheresa business, with outerwear and sneakers among the biggest categories. “What is really exciting is that we see an ongoing trend toward loafers, jackets and bags with our menswear customers,” he added.
Some 80 percent of our business is from customers who are only buying menswear. The remaining 20 percent buy menswear as well as womenswear, said Kliger, who added that the U.S. and Asia are particularly dynamic markets, while in the Middle East demand for “luxurious” menswear is strong.
As reported last month, Mytheresa posted a 7.8 percent uptick in gross merchandise value to 215.9 million euros in the second fiscal quarter.
Although the rate of growth was slower compared with the first quarter, Kliger said Mytheresa’s top customer base is “as strong as ever,” with around 3 percent of big spenders regularly generating 35 percent of sales. He described the slowdown in growth as temporary, and said that January and February were already showing improvement.
Unlike some of its online peers, Mytheresa is consistently profitable. In the second quarter, adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, was 17.7 million euros with an adjusted margin of 9.3 percent.
Last month, Mytheresa sought to underline its market position by dropping the word “fashion” from its marketing slogan, describing itself as offering “the finest edit in luxury.”
Kliger said the business is about much more than fashion. “We’re selling Pomellato, we’re selling Bang & Olufsen and we want to be ‘the’ destination for luxury,” he said.
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