The American label Eastpak recently opened up a shop in London. The doors of a 170 square meter building opened up in Carnaby Street, in the trendy Soho district, where, for the first time in Eastpak’s history, all of Eastpak’s ranges will be sold, including the brand’s clothing line. Eastpak is slowly but surely expanding its retail network. The label now has flagship stores in Russia, Brazil, Italy, Japan and Germany and more new openings are still due this year. But these are by no means the brand’s only plans; collaborations with fashion icons like young designers, artists, musicians and sports people are also included in the programme. And this has actually already happened too. For example, the Belgian designer Raf Simons has been producing a collection with Eastpak for several seasons now and a collection of bags with prints by the artistic Japanese couple known as Eley Kishimoto, is expected imminently. The new shop in London will present and exhibit an artist’s work from time to time, whilst also being home to an occasional DJ. Is Eastpak working on an entirely new strategy? “You sometimes arrive at a saturation point,” Product Manager Toon Kympers explains. “The collaborations with designers and artists have worked very well up to this point in time. You simply get the best results from bringing together two professionals with different areas of expertise. We therefore certainly have quite a few more collaboration projects in the pipeline.” Marketing Manager Matteo Martignoni stated that this is the right time to add a clothing line to the bag manufacturer’s collection. “Plus we had the opportunity. Experience with clothing was close at hand as a result of Eastpak being part of VF.” Martignoni immediately admits that it also had something to do with the label’s change of positioning. “We no longer want to position the label as purely a bag brand, but as a lifestyle brand. We are the current market leaders for rucksacks, but we want to start promoting our products as street fashion.” Hence the collaborations with musicians, sports people and artists. Eastpak will initially continue to focus on coats where the clothing is concerned, as this is most similar to the bag ‘dna’; both have a comfortable and durable image. Kympers: “The only thing which can break is the zip.” When asked about the next brand expansion, Kympers answered that it took Eastpak thirty years to come up with a clothing line, so this may take quite some time.
Eastpak was founded in 1976, when student Mark Goldman convinced his father to produce a Cordura schoolbag line, a material which father Goldman already traded in and which is still being used to produce many Eastpaks. The label, which has been part of the VF Corporation since 2006, has five shops across the globe. Eastpak produces in China and Vietnam and enjoys an annual turnover of 80 to 90 million euros.
Image: Eastpak
Click Here: Tienda Club América