Soho Fashion: 20 years of sustainable growth in a changing world. Exclusive interview with founder Jacob Tresckow

In the context of global changes in the fashion retail market, many distributors have faced serious challenges. SOHO Fashion - one of the few companies that not only retained its business, but also found new growth points. On the eve of the company's 20th anniversary, its founder Jacob Treskov рассказал Shoes report about the path taken, the lessons of the crises and plans for the future.

Jacob Treskov - CEO of SOHO Fashion 

Shoes Report: The latest events in the world and in our country have hit the business of distributors of international brands. Please tell us how you coped and how you feel now Soho Fashion?

Jacob Tresckow: In November of this year, the companies SOHO Fashion will be 20 years old. For Russian business, this is a solid period, especially considering that we have not experienced any radical transformations. Our path began with the wholesale direction, but already in 2010, having gained experience and strengthened our expertise, we went beyond it, adding new sales channels. We always look to the future: we adopt the best global practices and act proactively. Then this was expressed in the opening of our own retail stores, the launch of private labels and partnerships with leading global brands. Today, our hybrid format remains a competitive advantage - the omnichannel nature that we introduced 15 years ago is only now becoming a standard for many companies.

В 2005 year I was involved in distributing Tommy Hilfiger footwear and accessories in the CIS, working for the brand's licensee. 2007-m bought the business from the distributor he supervised and began expanding the brand portfolio. By 2010 In 2015, we became a key player in the niche of "clothing brand footwear and accessories" - Tommy Hilfiger, Gant, Marc O'Polo, Napapijri, Strellson, Pepe Jeans. At that time, lifestyle brands were just gaining popularity, and we were among the first to occupy this niche in Russia.

The accumulated experience and deep expertise allowed us to see new opportunities for growth. We reviewed the business strategy and took an important step: at the beginning of 2020, I handed over operational management to a professional CEO to focus on developing promising areas:

- Distribution of sexual health products  (2020 to present) We have brought our products from a narrow niche of specialized retail to mainstream retail (Golden Apple, M.Video, L'Etoile). At the same time, we launched these products for sale on marketplaces.

- Distribution of Camel Active (2020 - present). In 2020, we expanded our portfolio by becoming the official distributor of the international clothing brand Camel Active in Russia. The existing franchise network joined the project, which allowed us to quickly strengthen Camel Active's position in the Russian market using already established distribution channels.

- Strategic partnership with the UFC brand (2021-2022). We became the official UFC licensee in Russia and the CIS countries, receiving the rights to produce brand products and launch the UFC Russia online store. Despite the termination of the project due to the company's departure from the Russian market in 2022, this experience allowed us to strengthen our competencies in the licensing business and work out mechanisms for promoting a global foreign brand. This was a valuable contribution to our portfolio of expertise. These competencies later played a key role in a new achievement - obtaining a license for the EMU Australia brand, confirming our reputation as a strong partner for global brands.

I want to say that we consciously began to restructure business processes long before external challenges. We carried out a deep modernization of the wholesale direction and actively developed e-commerce, plus we had 4 more retail projects - SOHO, Clarks, ARA, Picard (of which one was multi-brand and three were single-brand).

It was thanks to the restructuring of processes carried out in advance that the company approached the pandemic period with a stable operating model. This allowed us to carry out the forced optimization of the retail network as efficiently as possible - we closed only truly unprofitable points, minimizing the company's overall losses. The flow of people to shopping centers decreased sharply, which called into question their further rapid rehabilitation. A good example is the MEGA shopping center, which was a leisure center where many went with their whole family on weekends, and at one point it became a huge empty building. 

And at the same time, there was a transformation of marketplaces. Until 2020, most e-commerce platforms were in the development stage, and with the onset of the pandemic, they seriously increased their turnover, they bought out most of the branded goods and we became one of their largest suppliers.

However, there were some difficulties here too. The pandemic situation provoked an influx of all branded goods to marketplaces, since the stores that were closed literally dumped the remaining goods on Wildberries, Ozon, Lamoda for sale, and then it was impossible to return to the previous conditions of working with marketplaces.

But the main problem for us was the issue of parallel imports, which were given the green light in our country due to the departure of many international brands from the Russian market in 2022. The brands that left Russia stopped controlling pricing. Both counterfeits and stocks appeared on marketplaces, shoes were offered at prices much lower than the market price in wholesale channels, and competitive conditions became unequal. There is no point in selling something if a direct competitor offers the same product 40% cheaper.

Plus, in 2022, some brands behaved in an ugly way from our point of view, violating long-term contracts. We understand that this happened under external pressure, but nevertheless, it is not very pleasant, and with some, not all legal issues have been resolved yet.

As a result, we decided to grow not in width, but in depth, shifting the vector of attention from those brands that chose to "leave" to those that wanted to stay and develop in Russia. And, despite the reduction in the number of brands in our portfolio, and perhaps due to this, from 2020 to 2025 our turnover increased by 1,5 times.

Shoes Report: So you started selling more of the brands that you still have?

Jacob Tresckow: We carried out a strategic optimization of the brand portfolio, updating the range with promising new brands and ending cooperation with unstable partners. The brands Clarks, Camel Active and EMU Australia (we have been working with them for 10 years) were chosen as key partners.

We also started trading independently on marketplaces, which gave us greater capacity, we manage the goods better. Products "18+" and the direction "clothing" gave us additional turnover, that is, we significantly expanded the business.

There are currently many requests for mono-brand retail EMU Australia, but their summer collections do not meet the demands of the Russian market. More in In 2022, we initiated negotiations on a license to develop EMU demi-season and summer collections, specially adapted to our market. For the brand, this was the first experience of transferring production rights - the negotiations took time, but we proved our expertise. And finally, in 2025 - the long-awaited agreement!

In the summer of 2026, we will present to the buyer the first summer collection developed by us EMU. After that, we will launch the project of mono-brand retail EMU Australia, which we are going to develop under a franchise.

There is currently a high demand for Western brand stores, and our advantage is that we, as a large distributor receiving goods directly from production, can keep prices more or less at the European level.

We also have the S brandcholl.

Shoes Report: This is an American brand, right?

Jacob Tresckow: Yes, but it is owned by a German investment fund. Scholl is part of the transnational holding Reckitt Benckiser. Their footwear is a separate line, the design bureau is located in Milan, and production is carried out in China, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Shoes Report: As I see it, Scholl is developing well now, they have powerful advertising campaigns...

Jacob Tresckow:  Yes, that's true. Birkenstock, after leaving for LVMH, closed all its wholesale, became too expensive, exclusive. Scholl  may take away some of its former audience.

We still sell Braun Buffel bags and haberdashery well, it is one of the oldest European brands with almost 140 years of family management. We had a joint venture with them, but due to recent events, it was closed. But we continue to cooperate with them, as well as with 7-8 other brands. There used to be about 30 of them.

Shoes Report: Will you be bringing in a third-party design agency to develop the summer collection? EMU Australia?

Jacob Tresckow: We have partners who do design. We use EMU archives, but we add relevant elements - for example, from Scholl. The main thing is to preserve the brand DNA.

Advertising

Advertising of Business Global Expo LLC, Taxpayer Identification Number (INN) 7710961530, erid: 2W5zFJRB7Va

Shoes Report: You'll probably start working on this now?

Jacob Tresckow: We are not planning a wide distribution for the SS-2026 collection, we will have a test launch with a focus on quality. To begin with, it is important to develop a decent product, position it correctly, bring it and sell it well. I want the first experience not to be a failure.

We have agreed in advance on sales of the test collection on Lamoda, as an exclusive online partner, and with No One, as an exclusive retail partner. We will also look at individual boutiques. Only after that, in the second half of 2026, we plan to open the first mono-brand store.

At one time, also after requests for the creation of separate retail from wholesale partners, we took up the development of multi-brand SOHO stores. The first SOHO stores were opened under a franchise. Similar requests are already coming from many of our partners to create EMU Australia retail.

Shoes Report: You had some really nice stores. business center in Moscow. Do they exist now?

Jacob Tresckow: They exist, but there are not many of them. We haven't redesigned them for a long time, so they are recognizably attractive. We focused on developing online sales on marketplaces. We thought that this was the area where we could be very competitive, and it turned out to be so.

Of course, we are present in retail and will remain so. But the problem with multi-brands is that a stable assortment is important to them, and now it is not easy. In addition, against the backdrop of the pandemic and the SVO, many shopping centers have lost their appeal. For some sites, we simply did not renew the lease agreement and closed the stores.

Shoes Report: How many have been closed, how many are left?

Jacob Tresckow: We currently have 7 of our own stores, at the peak there were about 40. SOHO boutiques are open in Moscow Region, Arkhangelsk, and Yekaterinburg.

In Moscow, Clarks stores operate in the Metropolis and Europolis shopping centers, and there is also a store in the Greenwich shopping center in Yekaterinburg.

Shoes Report: And Clarks supplies the collections for them

Jacob Tresckow: Yes. Clarks is a cool brand, but they also had big problems and there are some nuances in our interactions. We started working with them in 2013, and over the past 11 years they have changed 7 CEOs. The brand was bought by a Hong Kong fund. Clarks was very tossed about - they went to premium, then to the low price segment, then back to premium... Naturally, this did not help us, because stability is a sign of skill, but it is still a cool brand. I consider it an honor that we have been working with them for so long, growing and learning together.

Clarks This year marks 200 years, and we are currently doing a major advertising campaign on the Russian market.

Shoes Report: So, it turns out that you still see the point in developing traditional retail, despite the fact that people have stopped actively visiting shopping centers?

Jacob Tresckow: In Moscow, we are located at excellent sites "Europolis", "Metropolis", there are also worthy and not covered by us - "Aviapark", "Atrium". In the regions there are strong shopping centers: "Gorizont" in Rostov-on-Don, "Moremall" in Sochi. We have strong partners in Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk.

In January 2024, I returned to the position of CEO of SOHO Fashion, we went through a reorganization, some things were changed, tested, and as a result, the strategy was rebooted again.

We have gone through a pandemic, geopolitics and crises - but not only survived, but found new growth points. 20 years is a history of adaptation, where even crises became an opportunity to rethink the business. Today, SOHO Fashion is not just a distributor, but a flexible company that can find new ways in changing conditions.

Shoes Report: Do you already know what you will be presenting at the Euro Shoes exhibition in August?

Jacob Tresckow: Despite the reduction of the wholesale direction and a more compact stand, the last exhibition exceeded our expectations - the flow of customers increased significantly.

The change in wholesale buyer behavior was to our advantage - many partners now prefer to work through distributors due to difficulties with international payments. Even the smaller area of ​​the stand allowed us to create a more intimate and personalized atmosphere for negotiations with Partners.

At the upcoming exhibition, we are considering the possibility of presenting spring-summer collections: new items from the cult brand Beverly Hills Polo Club, style and comfort in modern trends from the GAS brand, the always relevant Scholl  and, of course, teasers of the EMU Australia summer collection – the first showing of models developed specifically for the Russian market.

Paradoxically, the current situation has opened up new opportunities for us – we have become closer to our Partners and can offer them additional benefits from cooperation with us.

Interview conducted by Marina Shumilina