Thinking About Brands: Anthropologie

Oi, guys, it's Tom.

I made a video yesterday talking about ads and brands, and in that I alluded to the fact that I was going to make another video about a particular brand, and this is that video, and it's about a catalog that I received from Anthropologie. Anthropologie is mostly women's apparel but kind of leaning towards what's called a lifestyle brand today. And I got the catalog, thought it was interesting, and so, um, just looked at some images and really sort of free-associated to them, uh, in the way that I do in the work that I do. So, um, sorry the images aren't clearer. iMovie doesn't do a great job of importing, uh, scans and JPEGs or anything else, so they're the best I could do. Um, I hope you enjoy, and, um Let me know what you think.

So take care. Bye-bye.

Okay, so I'm gonna just think out loud about this Anthropologie catalog that just arrived the other day because it just struck me as a really good example of a brand expressing its, its essence, its essential identity in a piece that just seemed to capture it.

So let's take a look first at the COVID the front cover of the catalog. Now, the front cover of the catalog has an image of this young woman, and she's wearing a—

I guess it's kind of a long sweater coat kind of a thing with some interesting— floral decorations and big buttons. And if you look at the whole ensemble, the whole outfit, you know, she's wearing this kind of gauzy skirt underneath it and what looked like— I don't know, I'd see—

now some of my fashion technology is going to be deficient, but I'm just going to talk about what I see.

Kind of, you know, leggings or some sort of textured hosiery and some interesting Thai shoes. And she's standing there. First of all, the woman looks a little bit like— if you're familiar with Sandra Bernhard, the comedian— she looks a little like Sandra Bernhard. And that's to say that she has not a glamorous face. This is not a glamorous young woman. She's not an unattractive young woman, but she's not a glamorous young woman. And she's standing there with a look on her face, she's smiling at the camera. She's smiling at the camera and— but there's a self-possession about that smile. This is not a smile of a needy smile. It's a very kind of a composed smile. There's a presence there, and she's standing in front of this house. Looks like a country house, and actually it looks like it could be, you know, a meeting hall or even a Quaker church or something, you know, very simple out in the country. And right here from the very beginning on the front page of the catalog, this brand is telling us a lot about itself. This is not a brand that is looking for the customer who's interested in glitz and glamour and the latest fashion off the runway. This is a brand that's appealing to someone who feels at home in her own skin and who has a certain approach to herself and to femininity. So, so then you open the, open the catalog up and there's a 2-page spread then, which if you've ever seen the painting by Wyeth, Christina's World, there's an odd kind of an echo of the Christina's World feel about this posture, this pose that this same model from the COVID is in. Again, it's in this sort of country, idyllic-looking setting. The lighting is, you know, afternoon.

There is— it's a lovely photograph, nicely composed and nicely shot, but it's not a glamour photograph. It's a photograph that you don't— that gives you a feeling of there's a reality about this that is absent in so much of fashion photography.

And the, the caption for the photograph is "Where time stands still." So the brand is telling you something about its approach to time, which is not about now, but it's about— as so many fashion brands are— But it's about something enduring, time standing still. And the clothes that are here are clothes that have a modern and yet timeless element to them.

There's something about this— sweater, like sweater coat kind of a piece that this woman is wearing.

That's, you know, it could be from many different eras. So again, a timelessness about this. And also in this photograph, the model, the subject, is not looking at the camera. She's looking off into the distance. There's a contemplative quality about her here. Which is again in that neighborhood of self-possession, that sense of a woman who is reflective, who is looking inside rather than outside. So, so here's a brand that's telling you something about its thoughts about its customers and who it wants to appeal to. Now, if you turn the page again and you go to the next 2-page spread, you again see this same model again, not looking at the camera, looking off into the distance. In the, in the left-hand page, here's this woman. She's standing there in the, in the doorway. Now, this doorway is an old weather-beaten doorway of this same house, I assume. And so you have a, you have a a quality of age that's being portrayed here, and as the Japanese call it, a quality of wabi-sabi, a weathered, timed, patinated kind of look to what's here that is not glitzy, modern, shiny, blingy, you know, all the words that go with so much of what makes up fashion is absent in this image and in the image on the, on the facing page as well, where again you have a sense of reflection. So here, here is this woman who is what I'm going to call self-possessed. She's looking inside. Her clothes do not look like they are chosen for their sexuality, for their sex appeal. They're chosen for some kind of private meaning. It's as if this woman is dressing entirely for herself, not dressing for the crowd.

There's a—

there's an idiosyncratic quality about the way she looks. And, and by the way, she's kind of bow-legged and, you know, and very skinny. And, you know, she— this is not a fashion glamour fashion model. This is someone who is who is— who has an aesthete quality to her. She looks like she reads Emily Dickinson and, you know, Jane Austen. And, you know, she's not— she didn't worry about whether or not Britney did a good job on the MTV Music Awards. There's something else going on in this woman's life besides fashion. And if you— as you continue to go through this and turn the page again, you see there is a certain approach to femininity that's being presented here in the pages of this catalog that is distinctive. It's, it's this brand saying, this is what we think modern women are interested in. An interior life, a certain kind of fashion that has substance to it. It's— there's a pretty quality to it. That's not a word that you use often with a lot of fashion. Some fashion brands would be appalled if you use the word pretty to describe what they produce, but there is a pretty quality here. There's detailing, there's embroidery, there's little— there's pieces of it that let you know that this brand is interested in detail, and they're interested in women who are interested in detail as their customers. Now, of course, not everyone is going to be taken by this brand, but that's the point. The brand doesn't try to appeal to everyone. It tries to appeal to women who have this sense of themselves and are looking for clothing that will—

that will capture that sense of themselves.

And everywhere I look in this catalog, I turn the page again and I see distinctive pieces that are not in— mainstream of current fashion but have a style to them that is just a little bit offbeat, that has a very strong feminine perspective. I mean, everything about these clothes is feminine. You wouldn't say that they're boyish or manish in any way, and, and yet they're feminine in a very distinctive kind of way. Now, if you also look at the at the settings again that they have this model in. Same model, she's it throughout the whole catalog. You know, take a look at this brown chair up here.

This is a chair from the—

what, a club chair from the '30s, maybe the '40s. Weather-beaten, worn, a chair that has had a life. There is again, when objects have this sense of interiority about them, a sense that they had— that there's meaning attached to them. It's the appeal of the antiques that makes people who are collectors be drawn to things that are old rather than things that are new. It's not an accident that they've chosen those pieces as the—

as part of the set the setting for their clothes.

Nor is it an accident in this image on page 11 that they have this model standing outside. First of all, she's wearing, you know, a layered outfit. And, you know, what are layers in outfits? You know, there's a sense of complexity. There's a sense of maybe mystery. About this woman that is not all— everything is not all there on the surface. You're seeing that there is a lot of attention to detail once again, and the setting that they have her standing in front of is a wall which is kind of the—

really, if anybody asks you what wabi-sabi is, this wall is wabi-sabi.

This wall has the essence of that worn and soulful depth that the Japanese have, you know, revere and have really elevated to an art form in presenting in this kind of depthful way. So, So what does this say about this brand?

As you go through, here's an image of a television set from the '50s with a statue of a black, a glass statue of a Black Panther on top of the television set.

Again, the timelessness.

Every bit of this brand is highly, highly feminized. This is a brand that I kid around with Karen when we go into Anthropologie. It feels like, you know, the estrogen is in the air in this brand. This is a brand about fertility, and it's a brand— this is not a brand about, you know, the runway and implants, you know. This is a brand about a whole other approach to femininity and to being a woman. As you go through the catalog, page after page capturing that same sort of feeling, and then you go to— besides selling apparel, besides selling clothes, this catalog, this brand also sells furniture, and they sell objects, they sell— decorative objects.

And you take a look at this, at the furniture that they sell.

There's a sofa and a couple of chairs that are shown here in this image.

And what you see is, you know, what decade is this furniture from?

Well, it's certainly not from the 21st century in its sensibility. And it's probably from the '40s, the '30s and the '40s. There's a strong arts and crafts mission quality to the prints, and, you know, what you have here again is a brand that is appealing to people who are dissatisfied with the current approach to life, you might say, and that's what brands do. They create a world And if they're distinctive brands, they create a world, and they invite those people who are aspiring to live in that same world, they invite those people into the brand to live the brand with them and to buy things like the drawer pulls and switch plates that are on— that are some of the objects that they sell here on page 33 of this catalog.

And as you go on, you see that there is, you know, the nostalgia, if you wanted to call it nostalgia, of this brand is not a blatant nostalgia in the way that so much nostalgia gets presented, in that they're not trying to copy material from this, from the '30s and the '40s, they're capturing something about the essence of that and presenting it in their own way. So, you know, I, when I looked at this catalog, it just struck me as an excellent example of a brand that is, that knows really who it is and is presenting itself to customers in a distinctive way.

And if you resonate with the sensibility that this brand has, I think you're going to find this catalog to be very appealing. If you don't resonate with the sensibility of this brand, I think you're going to find it appalling. So thanks a lot. Take it easy, and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.