After Colette, Sarah Andelman has had another great idea

Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis Editorial

█ The fashion world was shocked when acclaimed Parisian concept store Colette announced its closure in 2017, after 20 years of glamour. By any measure, the store was a leader and disruptor in the industry, innovating today’s bricks-and-mortar retail sector. At the time, Colette introduced unconventional collaborations and cutting-edge retail concepts that set an example for many successors, including Dover Street Market in London. 

In 1997, Colette Roussaux and her daughter, Sarah Andelman, founded Colette at 213 Rue Saint-Honoré; they ran the store themselves until its closure. The store was meant as a gift from mother to daughter when Andelman was only a 19-year-old art student at École du Louvre. "My mother opened it for me because I was not going to work for her previous company," says Andelman. 

In its 20 years of operation, the store became such an important player that it received an endorsement from Karl Lagerfeld, who once said it’s the one shop he would go to “because they have things no one else has.” Moreover, it laid a solid foundation for Andelman’s new project — a creative consulting company called Just An Idea. 

I caught up with Sarah Andelman on a rainy Parisian day to discuss life after Colette, her thoughts on today’s retail, and much more. 

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Q: What was it like to work with your mother during the Colette years？

A: It's definitely a unique experience working with family because we understand each other without speaking. Sometimes if a person claimed something was my mom's idea, I could tell immediately that it was false. So I would check with my mother, and it would turn out my intuition was right, and that she never said that. So we knew we were really a team, and she gave me the freedom to choose projects and do the buying. She would take care of the company, staff and the shop to make sure everything went smoothly.

Q: I think you found the perfect ending note, to close Colette after 20 years. What drove you to make such a decision?

A:The main reason was my mom deciding to retire. I just would not continue without her because it was her team. I felt like retail had changed a lot, so we would have had to rethink everything and build a new concept for Colette, or we close on a happy ending. It was like a kid growing up; we decided to let him fly away.

Q: How did you develop such a keen eye for selecting brands and projects?

A: I look at everything to get all kinds of information. People on the street, or Instagram, are sources of inspiration. Life's become a little different. When I was at Colette, I used to worry about new drinks for the water bar, new brands for the beauty section, and new events for the store.

Nowadays, I still want to keep this diversity, but I don’t want to focus only on fashion or beauty. I want to know who the next emerging designer is, and what's happening beyond fashion. I continue to read print magazines. I think they are still very important. I really admire editors working at magazines. Some people may say you can just read the same information on the press releases you receive, but putting in the effort to edit and translate information to support a new restaurant, or a jewellery or beauty brand, is also meaningful. Nothing can compare with the photography and content in print magazines.

Q: It seems you no longer believe in the power of the permanent retail store, saying you think “doing e-commerce and a pop-up store is a better retail combination”. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

A: I think it's so easy now to buy online, and most people do it. I do it. If I want to buy a gift from the Museum of Modern Art at 11 pm, I will receive it within 48 hours. New brands don't care about wholesale distribution. It's true that many young brands grow through their community, without needing malls or department stores, where their products can get lost among other brands. So, I think e-commerce is convenient.

Of course, you want to see, touch and try the products offline. A new shop always excites consumers, but they will gradually get bored if you don't refresh or reinvent the space and offering. Now everything is so fast, and yet there’s still so much you can offer. So that's why I think with a temporary pop-up shop during an art fair, people will get excited and stay curious. Pop-ups are common in fashion. To be successful, brands have to offer exclusive items, bring special collaborations, and display them in unique ways. They also need to find a better way to communicate the complete collaboration concept. 

Q: Galeries Lafayette, Le Bon Marché, Selfridges and other department stores around the world demand exclusive products. Fashion houses are already working overtime to meet growing demands. When collections are available everywhere and similar to each other, is exclusivity harder to achieve?

A: Exactly. It's tough if you work with a major brand, you have to go deeper and look for the next brand and cooler things because you cannot compete with flagships from these big brands. But like you said, you can’t make an exclusive item for all platforms. It is about finding the right balance.

Q: Why is authenticity crucial in creating buzz for any collaborative projects?

A: While doing a new project together, you have to share values. It can be surprising and unexpected, but not fast or fake. I really care about each project and try to understand why it makes sense for both parties.

Recently, I saw a collaboration between a Japanese sneaker brand and a French couture brand. I asked myself, why is this cool? Who are they going to reach? Are they going to reach customers from the couture house or sneaker brand? Why didn't the French brand do it with a local company?

I try to ask lots of questions before moving forward with a project. I think a lot about the brands I work with, and then try to find the natural connection for the collaboration. That's why it will work because we have extensive reasoning to support it. I introduced a museum I worked with to a streetwear brand. Why? Because this streetwear brand’s designer has long used classical paintings from museums as inspiration. It's not coming out of nowhere. So his story and this collaboration are both authentic, and people will feel that.

At the beginning of each project, you need to think about the price for the consumer, cost of production, and where your market is. You can show crazy products, but you always need to think about these factors. For example, the Longchamp bag collection with the illustrator Clo’e Floirat is very cute and universal, so the brand can have a big distribution. There are no rules, but you need to see who you want to speak to.

Q: I'm surprised that right after closing Colette, you started your new company Just An Idea. Where did you get the idea for this name?

A: I was looking for a name while I was working with Sacai for a pop-up at Colette. At that time, I was just thinking of what we would do with Sacai. I was always telling the designer, “Why don't we do this and that? This was just an idea…”.  So I thought maybe “Just An Idea” would be a nice name. In July 2017, after we announced on Instagram that we were going to close in December, some people started to contact me, and I said, "Please wait, I will get back to you all in January.” So I thought maybe I could use Just An Idea to help on these projects, pop-ups and brand strategy.

Q: The advice you gave to the new generation was to follow your instinct. Why is that so important?

A: Because we are in an age of influencers. You may think influencers are cool and want to be like them, and do what they do. But you have to be yourself to create, without looking too much at what everybody else is doing. Otherwise, you will be tempted to copy things that sell well. I don't think creating a best-selling product is an easy process. Items that sell well for a time won't sell well forever. There is a rotation, one brand sells well while others don't, but the market is always changing. You have to follow that moment in time, and be able to evolve. Also, it's better for you to know what you are capable of and to work within a company that you really like.

But this thinking depends from country to country. I don't know if it applies to everywhere. This is my way of thinking. I just do things that sound logical to me, with a desire to share something with everybody. It's a service. What I like to do is to provide a service, to help, to facilitate. It's different for a designer who has to create from scratch. And it's different for influencers, who have to do their own unique kind of work so that people want to follow them for their uniqueness.

Q: In one word, how would you like people to remember you?

A: I think it is “thoughtful”.

Evelyn Wang and Crystal Zhang both contributed to this story.