Chip and Pepper Foster, the ebullient identical twins who founded high-end jeans brand Chip & Pepper, weren’t happy with the consultants and fashion veterans they’d hired to help them run their company.
“We’re visionaries and we’re CEOs, and we know how to run the business,” said Chip Foster. “We don’t want people to change our vision.”
Since 2005, the brothers’ company, Vernon-based L.A. Lab Inc., had been building a team of what Chip Foster described as employees and consultants from heavy hitters from the biggest denim brands in Los Angeles to help with fabric buying, merchandising, shipping and software for inventory and management.
But the blond Canadian-born brothers who once hosted a cartoon show did a “guerrilla-style” purge last month, firing one-third of their work force. The cost savings will be $1.5 million a year. They now have about 30 employees.
“We did an analysis of our work force and found that these people were only working at 40 percent to 50 percent capacity,” Chip Foster said. “Now we’re running it really lean.”
It was Chip and Pepper’s decision not the consultants or the experts to open two temporary stores for the holidays, one in Canada and one on Melrose Avenue. In December, they also got rid of their fulfillment contractor and started mailing their online orders in-house. The brothers said both moves helped the company make its best ever holiday sales.
Many companies in the competitive world of premium jeans, which can run to more than $300, are based in Los Angeles, including True Religion Apparel Inc., Joe’s Jeans Inc., 7 for All Mankind, J Brand and Rich & Skinny. Sales peaked in 2006 and have since cooled.
Some companies are trying to reheat them: Rock & Republic will introduce a lower-priced line in spring, the Recession Collection, ranging from $120 to $140.
L.A. Lab has two Chip & Pepper stores, one in Newport Beach and another in New York. The vintage-style jeans are also sold at high-end boutiques and department stores. In the last two years, the Foster brothers, who sometimes appear on TV as fashion correspondents for several shows, set up licensing deals with JCPenney for a line of junior-size clothing, C7P, and a lower-priced line of denim, Foster Jeans. They also set up a corporate office in Japan.
“We know our brand and have healthy relationships with stores,” Chip Foster said. “We’re going direct to them now, and they can talk to us instead of a middle man.”
