Cocktails with Irene Tang of Catherine Malandrino
By Denise Tong
A Fashion Week staple, designer Catherine Malandrino has been known for her romantic and sexy designs since the launch of her label in 1998. In addition to the designer Malandrino Collection, which includes shoes and handbags, she designs the contemporary Catherine Malandrino Collection.
Her clothing has been featured on Sex and the City and worn by celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, and Madonna. In 2006 she was a guest judge on Bravo TV’s Project Runway.
Irene Tang, Malandrino’s Business Development and Operations Manager, joined the company in 2005. She directs and plans retail store development and manages daily operations and contract negotiations in real estate, licensing, and distribution.
Tang met up with Current Vine to recall her most recent experiences coordinating a sample sale and the design of new stores. Check out her busy summer in her own words, as told to Denise Tong.
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Our sample sale takes place each year in June and December. Usually our sales are Catherine Malandrino, but we add a few items from Malandrino. I create expense budgets for the events and meet with the sample sale producer to review event staffing, security, mailing, and marketing.
We all wear three to five hats, so we are quite busy; we usually eat lunch in the office because there is so much to do. (Yes, people in the fashion business eat! I love ordering the French country salad from Market Café on 9th Avenue.)
I attend each sample sale to make sure everything is running at our high level of standards, to see that the clothing is well merchandised, and to get feedback from our customers so we can fine-tune or make future events better.
On the first day of each sale, about 1500 people typically show up. It’s a huge event and the line on the first day is always insane and seems like it never ends. Women like to come and shop during their lunch break from work.
At closing time, exhausted, I look at the damage—sales figures, number of attendees, traffic flow, marketing pros and cons, remaining stock—and decide what we need to change so we can increase sales on the next day. Then I report those results to [Bernard Aidan, Malandrino's husband and CEO of the label]. Over the course of our last sample sale in June, we had about 3500 shoppers!
During the second day of each sale, I usually visit in the afternoon just to check on things. While waiting for the sale producer, I try some clothes on for fun. I look for the cute hidden gems; last time I tried on this amazing ruched silk jersey Malandrino top that we added to the sale at the last minute—it had come by messenger from our stores that afternoon.
As for our store locations, we open three to four a year and will have 10 total by the end of this year. Each store is adapted to the neighborhood or mall that it is in but we try to keep several signature pieces in each one, such as a brick yellow glass wall, polished chrome fixtures, and our signature yellow leather couches and seating areas. Our store in the Meatpacking District, on 652 Hudson Street at 13th Street, has this amazing murano glass chandelier and is often photographed.
This past summer I liaised with Paris and NYC architects to review changes and progress for new stores; I later reviewed those designs with Catherine and Bernard. And at the end of July, I headed off to the West Coast for meetings regarding a new store we’re building in Las Vegas.
Once there, I met with the tenant manager and architect, and got to wear a really sexy hard hat. We were guided through the construction site, which looked amazing since they were about 70% complete. We could see that the skylight domes are spectacular even though they were covered up for protection. The building is huge! It’s over 300,000 square feet. We examined our space and reviewed the plans to be sure everything will fit.
The architect and I also checked out another location that we are opening and examined the “dirt” since it’s not built yet. Later I met with the Vice President of Marketing to learn more about the shopping center, marketing strategy, and future plans. Afterward, I had time to browse the nearby hotels.
Later, after doing market research of other brands and checking out our display at the Neiman Marcus store, I headed to the airport to catch a flight out.
All in all, this was a typical summer for me. I got a short reprieve in the first two weeks of August, but since returning, our company has been working full force on our next big project: Our September 8 fashion show for New York Fashion Week.
