Three questions with Kenneth Cole’s new CEO

Kenneth Cole, the American retailer known for accessible workwear and footwear, is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a major leadership shift. Jed Berger stepped in as CEO and president, while founder Kenneth Cole retains his role as chief creative officer and executive chair. The milestone comes as the brand ramps up its womenswear business with a relaunched ready-to-wear collection.

But as the economy remains uncertain, along with the future for many fashion retailers, Berger said Kenneth Cole is committed to its core values of accessibility, comfort-focused products, and purpose-driven messaging.

In a recent conversation with Retail Brew, newly appointed CEO Berger spoke about his vision for the company and how it is evolving with the times.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What’s your vision for Kenneth Cole?

Our women’s opportunity is significant. We just launched a new women’s apparel line last October…and it’s been exploding, and it just keeps on growing and growing. We’re now adding handbags to that mix, and we have a really strong women’s footwear component to that that also has a brand called Gentle Souls that most people don’t know as part of our portfolio. But it is, and that has grown significantly…[Nordstrom] has a great Dillards business and has a great DTC business. So I’m really excited about what’s happening in women’s and that remains a focus of the organization.

How has the brand and the KC customer evolved over the years?

I always say that we’re a brand with heritage, not a heritage brand. There’s a really important distinction between the two. Heritage brands have a couple different items that they just sort of recycle and become trendy throughout time. A brand with heritage has very specific pieces of their foundation that evolved. We were born on being an accessible fashion company that believed in social impact and had a voice. Those pillars have not changed; how [they] have been reinterpreted and have evolved has.

Our business has grown significantly in the last three years. More and more people are buying us. It’s not because we’ve gotten cheaper; it’s that we haven’t at all, actually. We stayed at an accessible fashion price point, and we’ve evolved the fashion.

We have 100% doubled down on purpose and social impact. While that meant HIV and AIDS in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and right to marry and anti-gun violence in our past, there’s a lot of those pieces that we still talk about and still advocate for. But really, to this day, we’ve evolved and the man Kenneth is and the brand are really focused on being the brand for mental health and reducing the stigma on mental health, making that a huge contextual part of our business and our brand. That also very clearly resonated with the consumer.

What’s next for your brand?

Staying relentless about our differentiators, and that’s where commerce meets cause and social impact. Also, really being hyper-focused on our areas of growth. I do think that there is an opportunity to have a more balanced ecosystem, thinking about how our direct consumer changes over the next three to five years, and thinking about what that looks like in America, and how we create physical touchpoints again, and potentially having some stores in the future. That’s something that I would like to see from us, but it is obviously challenging with today.

Again, the hardest thing to do as an organization is to be focused and evolve at the same time. That’s why having those tenants: accessibility, fashion, social impact, having a voice, building technical products, building technical into our products [is important].