Walking down the catwalk at Asos’s head office in Camden, London isn’t as
easy as it may seem, although the models strutting down the white walkway
sure enough made it seem like a breeze. However, when I paid a visit to the
online retailer’s headquarters last month in order to get a behind the scenes
tour of what office life is really like at the online fashion giant for
FashionUnited, being put through your paces on the runway is just one of
the many facets occurring on a daily basis at Asos.
After being met at the reception by Jasmine Walker, International Press
Officer, I was given a sneak peek into Asos’s showroom, which was stocked
with its home brand Spring-Summer ’15 collections, including their first
foray into bridesmaids attire and new occasion wear range, set to launch
mid-march. “We know young women love to dress up for a night on the town, a
wedding, a day at the races or a work function, so we have really focused
on creating accessible pieces with that ‘special occasion’ touch,” said
Asos head of design Leandra O’Sullivan in an interview with the Guardian.
“They sell perfect prom dresses and glitzy cocktail numbers to young women
who want to ramp up the glamour,” added fashion consultant Erica Davies.
Apart from focusing on expanding their core fashion ranges, Asos has been
growing it’s own specialty ranges which include Asos White, Asos Black,
Maternity, Curve, Occasion Tall and Petite, a move which highlights how far
the British retailer has come in the 15 years of its existence, since the
sale of its first product, which was ironically a mortar and pestle.
Click Here: Cheap France Rugby Jersey
“[Asos] has definitely have gone from following to being followed”
“Asos sort of started off after the founders saw how the media was
responding to the rise of the celebrity and what they wore,” explained
Walker. “However since then, it sort of has turned the whole thing on its
head. So instead of people wanting to emulate a celebrity look, we have
artists like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift wearing Asos made pieces.” The
demand for their own labels was one of the many factors which lead to
Asos having 11 in-house studios, with 8 being dedicated to women’s wear, 3
to men’s wear and the remaining 2 housing the catwalk studios to keep up
with the product information demand for their site.
Rachel Caplan, Senior Production Coordinator, who has also joined in on the
tour, stops in one corner of the office to share another reason why Asos is
becoming one to follow. By the modelling team department lies Asos’s wall
of fame, which displays photographs of top models
Cara Delevingne and Malaika Firth. Both models began their careers
modelling for Asos before moving onto other projects and now the company’s
model team has to manage the portfolios of over 150 models from around the
world, flying in special models for a days’ work to make sure there is a
type to meet every brands needs, as well as the consumers expectation of
what an Asos model is.
Together the studios, which employ dozens of photographers,
cinematographers, photography editors as well as hair and makeup artists
shoot 3500 new products per week, with each studio shooting 22 models per
day and the catwalk studios filming and editing up to 600 videos per day.
“We definitely have gone from following to being followed, which is
interesting,” pointed out Natasja Giezen-Smith, Territory Manager Northern
Europe, Russia and the Rest of World. “It has been going on for a while in
the background, but become more and more pronounced as we’ve grown our own
collection and designed more and more. Even building up Asos White, Asos
Black, the salon collection, the occasion wear, it has helped develop Asos
into a company to watch.”
Specialty lines helped develop Asos into “a company to watch”
“I think that we are ahead of the game in a lot of departments, not that
many brands offer as many specialty lines as we do,” added Walker, who
believes that their extensive range of speciality lines helps set Asos
apart from other online fashion retailers. “What’s interesting for me is
that most people assume that Tall will do very well in countries such as
the Netherlands because everyone there is so tall,” said Giezen-Smith. “And
it does do well there, but surprisingly enough so does our petite range
because Dutch high street brands don’t really cater to petite and these
ranges can be extremely hard to come by there. Even things like our
Maternity range does well.”
“We really see those lines doing well in other markets and growing really
fast. If we would double the size of the current ranges I think people
would still be asking for more. We have a very clear image in our heads
what our customer is like, but there is no size or limitation attached to
that image, no color or boundaries – just individuals who are interested in
fashion.” Walking through the remaining studios, the stills studio and the
360 degree studio which produce extra images for Asos’s Chinese platform to
ensure the authenticity of the products they offer in a market plagued with
counterfeits, and the rest of the office, the extent of Asos’s
determination to achieve it’s goal of becoming the ultimate online
destination for fashion-forward 20 somethings is thrown into sharp relief.
“When working online, you have to be excellent in everything that you do,
and that’s really hard because we juggle so many times at the same time.
You can’t just be good in some, you need to be amazing in all fields.
Knowing how to design well, buy well, how to do the logistics with
warehouses well, how to do globalization well, can be a lot to handle. But
because we were one of the first online pure-players in the fashion
industry, what helps us stand out from the current list of online
retailers, is that experience. You can’t get that off the shelf, by which I
mean not only the design experience, but also the buying as well. Half of
our sales come from the brands we buy in, so we have to know which brands
to buy in, for the right price and select the right products in those
ranges.”
Asos hopes to be “excellent” in everything that it does
By streamlining the product information and content, Asos aims to create an
easier platform for users to navigate as well, to ensure the site makes it
as transparent as possible for a customer to find a certain product. “I
think people may have been initially scared of online clothes shopping,
since they are unable to try things on in person, or feel the fabric, but a
lot of that fear has been eradicated through how much information we offer
now on our product pages. I do not think we are a solely a transactional
website,” pointed out Giezen-Smith. “Obviously you can buy stuff from us
but at the end of the day we are about content and inspiration.”
However, despite Asos’ big ambition to become the creme de la crop when it
comes to online fashion retailing, the British company is well aware it
needs to keep its eye on the ball and not lose sight of what is important.
“At the end of the day the biggest challenge I would say that Asos faces
to become the best of the best is a more internal aspect, considering
priorities,” explained Giezen-Smith. “So for instance, if we only shipped
to fifty countries, or only offered our own line, or only did women’s wear,
then we’d make things much easier for ourselves because we’d be working
within that constraint.”
“So setting the priorities between that and figuring out what our limits
are, while pushing ourselves as much as we can to make sure we have as few
limits as possible whilst staying as true to the brand as we can, I think
that’s a big challenge. Now we have to decide if we invest in this or that
first, because both would fit well within our brand and do well, but the
question is which one do we do first and which one second? We try and chew
off so much, but that’s also what makes it fun.”
“People work here because they love the brand in general
Another part of what makes it fun working at Asos, is the corporate culture
and identity the online fashion company invokes. With the average age of a
head office employee said to be 26, many of the members of staff are
simultaneously the brand’s target audience and employees, which helps the
fashion etailer closer connect with its main consumers around the globe.
“People work here because they love the brand in general. It is not like
most other companies where it is just a job, people actively choose to work
here. People love fashion and love Asos, but in a non-judgemental way, from
the staff in the mailroom to people in the boardroom. I’ve never worked for
a company where people love what they do as much as here.”
Asos uses an open floor plan to encourage open communication channels to
bring together the separate teams, such as the buying teams or the design
teams, so that when they do encounter an issue internal communication is
not an problem, as the company is not hierarchical in structure. “The open
office plan really helps create that open atmosphere between colleagues and
departments as well,” stated Giezen-Smith. “I am always wandering over to
Jasmine in the PR department when I need help with something and vice
versa.”
In this sense, Asos encourages its staff to work together and everyone is
able to speak their mind or have their say, something I was able to
experience firsthand as an outsider when I was bustled on the catwalk for
my modeling ‘debut’. Catwalk Videographer Jessica McCall, was firm that the
current model step aside for my 30 second walk and managed to edit the film
and have to sent to my email within the hour. “I feel like it is really
collaborative here, people are generally interested in everyone’s skills
and what they can bring to the table,” added Walker after the catwalk.
“We all realise that no one can do this by themselves. I can’t look after
the Northern Europe market with out working with the marketing team, PR
team, the digital marketing team, so we are all in this together and
striving towards the same goal,” added Giezen-Smith. Asos also hosts weekly
marketing meetings for the entire team, where they can hear what other
departments are up to on a daily basis. “That’s really when everything
clicks into place, like a well oiled machine,” concluded Walker and after
experiencing what things are like behind the screens at Asos, I can’t help
but agree with her.
Photos: Asos’s head office in Camden, London