How Banana Republic conquered the fashion world with chutzpah and irreverence

Wild Company, The Untold Story of Banana Republic

Published by Simon & Shuster (2012)

I’m a sucker for rags to riches stories, and Wild Company, The Untold Story of Banana Republic, is as rags to riches as they get, with plenty of laughs, life lessons and anecdotes thrown in for good measure.

This is the story of a young couple, Mel and Patricia Ziegler, who almost by accident created one of the world’s most iconic fashion and lifestyle brands (Banana Republic). They did so by breaking most of the rules of business and with sheer talents, instincts and chutzpah.

In the late 1970s, Mel was a writer, Patricia an artist/illustrator, both working at the San Francisco Chronicle. Feeling unfulfilled, they quit their day jobs to try their hand at freelancing. One day, Mel took an assignment in Australia and returned from that trip sporting a British Burma jacket. Mel and Patricia both loved the jacket, as did many strangers who approached them wanting to know where they could buy one.

This was a light bulb moment, and the couple figured there was a market for British Burma jackets “and anything else we could find,” Mel writes. With no business experience or business contacts, the couple set about establishing a company offering unique lines of clothing (shirts, jackets, bags, skirts and accessories) using un-businesslike ideas and strategies. As they would soon discover, there was a large, untapped market for finely-made and stylish outdoor clothing.

The couples’ journey from impoverished creative types into successful business leaders makes for a fun and entertaining read. Their chemistry was a recipe for success: Mel focused on marketing and promotions while Patricia concentrated on the fashion and merchandise side of the business. Their retail stores out-grossed larger and more established retail players in terms of sales per square foot. Their hand-illustrated, mail-order catalogue became a must-read for millions of customers and generated response rates double and triple the industry norm. By the mid 1980s, Banana Republic had become a recognizable name in fashion with a fiercely loyal customer base.

One has to admire the courage, chutzpah and prescience of Mel and Patricia Ziegler, who redefined fashion retailing and demonstrated what is possible by applying old-fashioned creativity, gut instincts, common sense and hard work. Their ideas and strategies were cheeky, irreverent, and far ahead of their time. Here’s Mel describing one of the company’s marketing initiatives:

I believed the best way to ensure our long-term survival was to overdeliver. Go above and beyond and, most importantly, make a human connection with customers. I scribbled notes to customers and put them in the boxes. The notes, on official khaki stationary, were signed by a random minister of the Republic: sometimes Minister of Finance, others the Minister of Progress, but usually the one truest to me, the Minister of Propaganda.

Wild Company is filled with many such creative initiatives, which helped grow the Banana Republic brand. This is a story that any entrepreneur, marketing manager or business student would appreciate. The tone and style are playful and witty, but the underlying message is very inspiring and resonates loud and clear: creativity and curiosity are just as integral to the success of a business as sound financials and the bottom line.

The Tiger: a riveting tale of the hunter and the hunted

The Tiger, A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

By John Vaillant

Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Canada (2010)

Most people encounter tigers by viewing them in a cage at a zoo, reading about them in a book, or researching them online. Imagine the fear of not only sharing the forests with these powerful predators, but knowing that you are being stalked by one – with nowhere to hide.

That’s the scenario that Vladimir Markov found himself in back in 1997, in a remote corner of southeastern Russia near the Chinese border. Markov, an ex-Russian serviceman and paratrooper, lived and worked in Primorye Territory. He was a hunter and beekeeper and did other odd jobs to survive in that inhospitable part of the world.

Primorye Territory is believed to be the last stronghold of the Siberian tiger, and one of these beasts had targeted Markov, carefully stalking him and viciously killing him. The horror of the attack sent shockwaves throughout Primorye Territory and beyond, and then about a week later, the same tiger attacked and killed another man.

The story surrounding these deadly attacks forms the basis of John Vaillant’s excellent The Tiger, A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. With exhaustive research, a meticulous eye for detail and a true storyteller’s skill at producing suspense, Vaillant recounts the period leading up to these attacks and cites plausible theories as why the two victims may have been targeted. The story proceeds almost like a police procedural, gathering evidence and building suspense as the story unfolds. In describing the tiger’s capacity for exacting revenge, Vaillant writes:

The Amur tiger’s territoriality and capacity for sustained vengeance, for lack of a better work, are the stuff of both legend and fact. What is amazing – and also terrifying about tigers – is their facility for what can only be described as abstract thinking. Very quickly, a tiger can assimilate new information – evidence, if you will – ascribe it to a source, and even a motive, and react accordingly. 

The second part of the book describes a search party that was hastily assembled and charged with locating and killing the tiger, led by Yuri Trush, the head of a group known as Inspection Tiger Unit. Trush and his team persuade the authorities that this tiger needs to be tracked and killed to avoid further attacks. But hunting this tiger in the mountainous and forested regions of Primoyre will prove no easy feat, and a kind of cat-and-mouse game ensues.

Vaillant’s story doesn’t always follow a linear progression, and the story is much richer for it. He digresses periodically, tracing the history of tigers across Europe throughout the centuries, discussing the reasons why these wild beasts have been driven to extinction, and examining the complex relationship that has existed between man and tiger, from 10,000 B.C. to the present. Vaillant describes the landscape of the taiga (forest) in great detail, the courageous efforts by Trush and his team to find the elusive, man-eating tiger, and brings to life the many personalities who were directly impacted by these tragic events.

For  centuries, tigers have fascinated people all over the world. Their incredible physical powers and ferocity, their keen intelligence and cunning, and their incredible mystique and beauty continue to produce a sense of awe. In reading The Tiger, your fascination will deepen, and you will gain a new-found respect for the world’s most feared predator.

A young Alexander prepapring for greatness

Fire From Heaven

A novel by Mary Renault (1970, Penguin Books)

This is a finely written novel about the formative years of Alexander III of Macedon (356 – 323 BC), or Alexander the Great, which explores themes of honour, ambition, friendship, homosexuality and loyalty.

The young Alexander is born into a world of privilege, a world where men often distinguished themselves in battle, a world that is powered as much by myth and superstition as it is by warfare. Into this world, Alexander comes of age, making friends and enemies, learning about philosophy (he was tutored by Aristotle) and gathering experiences on and off the battlefield that will serve him well when it comes time to inherit his father’s kingdom.

Renault’s Alexander seems destined from an early age to achieve greatness. As a young boy, he is he quick to observe the power struggles between his father and mother and the shifting allegiances among neighbouring states. Even when choosing friends, Alexander is bound by a moral code and keen intuition that will pay dividends throughout his rise to power.

The main challenge I had with Fire From Heaven is that I’m not versed enough in ancient Greek history, and so many of the references to Greek Gods, kings, battles and events were lost on me. To fully appreciate the depth and subtlety of this novel, readers would do well to possess a nodding acquaintance with Greek history. It would save a lot of Wikipedia searches.

But this observation is no reflection on the power of Renault’s writing, which has the ability transport readers to a fascinating era (Hellenistic) of Greek history. Renault’s eye for detail and her skillfulness at creating vivid scenes are extraordinary. Here, for instance, is 12 year-old Alexander poised for his first battle:

The rose-red on the hill-tops changed to gold. He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, ‘I am not afraid.’ It was better than music or his mother’s love; it was the life of the gods. No grief could touch him, no hatred harm him. Things looked bright and clear, as to the stooping angel. He felt sharp as an arrow, and full of light.

Renault is brings the world of Alexander to life in Fire From Heaven with clarity, sensitivity and imagination. I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in reading a stirring portrait of one of history’s most accomplished and enigmatic figures. This type of historical fiction, in novel form, beats text book learning any day of the week, hands-down. 

Daniel Mendelsohn’s moving tribute to literary mentor, Mary Renault

Back in 1983, I wrote a fan letter to an Australian author named Randolph Stow, whose novel, To The Islands, I had read for a university course. This was the one and only fan letter I ever wrote to an author whose work I admired.

I expected a reply from Stow, but as the weeks turned into months, it became apparent that a return missive wasn’t in the cards. It’s possible that Stow never received my letter in the first place (I lived in Toronto, he in Australia).

Daniel Mendelsohn had a more fortunate experience with a fan letter. In 1976, after discovering the novels of Mary Renault, 15 year-old Mendelsohn sent Renault a letter (he lived in New York, Renault in South Africa). To Mendelsohn’s surprise and delight, Renault responded, not with an expected form letter but a personalized letter. 

The young Mendelsohn and the best-selling author carried on a correspondence that lasted eight years. The story behind this unlikely correspondence forms the basis of Mendelsohn’s fascinating article in the January 7 New Yorker. The article is a tribute to Renault: how her fiction and letters inspired Mendelssohn’s career as a writer and helped him grapple with his own sexuality.

Mendelsohn’s article is a touching tribute to a friend and literary mentor, someone who obviously had a significant influence on a young man struggling to find his place in the world, both emotionally and intellectually. Mendolsohn is a fine writer who brings an incredible sensitivity and emotional depth to his work. I look forward to reading more of his work in the New Yorker and elsewhere.

After reading Mendelsohn’s article, I went out and bought two of Renault’s novels, Fire From Heaven and The King Must Die. Renault is best known for her historical fiction novels set in ancient Greece, and I’ll be reviewing one of those novels in the weeks ahead.

Thoughts on J.D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is a masterpiece of modern literature, a coming of age novel that influenced millions of young adults around the world. The death of Salinger at 91 three years ago this month has prompted some reflections on the author’s most famous work, and about the author himself.

At 17, I read Catcher and was moved by Holden Caulfield’s pessimistic attitude and general disillusionment with the world. Here was a fictional character that understood the fears and anxieties of growing up in a world full of contradictions and phoniness. The novel spoke to me on many levels, as no other novel had before.

A year before Salinger’s death, I re-read Catcher and had a much different reaction to it than I did as a teenager. This time around, Holden comes across as confused and mistrustful. Who could blame him? His parents had withdrawn from him emotionally after the death of Holden’s brother. They sent him away to a private school, where he felt abandoned. A teacher at school makes a pass at him (or so Holden thinks), at a time when young Holden desperately needs reassurance in his life.

With the benefit of 30-plus years and maturity behind me, I found myself pitying Holden, rather than identifying with him. This is a teenager who has some serious issues and needs professional help, but his method of coping (although amusing in fiction) is to remove himself from life and criticize everyone and everything that he doesn’t agree with or understand.

Holden’s central themes in Catcher – adults aren’t to be trusted, running away from problems, avoiding contact with people – are exactly the wrong messages that young people need to hear. Teenagers and young adults need encouragement, feedback and involvement. They need to engage with the world, not run away from it.

As for Salinger, the author, he walked away from fame at the height of his popularity; he hasn’t published anything since 1965. The publishing world has been obsessing over his silence ever since. The author’s reclusive lifestyle seems to have been an extension of Holden Caulfied’s; in other words, when the going gets rough, walk away. Salinger apparently felt like a circus clown in promoting his work, and so he chose a life of self-imposed exile from the world of letters.

In Salinger’s case, he could afford to walk away from publishing, but this decision always struck me as odd. Writers are, by their very nature, introverted and prone to isolation. They spend most of their time alone, away from crowds. But you’d think that going on book tours and meeting fans would be a welcome relief from the solitary nature of the writing profession.

The work Salinger left behind is what’s important, though. The Catcher in the Rye, along with a handful of excellent short stories, will be read for generations. Salinger was a gifted writer who understood the struggles and frustrations associated with becoming an adult.

As for that pile of unpublished manuscripts that Salinger is rumoured to have left behind, who knows if it’s true. If he did leave a few novels in a safe, and his estate allows them to be published, there’s no guarantee that they are any good. Perhaps Salinger had nothing left to say, as Tom Wolfe (The Right Stuff, Bonfire of the Vanities) suggested in an Esquire article published in the 1980s.

In any case, the Salinger story seems far from over. But my message to young readers is that engagement with the world is better than giving up on it. It’s easy to become disillusioned when things aren’t going your way. It’s much harder to put your difficulties aside and press on with confidence and hope. 

Readers should not look to Caulfield (or to Salinger) for life lessons. Read and enjoy Salinger’s works, but don’t pattern your life after him or his fictional alter ego.

Thomas Cromwell: a kingmaker and king without a throne

Wolf Hall

A Novel by Hilary Mantel

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. (2009)

Historical fiction isn’t usually on my preferred reading list, but with all of the glowing reviews and literary awards for Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

In Wolf Hall, there is considerable fuss over politics, religion and Henry VIII’s all-consuming aspiration to produce a male heir. Mantel weaves many storylines into this fine tapestry, but the main story is of Thomas Cromwell and his rise from poverty to one of the most powerful men in England at that time.

The story begins with a severe beating the young Cromwell takes at the hands of his abusive father, a beating that soon leads to his running away from home and learning to survive on his own. Cromwell not only survives, but thrives, using his quick wit and street smarts, eventually learning several languages, developing key business contacts, becoming a lawyer and ingratiating himself into the good graces of the powerful Cardinal Wosley, and later Henry VIII.

Here we are presented with a Cromwell who is calculating and restrained; an influential power broker who prefers working behind the scenes on behalf of his powerful patrons. He is prudent, cunning, manipulative, patient, resourceful and ambitious. In his dealings with priests, ambassadors and royalty, Cromwell comes across as more of efficient administrator than a brutish henchman.

Cromwell’s story is all the more intriguing because it occurs during one of the most transformative epochs in English history, a time when priests, scholars and laypeople everywhere were starting to question the Christian interpretation of the Bible. This is an age in which being caught with an English translation of the Bible (or questioning its teachings) often led to imprisonment, torture and death.

It was also an age when Henry VIII’s patience with Rome was beginning to wear thin. The King resented the Church’s vast wealth and land holdings in England, and the money that continuously flowed from England into Rome’s coffers. He especially resented the Pope’s refusal to grant him an annulment or a divorce from Katherine so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, who would hopefully bear him a son.

Mantel is a skillful, assured writer who manages to advance her various plot-lines with great bravado. Her writing is elegant, poetic and subtle. In a novel with such breadth, dozens of characters swiftly enter and exit the stage, sometimes too swiftly. Occasionally, I found it a challenge keeping track of who was speaking to whom, and whose thoughts were being explored (a cast of characters at the start serves as a handy reference).

At her best, Mantel demonstrates a great skill in describing the political and religious tensions of the time, and in understanding her characters and their motivations. Here is a guarded Cromwell during one of his early encounters with Henry VIII, trying to surmise what makes the King tick:

 He is startled. Then he understands. Henry wants a conversation on any topic. One that’s nothing to do with love, or hunting, or war. Now that Wolsey’s gone, there not much scope for it; unless you want to talk to a priest of some stripe. And if you send for a priest, what does it come back to? To love; to Anne: and what you want and can’t have.

Wolf Hall covers a lot of ground in this sweeping novel, and Mantel successfully brings to life the many personalities, feuds, jealousies, intrigues and tensions that characterize this fascinating period of English history. At the centre of all this political and religious upheaval, and influencing the course of history, is a confident Thomas Cromwell, a sort of kingmaker and king without a throne.

Adopting a Google mindset is good for business

What Would Google Do?

By Jeff Jarvis

Published by HarperCollins, 2009

Jeff Jarvis is a journalist, editor, and a professor at City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. He publishes a popular blog called Buzz Machine, about news and media trends. Readers may remember Jarvis as the blogger who made headlines a few years ago, when he publicly called out Dell Computers for its poor customer service.

In What Would Google Do? Jarvis has written about how Google (the world’s most popular search engine) has transformed the advertising industry and how it has affected other industries as well. The main premise of the book is an attempt to get companies (and industries) to understand the Google mindset, and to recognize the power of the individual in this age of open sourcing, mobile computing and social networking.

In a networked world, it’s all about the customer. More importantly, it’s about empowering customers to talk freely about your products and services. It’s about giving customers choices about where and how and what they buy. In my industry, advertising, Google has literally turned business models upside down, forcing newspapers, magazines and ad agencies to re-invent themselves.

With the advent of Google AdWords (a pay-per-click advertising model), advertisers now have the ability to target customers, based on viewing habits and website content. AdWords offers advertisers the option of paying for ads only when customers click on their links, a far more cost-effective (and profitable) advertising model than purchasing ads with traditional media.

In this new age of advertising, it’s no longer about sending messages en masse, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. Now it’s all about targeting customers by age, demographics, interests, etc. “Advertisers are starting to mouth the right words – it’s about relationships, not messages,” writes Jarvis.

Jarvis doesn’t confine his observations to the advertising industry. He includes chapters on utilities, retail, manufacturing, automotive and financial services. He discusses how the Google mindset is changing those industries, by making companies more approachable, transparent and accountable.

Whatever business or enterprise you’re involved in, What Would Google Do? is an engaging read that will help you to better understand the power of the individual in today’s networked world. It may even inspire you to re-think current business practices and change the way you do business.

Although What Would Google Do? was published in 2009 (light years in the digital age), the themes discussed in this book are just as relevant today as they were four years ago.