Brands Aren’t Companies, They’re Universes

It was in the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic when Brice Partouche decided to pull Satisfy — the upscale running brand he founded in 2015 — from every single one of its 60 stockists. It meant saying “no” to nearly $1 million of turnover in a single season, a dicey move for a label still in its infancy. For Partouche, the fashion calendar dictating how product is delivered and sold no longer made sense with the needs of his tight-knit community of runners who, unlike many hardcore fashion fanatics, simply weren’t looking for products six months in advance. Their calendars were dictated not by fashion federations, but by training goals and races. “We made a bold move to stop wholesale, basically,” says Partouche, a skateboarder at heart. “I don’t want for things to go back to normal. The retail process has been the same for over 30 years, and it doesn’t make any sense. And so we’ve decided to shift our model to a direct-to-consumer business where we’ll still work with select wholesalers, but on our conditions.” Read more at Highsnobiety.