ARC NY'S FULL STORY

ARC NY's elegant logo

At the tail end of a maddening day TI popped down to the ARC NY offices on Spring Street to do a long overdue catch-up with the new company's principals, Former Elite marketing director Ryan Brown and Chandelier Creative’s Lorenzo Martone. That catch-up was supposed to happen at Miami Basel but given the cluster-funk of that affair I think it was far better that it happened on a early winter's night in Soho. The signage on ARC NY"s door had me puzzled at first because the sideway C made me tilt my head to see if the circles formed some sort of pictogram. My head was in that odd position as I swung the door open to be greeted by the whir of a blow dryer as a hairstylist whipped this beautiful African-American girl's hair into a frenzy. It was very a scene from "Shampoo" especially when I realized that the girls was Jessica White, an ARC NY talent who I had met in this very building when she was 14 years old. But there was Ryan and then Lorenzo and then I knew we were in the right place. We had a great conversation, the choice sound bites of which I must save for the MDC piece I'm drafting but even as I listened trying to intently internalize all the marketing-speak, my mind was running two concurrent and alternative tracks.
The first was my visual weighing of ARC NY's physical space and Ryan and Lorenzo's navigation of it. The office...surprisingly intimate and very warm. An intense Cire Trudon candle (Balmoral it smelt like) lacing the room with a very green, very mossy scent. Piles of wine and champagne from some earlier celebration. A box of cupcakes. Orchids on the center desk. A day bed with a cashmere throw draped over it. The feeling , more of a home than an office. The glitter on Lorenzo's shirt. Diamonds ringing his watch. A natural warmth and friendliness. Ryan's ingrained PR instincts hovering somewhere between social host and story editor. A clear comfort with the windfall of attention that Lorenzo's personal life has drawn given the fact that a great PR team understands that attention exists be converted into business in fashion.
Speaking of which that second mental track was business...and that business was to reconcile the proposition of ARC NY with my current obsession with the question of the future of talent management. Talent management is an old business and in many ways it is a new business. It has its basic rules of engagement and yet the rules of the games change every day.
One of the touch points of our conversation was of course, the hey day of the supermodel, that era when models had names that could be branded into books and calenders and exercise videos, records deals and TV shows. "We love the idea of the supermodel and it would be great for that to come back in a modern way," said Lorenzo when the topic came up. "Yeah," I mused " I wonder what it was must have been like to be the booker negotiating the booking on the George Michael "Freedom" video back in the day. Can you imagine. Linda. Christy. Naomi. Cindy...I wonder if they all shot separate days or overlapped or had divided domains. Can you imagine?" "Monique Pillard," offered Ryan Brown. She was that booker swinging all of that it seems!
There is a fair degree of cynicism on the part of a lot of old school bookers that the idea of the branded model is doomed to failure. I remember one scolding me not too many weeks back that the only path to success and money for models was "Steven Meisel, Carine Roitfeld, Mario Testino, Katie Grand. Those are the people who give you careers" . And in the wilderness outside of perfect taste, what do you have? Top Shop? (see Kate) Brazilian sandal and bikini revenue? (see Gisele) Project Runway (Miss Klum) and ANTM ( Miss Tyra) ? Somehow those four got it it right and beat the odds to the tune of mucho millions. Of course to be a branded model one needs a big personality and an even stronger sense of purpose. Which brings us back to the ideal of acute and brilliant management. I love the concept because the part of me that has creative impulses has known exactly how painful it is to have your talent trivialized, disrespected and exploited . To think creatively and to think in terms of business is a tough tough double act that few minds can combine. Management of talent...it is a wonderful service I think.
What I liked about Lorenzo and Ryan was that intense passion and enthusiasm for their work and their ideas. No cynicism, no shade, no jadedness. The girls of ARC NY like Alessandra Ambrosio, Julie Henderson, Jessica White, Fernanda Motta and Lydia Hearst are bound to be well served in that regard.