LYCOS RETRIEVER
Kenneth Cole Productions
built 648 days ago
Kenneth Cole Productions is one of the most widely revered and consistently focused fashion houses with retail sales in excess of a billion dollars. It is the parent company for three lifestyle brands: Kenneth Cole New York (KCNY) for the sophisticated, urban man and woman; Reaction Kenneth Cole, geared towards a hip, more casual customer; and Unlisted shoes and accessories for the younger and trendier teen. Currently, there are 17 licensees that cover 73 dual gender and multi-brand product categories. Kenneth goes far beyond lending his name to a line of clothing and accessories. He is the ultimate driving force behind all three brands and the company's creative director in all areas from design to marketing.
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Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., a world-leading designer and retailer of footwear, handbags and accessories, is one of the latest customers to deploy the integrated POS software from SAP. The POS implementation went live in all U.S. Kenneth Cole stores this year.
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Known mainly for its shoes, Kenneth Cole Productions ... makes stylish clothing and accessories under three brands: Kenneth Cole New York, Reaction Kenneth Cole, and Unlisted. It also licenses the name to products such as hosiery, luggage, watches, and eyewear. Kenneth Cole continues to expand, adding new lines for women and children and a men's and women's fragrance. More than 4,500 department and specialty stores carry its products. Kenneth Cole also operates about 80 retail and outlet stores, a catalog, and a Web site. CEO Kenneth Cole owns 45% of the company and controls almost all of the voting rights.
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Kenneth Cole Productions, a business that began out of the back of a 40-foot trailer, has risen to the top of American fashion and set the standards for others to meet. With 50 retail stores across the country, as well as worldwide distribution in Europe, Asia and Latin America, Kenneth Cole has been able to unite his fashion instincts and business acumen with his philanthropic convictions. As a Vice Chairman to the American Foundation of AIDS Research (amfAR) and a committed board member to the homeless organization, HELP USA, Kenneth Cole has made it his business to fuse fashion with social action. Kenneth is ... a board member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and the Fashion Footwear Association of New York (FFANY).
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Kenneth Cole Productions was born in 1982, when Kenneth Cole went broke. The emerging designer had spent all his money making shoes in Europe, but when he came back to his native New York, he had no place to sell them—and no money to open a store. Enlisting the help of a friend with a giant truck, Cole nabbed permission to park it in midtown and sell shoes by applying for a film permit; the fictitious film had the audacious title “The Birth of a Shoe Company.” The stunt helped sell 40,000 shoes in two days, and created both a company and a legend. Today, Cole designs men’s and women’s shoes, plus men’s wear, women’s wear and a secondary line of accessories called Kenneth Cole Reaction. The primary label is a visual manual in contemporary urban style: Black jeans, crew-neck sweaters, sexy granite colored dresses and chunky soled shoes are seasonal staples for the line, and even flirty chiffon skirts and more fitted button-up shirts boast a slight gruffness thanks to the use of thicker fabrics and deeper colors than others in their category (like Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren). Kenneth Cole Reaction is a more playful collection that still adheres to the brand’s city-dwelling sensibility.
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A middle-class New Yorker born in the late 1950s, Kenneth Cole grew up amid the fashion business. His father, Charlie Cole, was the owner of El Greco, a Brooklyn-based shoe manufacturer whose biggest achievement was creating the Candie's line of women's footwear. Despite being in this atmosphere, Kenneth was not drawn to the family business and escaped to Emory University in Atlanta, intending to study law.
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