How designer label Dion Lee is positioning itself for global expansion

After establishing his creative direction and commercial success Dion Lee is ready for expedited global growth.

The post How designer label Dion Lee is positioning itself for global expansion appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.

Dion Lee is a luxury brand established back in 2009 by its namesake designer in Sydney, Australia.

The founder and creative director hit the runway straight out of fashion school showcasing his first collection in a Kings Cross car park at Australian Fashion Week in 2009. 

Now, the brand is a permanent fixture in the New York Fashion Week program, presenting a new collection each season.

While Dion Lee the designer is based in New York, until recently, all of the label’s retail stores, six in total, were in Australia. That changed with the recent addition of a Miami flagship, its first location in the US.

Global expansion

Dion Lee’s biggest market is in the US, so expanding the brand’s physical store footprint to the States was the next logical move.

“We are thrilled to be opening our very first US Flagship in the Miami Design District and looking forward to continuing our footprint in the US retail market,” said Lee in a statement. 

“This space will be a portal into the Dion Lee brand and we are excited for our US customers and global Miami audience to experience that.” 

It was a surprise to the fashion community that the New York-based designer selected Miami’s design district to be the location of his first US flagship store.

“Miami has a unique perspective, especially when it comes to fashion, but we could see that we had a customer there from wholesalers and from our digital channels and the product being shipped there,” Lee told Vogue.

The new Miami location is distinctively on brand with the space toeing the line between luxurious and gritty with a custom stainless steel helix-inspired staircase and polished concrete floors designed by ANDstudio.

While the Dion Lee brand has had immense e-commerce success, the founder and designer places great emphasis on the importance of bricks-and-mortar in luxury fashion.

“There’s so much communication around a product, and so much detail around the design and manufacturing of each product that isn’t always necessarily communicated online when you’re buying something,” Lee told RUSSH Magazine.

“But I also see a retail environment as an opportunity to really connect with all of the sensory elements of the brand.”

Slow burn

The luxury brand has earned a reputation for creating women’s and unisex clothing that combines experimental structure and traditional tailoring.

“Having shown in New York for close to 10 years, I’m aware that many brands come and go,” Lee told Vogue. 

“Brands can become the next big thing in two seconds, and I’ve taken a very slow-burn approach to building myself within the industry.”

The fashion industry is futile with a demanding trend cycle that churns out designers as quickly as it brings them in.

Despite his brand having over a decade of commercial success in the US, Lee said he struggles with still being categorised as “emerging”. 

“I do feel that I’ve been in a holding pattern waiting for these projects to materialise in order for people’s perception of the brand to evolve and for that misconception to be corrected,” Lee told Vogue.

New leadership

Last December, the brand announced that it had onboarded James Miller as chief executive officer to help position the label for this next leg of growth.

“We are thrilled to have James on board leading global brand expansion and strategic growth opportunities as we continue to broaden the Dion Lee brand,” said Lee in a statement released by WWD. 

Miller, who served his last tenure as CEO and chief creative officer at the Collected Group for seven years, is well positioned to lead Dion Lee toward global expansion.

Dion Lee has built a strong brand identity and reputation over the last fifteen years but it’s only just the beginning.

Currently, Dion Lee has six stores and is stocked in over 200 stores worldwide and plans on scaling with Miller as chief executive officer and Lee as creative director.

Dion Lee’s next store is set to open in SoHo, New York City, early this year.

The post How designer label Dion Lee is positioning itself for global expansion appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.