Vetements CEO Guram Gvasalia Explains How It Purposefully Doesn't Keep Up With Demand

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Vetements is baffling. Thousand dollar hoodies and boots made of sock material that the world's premiere designer boutiques and department stores can't keep in stock. HOW?

One part of the equation is obviously design, lead by Demna Gvasalia (also creative director at Balenciaga). But just as important is business. Demna's little brother Guram serves as CEO for Vetements and recently shed some light on how the company rings that register in an interview with Sarah Mower at The Royal Institution in London. Thanks to a transcription via 1 Granary, here are five illuminating points from the brains of Vetements:

Why Vetements Is So Expensive

Guram named choice in factories and fabrics alongside shipping as the reasons Vetements is so pricey — no surprise here. "It is never when people save up," he said. "They can buy this one piece that they cherish for a longer time."

Why Is It So Hard to Get??

In two seasons, Vetements has racked up 135 stockists, but they have strict limits on how much stores can buy. "Stores cannot buy more than ten pairs of jeans and Italian stores are not allowed to buy more than four pieces of jersey in one style," Guram said. "In November, Barney's asked us what the minimum for the order was. And I said: there’s no minimum, but there’s a maximum. And they said that no one ever speaks about maximum."

What Is Luxury Anyway

"I don’t consider Louis Vuitton to be a luxury brand," Guram said. "Yes, the quality is luxury, but if you can go to the store and get whatever you want, it’s not luxury."

Luxury Definitely Isn't On Sale

"Once you go on sale, there’s no going back," he said. "It is always better to sell one piece less to a store and to be sold out than to sell one piece extra and to go on sale." The keep a keen eye on the demand, and make sure to produce just a little bit less. As a result, they boast a sell through rate of 70 — 80%.

"It's Out of Respect"

"Once it’s sold out, it’s sold out. We had hoodies from the first season that sold out super quickly and we had thousands of requests to make the hoodies again," Guram said. "If we were to, we would probably be able to make a million in a day. It’s out of respect to the people that bought them first that we don’t." Love to the luxury hoodie day 1s.

Read the entire transcript here.