Escada celebrates its quarter-century with a fall 2004 preview at its East 57th Street Manhattan store and débuts its kids’ line, reports Phillip D. Johnson

PHOTOGRAPHED BY THE AUTHOR

SCADA, the Aschheim–München, Germany-based high fashion company was founded 25 years by the former Jacques Fath model, Sweden’s Margaretha Ley and her young, entrepreneurial husband, Wolfgang. From the very beginning, it was a match made in retail heaven. Mrs Ley’s dedicated sense of femininity, her affinity for elegant tailoring (and fit) and love of bold, vibrant colours were equivalent to her husband’s shrewd marketing skills and astute business know-how. And they prospered, both as business partners and as a couple who never fell out of love with each other.
   Society ladies and young society tigresses-in-training the world over value Escada for its bright fabrics, elaborate stitching, hand-bead work and tailored looks. The company designs and sells upscale women’s apparel (including evening­wear, casual wear and shoes), accessories and fragrances in more than 400 company-owned stores (and with distribution) in nearly 64 countries, as well as one of the cutest children’s lines I’ve ever seen. (More on that later.) Apparel, handbags, shoes and belts are designed in-house, while eyewear, jewellery, watches and scarves are licensed to outside contractors. It developed and later sold its Escada Beauté cosmetics division to Wella AG. Escada produces two seasonal collections for its ready-to-wear divisions, Escada, Escada Couture and Escada Sport, along with Escada Accessories, Escada Eyewear and Escada fragrances.
   Escada and Ms Ley, in particular, helped to define the stratospheric supermodel era of the 1980s and the early-1990s, with virtually all the top female models at the time—Naomi Campbell, Iman, Stephanie Seymour, Gia, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer—appearing in their career-making print ads and walking the catwalk at the company’s fashion shows. In 1986, they joined the ranks of publicly owned companies when they sold shares to the public in order to finance the expansion of the company. They rode the wave of continued success and financial growth until 1992 when Ms Ley unfortunately passed away. She was a legendary figure on the international fashion scene and is still very much missed.
   After Ms Ley’s death, the company experi­enced some rocky financial and creatively uncertain times, but within several years, it corrected itself and returned to profitability and even greater creative acclaim. Since the late-1990s and early-2000s, the entire retail sector has been taking a beating, but, more often than not, Escada has fared much better than others. For the 2003 fiscal year that ended last October, the company grossed $722·4 million while only experiencing a –5 per cent revenue growth. The company now has a worldwide staff of 4,951 workers head­ed by chairman Peter Zühlsdorff, CEO Wolfgang Ley and Chief Financial Officer Georg Kellinghusen. Ley owns 22 per cent of the firm.
   Today, Ley reiterates that he and the company continue to be a blazing success because ‘[We] stayed true to the idea that inspired [my] late wife, which is “to make women beautiful and happy”.’

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ABOVE: Escada Collection fall 2004. FAR LEFT: Escada handbags.

Ley reiterates that he and the company continue to be a blazing success because ‘[We] stayed true to the idea that inspired [my] late wife, which is “to make women beautiful and happy”’