Thakoon Is Back With a New Content-and-Commerce Play

NEW YORK, United States — Designer Thakoon Panichgul spent 4 years in trend magazines, culminating in a role as a writer at Harper’s Bazaar, earlier than heading off to Parsons to start his format profession nearly twenty years ago.
Now after a two-year sabbatical following a pause on his Silas Chou-backed namesake label, which is set to return this autumn, Panichgul is launching a non-public passion project that sees him dipping lower back into an editorial role.
Hommegirls, a “platform” for ladies who shop from men’s departments, launches on Monday with a print magazine (publishing 4 instances a year) and website, which will feature more content, e-commerce links, product suggestions and, later this year, old menswear pieces transformed through the designer.
Panichgul wishes Hommegirls to teach and inspire girls to put on menswear and to be a vicinity the place these who are followers can share their inspirations and approaches. The center of attention is on non-public style, no longer trends. “This is no longer gender fluidity, per se, this is about girls proudly owning their sexuality,” he said. “There are certain nuances about men’s clothes that make you sense cooler and each and every girl knows what that means.”
Panichgul has self-funded the mission and enlisted buddies to collaborate such as photographer Cass Bird, stylist Elissa Santisi and Rachel Chandler of casting agency Midland, all of whom contributed to the first issue, which will be on hand at confined newsstands in New York and Los Angeles. He plans to spotlight emerging labels and stylists as nicely as mounted brands. The products and manufacturers featured will vary in price, as will the reworked old pieces, which he desires to design experimentally.
The enterprise will be sustained via advertising, affiliate hyperlinks and product sales, but Panichgul stated the project’s principal motive is a creative outlet.
“We are now not beholden to a certain time frame for whatever or a sure investor,” he said, explaining that he has enlisted buddies to collaborate. “I choose it to be a place for expression of fashion and that can solely be born from an natural place.”
After launching his namesake line in 2004, Panichgul rapidly won focus for his wearable, feminine-with-a-twist designs, earning celeb fans (notably First Lady Michelle Obama) and a runner-up prize at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2006. Two years later, he collaborated with Target. But he diagnosed the challenges of the wholesale dependent designer model earlier than most and located a accomplice for a new kind of business in billionaire cloth magnate Silas Chou. In 2015, an investment automobile led by means of Chou’s daughter Vivian received a majority stake in the manufacturer and the following year, Thakoon relaunched as a direct-to-consumer, see-now-buy-now fashion designer brand. But Silas Chou announced in March 2017 that the line would pause, explaining that “the commercial enterprise model is ahead of the current retail environment.”
Panichgul said the timing used to be now not right. “I suppose that fashion as an enterprise used to be nonetheless going through a lot of transformation in particular in the designer market,” he said. “[Chou] only sees success for [Thakoon] and to have the possibility to pause is something that I cherish.”
Panichgul said Thakoon’s return to market this autumn will function with a “less is more” approach. “We are focusing on pieces as antagonistic to collections.” The line will nevertheless be on hand direct-to-consumer only, now not tied to seasonal releases, and be extra accessibly priced than before.
“For a long time, the word reachable or the phrase business connotates [something negative],” he said. “Accessible does not imply that it’s not cool.”
That’s one thing Panichgul realized throughout his time off from fashion, as properly as the cost in having more than one creative pursuits. While he has worked with Japanese first-class jeweller Tasaki because 2010, Hommegirls is the most significant mission he’s taken on backyard of his namesake line due to the fact that it launched.
“There have to be special retailers for different facets of you,” he said. “Once I realized that after my sabbatical, the sky opened up. This is the most productive that I’ve ever been.”