Kin by John Lewis update

10 days after the launch of new lifestyle brand, Kin by John Lewis, and I’m back posting to review the highlights and pitfalls of the new range.

Previously I posted about a new lifestyle range culminating womenswear, menswear and childrenswear all under one brand, Kin, designed in-house by John Lewis. I could find little information about the launch of the new range days before it was due, so now, 10 days after its debut; I revisited the brand to see how the collection is doing.

The collection comprises of more than 100 pieces offering contemporary, clean and stylish pieces, with almost a Scandinavian functionality. 

 'This is not a seasonally trend-driven brand; it's about modern, stylish pieces that you can get some sort of longevity from. Kin offers beautifully cut separates that transcend seasons.' (Camilla Rowe, head of buying for childrenswear, John Lewis)

While Kin accommodates all of the family, with some almost ‘mini-me’ pieces from mum to daughter for example, the range represents an everyman, woman and child feel, rather than going for family portrait-style imagery. The campaign’s related imagery emphasises this as the models look unrelated but representative of the brand.

Kin’s style ideal is obviously working for John Lewis’s target customers as pieces such as this Twist Detail Jersey Dress are already sold out online.

Price points start from £7 up to £99 for a men’s Mac, offering these stylish basics for reasonable prices that will hopefully reflect a high quality garment, with the longevity so many customers are looking for in their wardrobe staples in the current economic climate.

The brand identity of Kin, created by Mark Farrow, is modern and simple to reflect the brands product aesthetic, and simple ‘hardworking’ ideals.

Furthermore, these beautiful black and white shots, by photographer Boo George emphasise the contemporary style of its core market, and strong simplicity of the garments. 

These shots have been beautifully collated with Mark Farrow’s logo design to create the perfect landing page for the brand that not only explain the brand’s identity, but also reflects the overall identity that John Lewis consistently adheres to.

However, as with most things there are some flaws with Kin. While product design, campaign photography and brand identity (especially displayed on the website) are great, I have some concerns over Kin’s overall marketing strategy:

Basic tools for John Lewis’s marketing – Webiste – Check, Press Release – Check, Independent news articles – Check, Facebook page – err, no… Twitter -  sort of…

Worryingly John Lewis’s Facebook page had no mention of the brand’s launch, While I counted only two tweets mentioning the brand (one of which was by The Online Stylist, not John Lewis, and was actually better than John Lewis’s own tweet). Also a quick Google of John Lewis Kin Marketing/Advertising/ In-store gave few results. For example I couldn’t see the five Kin store within store concepts launched in John Lewis’s five best performing stores and I couldn’t see any images of outdoor marketing, magazine adverts or any major online campaigns, all meant to be supporting Kin’s launch. I can only hope we see significant improvement across all platforms in the second half of this year as promised.

I also have one last smaller sticking point. While the jersey dress mentioned above looked elegant on the model and unsurprisingly sold out online, some of the styling and photography of other products lacked that modern contemporary styling the brand is all about, and I felt didn’t flatter the figure particularly well, making some of the products look a touch ‘mumsy’. I appreciate I am not the target market for this brand and will not understand the appeal of all the products, but I have read enough into this brand to know that the modern hardworking customer, wants practicality AND flattering style. 

In summary, I hope to see more from this brand as it grows because it fills a middle ground between boring practicality and over the top detail, which also answers a calling for menswear and childrenswear. The pricing structure seems reasonable and the modern styling of the brand is elegant and desirable. I just hope the range develops both product and marketing-wise, and remains true to its core consumer.