Buy a suit at Jos. A. Bank, let them give you a bank!

Gosh, I'm so sick of their commercials. Where do they get the goofball with the infinitely joyful sing-song voice, who is always offering ever more fantastic deals on clothing that no one needs!

Buy three suits, get five free!!! For what, dude? Don't have no job, don't need no suit!

Or if you had a job to which you might otherwise have worn a suit, the Security Department of your company has sent out a memo telling you to dress like a plumber or electrician just in case demonstrators think you're a bonus recipient and throw garbage at you, or worse.

This is my modest proposal to Jos. A Bank. It's a variation of the old wheeze where you open a CD at the bank and they give you a toaster. I'll buy the goddam suit, and I'll allow you, Jos. A. Bank, to give me a bank. You've got banks, right? That's why you're called that! Plus, if you don't have enough banks to give to the thirteen men in America today who might be persuaded to buy a junky suit if they got a bank with it, you can get more from the TARP. A suit is body cover, and what better to cover bodies than TARP?

Great deal. You unload surplus suits, government unloads surplus banks, I recapitalize my bank by taking Bazooka Joe wrappers and S&H Green Stamps to the Fed discount window. Everyone's a winner.

More Beijing Fashion Week Photos on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1590283860

Enjoy.

Fashion model

Because who wouldn't want to look at this fashion model? What a doll. She and I MC'd an event together in Beijing.

NY Fashion Week . . . Not What It Once Was

Just as Wall Street is not merely a street but a designation for the entire far-flung financial world of which it is the center, so Seventh Avenue is not just an avenue but the symbol of the American fashion and retail industry. Wall Street and Seventh Avenue are New York's #1 and #2 major businesses, and they have both fallen on hard times.



A couple of years ago, when Bryant Park wanted to kick out Fashion Week, there was so much lamentation and gnashing of teeth from designers that IMG and Bryant Park had to extend the arrangement. Now, with the economy in the tank, many designers have decided there are better things to do with a few spare hundred thousand dollars than spend them on twenty-minute shows in the tents.

Who has opted not to show in the Bryant Park tents? Carmen Marc Valvo, J. Mendel, Vera Wang, Sass & Bide, Betsey Johnson . . .

This may be all for the best. The excess of NYFW, like the excesses of the industry it showcases, had reached an extreme point. There was too much on the schedule, too much traffic, too many celebrities, too many paparazzi. It was becoming a burden on the people to whom it is supposed to targeted, buyers and editors. Some of them will be glad to get back to viewing collections from committed designers under more suitable conditions.

In the mean time that means less of this:



and this:



Sigh.

Following a thread about Quiksilver at "Transworld Business"

I'm following this thread about Quiksilver at "Transworld Business".

Quiksilver (ZQK) is the market leader in action sports gear, practically the originator of the category, owner of the Quiksilver, Roxy, and DC Shoe brands. It was formerly in ski through Rossignol and golf through Cleveland Golf. Those were bad outings of which the less said the better; however, they are part of the reason Quiksilver finds itself in some financial distress, with a stock price bouncing between $1 and $2 and a debt load that is a multiple of the common equity value.

I'm involved in the action sports gear industry peripherally, in apparel more generally, and I really believe Quik is in the right market space. Action sports gear has wiped out urban hip-hop as the uniform of choice for kids who don't want to wear only Aero, Eagle, and Abercrombie. As an analyst, I have worked on all the players in the category, the bigs (Nike and VF Corp) the less bigs such as Volcom, and the former big ZQK.

I observe on that message board that posters who say they work at Quik HQ in Huntington Beach say they are (rightly) proud of the company's heritage but fearful of the current direction and the future. And they are getting heavy pushback from people who are hoping that things are better than they say.

In the course of my analytical work there have been many examples of the objective facts showing that a company is in trouble, maybe a goner, and people bitterly fighting me on it. A lot of them do not ever want to give weight to negative information. Many investors live in hope, and if you tell them anything that is not hopeful, they accuse you of a sinister plot to panic them out of their position so you you can scoop it up on the cheap and make the fortune that is rightly theirs.

Moreover, many American individual investors don't get the whole concept of equity dilution at all. That is to say, they can't get their heads around the idea that, for example, Citigroup could survive but the common shareholders get wiped out. (On the other hand, Asian investors understand dilution very well. Abusive rights issues and insider self-dealing have been problems in Asian markets.)

I do not know whether DC Shoe is going to be sold at a valuation that alleviates Quiksilver's debt problem or not. I do not know whether there will be a bid for the whole company that gives common shareholders any take-over premium above the current share price.

No one knows these things.

That's why ZQK shares are valued where they are.

But there are a few things I think I know.

One is that when people who work for a company tell you it's not going well, it's probably not a sinister plot to scoop up your shares on the cheap, and you would have rocks in your head to dismiss what they say right out of hand.

Another is that time and gravity are on the side of Nike, VF, or others who might want to acquire these brands or the whole company. Unless Quik sells DC for a high price, or otherwise find a way to get its debt down, or gets saved by a miracle recovery in credit markets, or persuades Congress that the Surf & Skate industry is a vital national asset that requires a rescue, it has an intractable problem, valuable brands or no.

Another is that the Quiksilver, Roxy, and DC brands are indeed valuable, but periods of financial distress are not the best for capitalizing on these values. I'm concerned that the distress and the pressure will tend to wear the company down and put it in a harder negotiating position.

Burberry in China

Or as Morici said, "the most protectionist country in the history of the world."

Vale of Tears