High Praise for Wild Company

When I think about it, it makes complete sense that the greatest retailers in my lifetime were an artist and a journalist. What better people to visualize a cohesive brand story and bring it to life through every touchpoint? Enter Patricia and Mel Ziegler.

I have very vivid memories of visiting the Banana Republic store at Stanford Shopping Center in the mid 80s. It wasn’t simply themed, it was complete transformative immersion. Walking into that store was not unlike experiencing Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. It transported me from an open-air mall to being deep in the jungle. The giraffe had to be real, wasn’t it? Surely I could drive the safari-ready Jeep right out of the store. Had Hemingway typed on this typewriter?

The curation of the experience was so perfectly executed that I didn’t feel like I was being sold anything. I felt as if I was being invited into an experience. And because of that experience, I wanted to own a part of the brand. This is mastery, intentional or otherwise. I truly can’t think of another retail comparison in my almost half a century of living. The Ralph Lauren store at Stanford was a beautiful brand expression, but all it ultimately did was transport me from Palo Alto to a European villa. Banana Republic took me on an expedition. Travel to a far-off land I’d only seen in National Geographic magazine.

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My brother signed up to receive Banana Republic’s catalog on that first visit to their store. It immediately became his favorite brand and by proxy, mine. Our mom, wise to not spend any more on us that day than a T-shirt each, our frames still growing. But we soaked up each issue of that catalog. The writing and the drawings transporting me in the same manner as their store had. The perfect size to hold my attention as I was soon to be a teenager and most certainly a major inspiration behind my starting to make zines in my teen years. ?When the mall closer to our home (Vallco Fashion Park) got a Banana Republic store, it was uniquely different from Stanford, yet still distinctly the brand. Each trip to the mall, regardless of intention, required a visit.

The vest you see above is the only piece of clothing I still have from the 1980s. At the time it represented an expense beyond my brother or I's means, but he had to have it as soon as he saw it. Thankfully it soon became mine. Our last name penned in the collar by my mom, making sure it came home with me from summer camp. I was falling in love with photography in those years and it was the perfect vest to store film, filters, lens cloth and even a spare lens. It also became my fishing vest. Utilitarian in design, it made a kid from the suburbs of Silicon Valley feel worldly. It’s still the perfect photo vest today.

I hadn’t read Patricia and Mel’s book that came out in 2012 until this past weekend. As I made way through its pages, I’d see both a photo of Mel wearing the same vest and Patricia’s sketch of it. Inspired by their recent podcast with Guy Raz , I tracked the book down through my local bookseller and finished it in two days. For anyone who is considering building a brand of any kind, most especially an apparel brand, I can’t recommend the book or the podcast enough. They will inspire you to be visionary and give you a master class on the details that truly matter.

Patricia Z. and Mel, should you ever see this, thank you. Thank you for the brand you built. Thank you for the impression you made on me that absolutely impacted my career later in life. Thank you for your imagination and the tenacity to execute on it. For bringing two more incredibly talented artists into this world. Your collective impact is greater than you know.