Established in 2018, Thai fashion brand Gentlewoman has rapidly ascended to become one of Asia’s hottest names thanks to its signature tote bag, now ubiquitous on the streets of Hong Kong and across the region. Along with co-founders Raya Wannapinyo and Siripa Rueangwutthisakulchai, Jitpon Siriwattanamathangkur helped steer the ship through economic uncertainties during the pandemic, emerging with a stronger and more successful business model based on timely, trendy fashion drops and hit products.
Siriwattanamathangkur sat down with Style at Fashion Asia’s Fashion Challenges Forum last December to discuss Gentlewoman’s viral success and future plans for the business.
How did Gentlewoman come to be?
Our first company was like a pop-up market focusing on fashion. Back then, in 2015, that was just the starting point of Instagram brands only visible online without any bricks-and-mortar stores, so we were doing some pop-up events. And at the same time, we started a multi-brand store called Camp for online brands. Then we started Gentlewoman in 2018. So at the time, we had three businesses. We closed down the multi-brand store during Covid – event organisers didn’t allow us to hold events. Gentlewoman first focused on workwear. The second year [of the business], we almost knew where to go, the direction of the design, but then Covid hit and we changed to casualwear.
How did you switch gears and adapt during the pandemic?
We survived because we needed to. We were running out of cash. We adapted a lot: for example, we almost launched a beach towel, but then we weren’t allowed to leave home. So we promoted the beach towel as a blanket for work from home. We launched headbands – I wake up, do Zoom and wear pyjamas, so they can only see my face. People wanted something, at least, to be on screen.
Did you know you had a hit product on your hands with the Gentlewoman tote bag?
What we do is A-B testing. We’re accountants, we’re numbers guys. It’s not that we’re inventing something and super confident it’s going to sell well. I believe in fashion, you cannot predict, cannot forecast that this thing you created is going to be a hit product. But you need to know that the product’s giving you a hint that it can be a superstar. You need to be the one that sees the pattern, picks it up, makes it huge, scales it.
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