Lee Sun-hyo, CEO of Nepa, has drawn attention in the industry for turning around the performance of multiple fashion brands including Vob, Lacoste, and Gap. Yet he describes the start of his fashion career as "a failed personnel assignment."
When Lee, a business school graduate, joined Samsung C&T for his first job and was assigned to the apparel division despite knowing nothing about clothing, colleagues expressed concern. However, this very "lack of expertise" allowed him to approach things from a different perspective and transformed him into a differentiated fashion executive.
"The 'sensibility' that designers talked about was vague. They'd say 'let's do more of what's good,' but there was no answer to what exactly 'good' meant or how much 'more' was. I focused on objectifying that vague sensibility into numbers," Lee said.
Lee explained that he has been applying "numbers" to fashion since his Samsung C&T days. The global sense he developed while balancing export and import operations as a representative stationed in Milan, Italy later became his weapon for resuscitating the women's wear brand Vob at Shinsegae International.
When Lee took over Vob, which was struggling with losses, he broke the convention of relying solely on designers' intuition and focused on merchandising (MD) and sales. "With women's wear being 'sensibility'-driven, sales fluctuated significantly depending on what designers did," Lee said. "We needed to introduce 'logic' to sensibility. I left the sensibility to designers and built a system." He logically established Vob's concept, direction, and projected sales quantities by store.
For example, when defining the brand concept of "healthy sexy," he unified internal views by targeting the restrained sensuality of Kim Hye-soo rather than the trendiness of Lee Hyori, who was a sex icon at the time. The result was a major success. Annual sales, which had been merely in the 20 billion won range, surpassed 35 billion won within two years. Operating profit also turned from a 2 billion won loss to profit within one year. Operating profit continued to increase each year, reaching a 5 billion won surplus two years later.
"After Vob's performance, which everyone had wanted to give up on, improved dramatically, we also acquired the women's wear brand G-cut," Lee said. "Later, beyond expanding domestic business, I also took charge of operating the imported brand Gap."
Prior to this, Lee participated as a founding member of Moda Outlet in Daegu. Moda Outlet is considered the pioneer of Korea's outlet market. "Back then, all they did was pile up inventory in warehouse-like places and sell it. There were no outlets like we have today," Lee recalled. "I wanted to create an environment where brands could sell at low prices without damaging their image, while providing customers a comfortable shopping experience—a place that could make money. It was the first case of a department store-like outlet appearing in Korea, reminiscent of Woodbury Common in the US," he explained. His foresight proved accurate, and Moda Outlet's success became the catalyst for major conglomerates to enter the outlet business.
His strategy for elevating Lacoste to national brand status while serving as CEO of Donil Devanlay was also unconventional. At the time, Beanpole and Polo dominated 65% of the traditional casual fashion market. "Within the market frame divided into major and minor players, there was no way for Lacoste, which had only 16% market share at the time, to expand its position," Lee said. "I broke the existing framework and created a new competitive structure: 'American Casual' versus 'European Casual.'" He positioned Lacoste not as a simple piqué shirt brand but as premium "European Casual" like Moncler, and developed Korea-exclusive winter down jackets that became massive hits. During his tenure, Lacoste sales rose vertically from the 80 billion won range to the 200 billion won range.
Lee, who was considering retirement after Lacoste, chose to join Nepa in 2016 because of his intuition that "it was worth the challenge." At a time when the outdoor market was sharply declining, he saw another opportunity to shake up the industry.
"At the time, growth had stalled because of the perception that outdoor clothing was unfashionable. I believed that if we changed the structure to functional casual wear, we could grow again," Lee said. "As I've always focused on changing market structures and expanding into new territory, at Nepa I will achieve rebranding results through 'Stylish Outdoor'—products that combine both design and functionality."
Indeed, since taking office, Lee introduced coat-style down padding products (goose coats) as an industry first, targeting the point that while padding is comfortable clothing, it's difficult to wear to formal occasions. "Other companies are making similar products, but Nepa continues to strive to create differentiated items," Lee said. "As a result, premium lineups like Arte and Ventus were born, and this year we expect the sales growth rate for fall-winter season products to approach double digits starting from November."
