好英语网Forever 21，一个快时尚帝国的起与落
When Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy in September, the fast fashion chain described its history in documents that read, at times, like a pitch for a memoir or a Netflix special.
Forever 21在9月提交破产申请时，这家快时尚连锁企业在文件中描述了自己的历史，读起来有时像是为一本回忆录或网飞(Netflix)的特别节目做宣传。
Photos of the company’s husband and wife founders, Do Won and Jin Sook Chang, and their two daughters appeared under headings like “Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion.” The filing emphasized the improbable success of the Changs, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1981 and built a multibillion-dollar business from scratch.
公司创始人张东文和妻子张金淑夫妇，以及他们两个女儿的照片出现在类似《永远在奋斗：一个关于勇气、决心和激情的故事》(Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion)这样的标题下。申请文件强调了张氏家族所取得的不可思议的成功，他们于1981年从韩国移民到美国，白手起家建立了一家价值数十亿美元的企业。
There were references to the daughters’ undergraduate degrees from “Ivy League universities” — both are top executives at the company — and summer breaks spent at Forever 21 stores.
文件提到他们的两个女儿在“常春藤高校”获得本科学位——她们都是公司的高管——暑假都在Forever 21店铺度过。
At its peak, the retailer brought in more than $4 billion in annual sales and employed more than 43,000 people worldwide in hundreds of stores. Now it is leaving 40 countries and closing up to 199, or more than 30%, of its stores in the United States as part of its bankruptcy, and former employees and industry experts are pointing to the Changs’ insular management style as a significant reason for the collapse. They cite disastrous real estate deals and the chain’s bungled merchandising strategy in recent years.
在鼎盛时期，这家零售商的年销售额超过40亿美元，在全球数百家门店雇佣逾4.3万名员工。如今，作为破产的一部分，它将退出40个国家，关闭在美国的199家门店，占总数的30%以上；前雇员和行业专家指出，张氏家族的封闭管理风格是其破产的一个重要原因。他们列举了近年来灾难性的房地产交易和该连锁企业搞砸的营销策略。
这家零售商得名于张东文关于21岁是“最令人羡慕的年龄”的观点。
“对于创始人来说，这种傲慢很常见，但如果你已经成功了很长时间，这种傲慢就尤其致命，”密歇根大学罗斯商学院(University of Michigan Ross School of Business)的管理学专家埃里克·戈登(Erik Gordon)说。“他们没有董事会给他们进行实情核查，他们没有股票分析师给他们进行实情核查。”
He added: “You can live in your self-created bubble for a lot longer, but then the bubble pops.”
他补充道：“你可以在自己创造的泡沫中生活更长的时间，但之后泡沫会破灭。”
The bankruptcy filing provides a rare glimpse inside a retailer that has been intensely secretive and privately held for decades. Six former employees, including three executives, also spoke to The New York Times about their experiences at Forever 21 on the condition of anonymity, citing nondisclosure agreements.
这家零售商数十年来一直保持高度神秘并由私人持股，此次申请破产让外界得以一窥其内部情况。包括三名高管在内的六名前雇员也向《纽约时报》讲述了他们在Forever 21的经历，他们以保密协议为由要求匿名。
Forever 21’s missteps, combined with industrywide changes in consumer tastes and shopping habits, will have far-reaching effects for thousands of people who work for the company, its vendors and malls. The chain says it will still operate hundreds of stores, along with its website. Through a spokeswoman, the Chang family declined to comment for this article.
Forever 21的失误，再加上整个行业范围内消费者品味和购物习惯的变化，将对该公司、其供应商和商场的数千名员工产生深远影响。该连锁店表示，它仍将经营数百家店铺及其网站。张氏家族通过发言人拒绝就本文置评。
Forever 21 — named because Do Won Chang considered 21 to be “the most enviable age” — was built on the idea of identifying apparel trends, then working with vendors to bring those products to stores quickly at cut-rate prices. From its early days, Do Won Chang, who is still the company’s chief executive, oversaw landlord and vendor relationships while Jin Sook Chang led design and merchandising.
Forever 21——得名于张东文认为21岁是“最令人羡慕的年龄”——的理念是确定服装趋势，然后与商家合作，以低廉的价格迅速将这些产品推向店铺。从成立之初，目前仍担任公司首席执行官的张东文便负责管理业主和商家关系，而张金淑则负责设计和销售。
Former employees say that the top floor of the company’s Los Angeles headquarters was viewed as Do Won Chang’s world, where corporate strategy unfolded and people kept quiet outside his office, while the bottom floor was Jin Sook Chang’s domain of buyers and planners, who showed their bags to security when leaving the building. Three former employees said that, as recently as this year, Do Won Chang was personally signing off on employee expenses and questioning executives about receipts for lunches or Uber rides.
前员工表示，公司洛杉矶总部的顶楼被视为是张东文的地盘，公司的战略在那里推出，人们会在他的办公室外保持安静；而最下面一层是张金淑的买家和策划人的地界，他们离开大楼时必须向安保人员出示自己的包。三名前员工称，就在今年，张东文还在亲自签署员工开支单据，并就午餐或优步的发票问题询问高管。
The couple’s daughters eventually joined the executive ranks. The oldest, Linda, is the executive vice president and has been viewed as Do Won Chang’s successor; her sister, Esther, is vice president of merchandising.
这对夫妇的女儿最终进入了管理层。年长的琳达(Linda)是执行副总裁，并被视为张东文的继任者；妹妹艾斯特(Esther)是负责销售的副总裁。
The Changs never took Forever 21 public, unlike their biggest fast-fashion rivals, “declining numerous opportunities that would facilitate generational wealth,” the filing said.
文件称，与他们最大的快时尚竞争对手不同，张氏家族从未将Forever 21上市，他们“放弃了许多有利于创造世代财富的机会”。
Their inner circle included another Korean-American couple: Alex Ok, Forever 21’s president and a former supplier, and his wife, SeongEun Kim, who works in merchandising. Internally, some referred to Jin Sook Chang and SeongEun Kim Ok as the “Missuses,” a powerful pair who directed the tens of thousands of styles that landed in Forever 21’s bustling stores. The filing showed that the Chang family owned 99% of equity in the chain, while Alex Ok held 1%.
他们的核心圈子里还包括另一对韩裔美国夫妇：Forever 21的总裁、前供应商亚历克斯·玉（Alex Ok，音）和他的妻子、从事销售规划的金盛恩（SeongEun Kim，音）。在内部，一些人把张金淑和金盛恩称为“太太团”(Missuses)，这对实力强大的搭档导演了成千上万种风格的服装，然后在Forever 21熙熙攘攘的店铺上架。文件显示，张家拥有该连锁店99%的股权，而亚历克斯·玉则持有1%。
As the business expanded, the Changs struggled with their desire to hire experienced executives and their distrust of outsiders, five of the employees said. In recent years, they said, Forever 21 eagerly recruited experts to overhaul parts of the business, then later ignored their recommendations on everything from new technology to marketing.
五名员工说，随着公司的扩张，张家想聘用有经验的高管，同时又不信任外人，这让他们很是烦恼。他们说，近年来，Forever 21急切地聘请专家对公司的部分业务进行全面检查，后来却无视专家在新技术和市场营销等各个方面提出的建议。
The Changs’ Christian faith played a role in the way they ran the company. Forever 21’s bright yellow shopping bags are stamped with “John 3:16,” a reference to a Bible verse. Do Won Chang has said the verse “shows us how much God loves us,” and hoped others would learn of that love. Former employees said Bibles were sometimes visible in conference rooms and on Do Won Chang’s desk. It was not unusual for department leaders to have ties to the family or their church but no experience working for another retailer, employees said.
张家的基督教信仰影响了他们经营公司的方式。Forever 21的亮黄色购物袋上印着“John 3:16”，指的是《圣经》里的一节。张东文曾说过这段经文“向我们展示了上帝多么爱我们”，并希望其他人也能学习这种爱。前员工说，有时在会议室和张东文的办公桌上可以看到《圣经》。员工们表示，部门主管往往与张家或他们的教会有联系，但没有为其他零售商工作的经验。
“Every once in a while, when we hired someone who had been there, we’d learn that they were never allowed to see the totality of the business performance and they were only given reporting on their specific sector,” said Margaret Coblentz, a former e-commerce director at Charlotte Russe. Rivals saw Forever 21 “as both monolithic and inscrutable,” she added.
“每当我们聘用曾在那里工作过的人时，我们就会发现，他们从来没有被允许全面了解公司的经营业绩，只能得到有关他们所在部门的报告，”前Charlotte Russe电子商务主管玛格丽特·科布伦茨(Margaret Coblentz)说，她还说，竞争对手都觉得Forever 21“是坚如磐石、深不可测的”。
But Forever 21 made its biggest mistakes in real estate. In the years before and after the recession, the company expanded aggressively and decided to open huge flagship stores, setting up in cavernous spaces once occupied by Mervyn’s, the bankrupt department store, as well as Borders, Sears and Saks. Its former head of real estate told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2011 that “having really big stores has always been Mr. Chang’s dream.”
但是Forever 21最大的错误是在地产领域犯下的。在经济衰退之前和之后的几年里，公司大举扩张，决定开设大型旗舰店，在破产的百货公司默文百货(Mervyn’s)、以及Borders、西尔斯(Sears)和萨克斯百货(Saks)等公司曾经占据的巨大空间里开店。该公司前地产主管在2011年接受《彭博商业周刊》(Bloomberg Businessweek)采访时表示，“拥有真正的大商场一直是张先生的梦想。”
The stores became hard to fill with new merchandise, then turn over, however, and saddled Forever 21 with long leases just as technology was beginning to wreak havoc on American malls. Seven of the leases at the old Mervyn’s stores were not set to expire until 2027 or 2028, which is longer than a typical lease, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.
然而，新商品难以填满商场货架，接着就开始周转不灵，当科技开始对美国的商场造成严重破坏时，Forever 21也陷入了长期租约的困境。《纽约时报》获得的内部文件显示，老默文百货有七份租约要到2027年或2028年才到期，这比一般的租约都要长。
Forever 21 said in the filing that most of its international locations were unprofitable as of 2015 and that its stores in Canada, Europe and Asia were losing an average of $10 million per month in the past year. Overall, the annual occupancy cost of Forever 21’s stores was $450 million.
在那些文件中，Forever 21表示，截至2015年，它的大部分国际门店都没有盈利，过去一年，它在加拿大、欧洲和亚洲的门店平均每月亏损1000万美元。总体而言，Forever 21门店的年入驻成本为4.5亿美元。
“They’ve gotten into categories and expression of fashion that are not closely aligned with their fast-fashion customer’s preferences,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. “They never built the intelligence into the business that would have cautioned them from this real estate orgy and would have kept them from the kind of exposure that they have now.”
“他们进入的时尚类型和表现方式，与他们的快时尚客户的偏好并不紧密一致，”哥伦比亚商学院(Columbia Business School)零售研究主管马克·A·科恩(Mark A. Cohen)说，“他们从来没有在公司中加入情报部门，而情报本可以提醒他们远离这场无节制的地产狂欢，也可以阻止他们遇到现在面临的这种风险。”
The Chang family will be listening to new voices. Its board of directors will grow from three members — Do Won Chang, Linda Chang and Alex Ok — to six, including Forever 21’s former head of real estate, a lawyer and the former chief executive of Things Remembered. It also said that it had added several new managers in recent months, including a new chief financial officer. Do Won Chang remains the chief executive.
张家将会听到新的声音。该公司的董事会成员将从三名成员——张东文、琳达·张和亚历克斯·玉——增至六名，其中包括Forever 21的前地产主管、一名律师和Things Remembered的前首席执行官。该公司还表示，最近几个月增加了几名经理人，其中包括一名新的首席财务官。张东文仍是首席执行官。
“Forever 21 has basically been a one-trick pony,” Cohen said. “The founder and his wife did remarkably well until the business got too big for them to continue to do remarkably well by themselves.”
“Forever 21基本上就是一匹只会玩一种把戏的小马，”科恩说。“创始人和他的妻子经营得非常好，直到公司变得太大，他们靠自己没法继续经营好。”