Nataly Backry

2 April, 2022

126

The beginning of Guess

Guess is the ideal fashion brand which combines the glamor of hollywood with a dash of natural french chic.

As Guess mention :

The story began in 1981. Having fallen in love with Los Angeles on a family vacation, the four Marciano brothers, from the South of France, decided to make it their home. 

The brand name was suggested by an advertising slogan they saw everyday on the drive to their office: “Guess what’s in our new Big Mac?” The word stuck in their minds. Soon it became the name on their headquarters building on Olympic Boulevard, just down the street from the billboard that had inspired them.

 Marilyn Jean

In love with Americana, the brothers chose an American icon for their breakthrough product: a slim-fitting, stonewashed, three-zip ankle jean they called the Marilyn Jean.

Gettyimages

 Defying the fact that stonewashing was rare in the US market – and potential skepticism about French gentlemen making such a symbolically American product – they sent a pair of jeans and a handwritten note 

Guess

Stonewashed jeans

Stonewashed jeans are denim jeans that are made using a stone-washing technique. To produce them, manufacturers place denim jeans in a washing machine where they are exposed to large and heavy stones. When the stones beat against the surface of the jeans, it distresses them. The end result is a pair of fashionable yet comfortable jeans.

The growing of Guess 

GUESS has grown from a denim pioneer into a global lifestyle brand, supported by sexy, spirited advertising that has become iconic.

GUESS quickly became a symbol of a young, sexy and adventurous lifestyle. Throughout the decades GUESS invited people to dream with its iconic and timeless advertising campaigns that turned unknown faces into famous models.

 In 2004, the company expanded with a new retail concept for its contemporary collection called Marciano. The Marciano brand offers a fashion-forward collection designed for trend-setting women and men. 

The Marciano brothers launched the brand extension G by Guess in 2007 as a lower-priced denim line accessible to the 16- to 23-year-old demographic.

According to the company's press materials, "G by Guess was created for young, hip and trendy men and women with an eye for the freshest looks and hottest styles." Like its older sibling, G by Guess offers a collection of men's and women's apparel, denim apparel, shoes and accessories, including jewelry, watches and sunglasses

Today, GUESS has over 1.500 retail stores worldwide and offers collections for men, women and children, as well as a wide range of accessories, from jewelry, fragrances, eyewear and timepieces to highly desirable shoes and bags.

Guess

Within its first year in the US, GUESS made it into every major US department store، At a time when jeans were a workday staple of the American wardrobe, 

GUESS reclaimed denim for fashion by offering a wide range of innovative cuts and washes, with a stylish, coquettish attitude that perhaps only les français could achieve.

HOW THE GUESS TRIANGLE LOGO WAS BORN

Guess

The GUESS triangle logo, one of the most recognizable logos across the globe, was initially conceived during the Marciano brothers’ daily drive down Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. 

Each day the brothers would pass a McDonald’s billboard that read “Guess what’s in our new Big Mac?”. This instigated a comical debate resulting in the company’s official name, GUESS.

Once the company name was decided upon, Paul and Maurice decided that a question mark needed to be added to emphasize the word GUESS as a question. And they decided to place it beneath the word.

 From there, the brothers needed to create a design that would stand out and encase the GUESS logo and question mark. They simply traced the word, thus becoming the inverted triangle.

 Once this was decided upon, the period in the question mark changed to a triangle shape for additional emphasis and the numbers 1201 and 1203 were added to the logo, representing the suite numbers to their first office on the 12th floor on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

Paul and Maurice added the words washed and jeans inside the triangle logo to represent what they hoped to become known for and the product with which they started.

The expansion of guess

The company was one of the first companies to create designer jeans. In 1984, Guess introduced its new line of watches known as "Guess", "Guess Steel", and the "Guess Collection".

credit:Guess

In 1984, they also introduced a line of baby's clothes, called "Baby Guess".

credit:Guess

 Georges abruptly sold his stake in the company to his brothers in September, 1993 for $214.2 million.

In 2005, Guess began marketing perfume. 

The company operates in many countries around the world with the majority of their stores located in the United States and Canada. Guess has licensees and distributors in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

In 2012, the supermodel Claudia Schiffer posed  for Guess' black-and-white ads marking the brand's 30th anniversary.

In 2017, Camila Cabello was announced as the new face of Guess.

As of 2018, Jennifer Lopez is the new face of Guess.

credit:Guess

credit:Guess

credit:Guess

What it is the difference between Guess Factory and Guess

 You can find in GUESS factory stores the products at a lower price than a regular GUESS store.

Guessing Factory is something from last season that they cut to get rid of ... that's what factories and outlets do.

The #GUESS Brand Story: Told By Paul & Maurice Marciano

Well if you talk about image and advertising if i had to resume

that in three words it would be

(wonder  passion  freedom)

Every story has a beginning and an end but there are some stories that are

meant to last forever these are the ones that are built on dreams values and determination

Well where did it start ?

It starts in a place in Marseille, my best memories of the year. These stories are not meant to have an end because each one of us will carry this legend for years to come.

We decided to when they decide to do jeans right away we had a big success with jeans

called  (mga ) Maurice George Armor .

We opened our first stores in Bandol it was an old fish store the smell of the fish was so strong when we put our first jeans in a store

 but it's all memories all that because it was the best time of our life because everything was new for us everything was exciting everything was fun everything was like to work until midnight and wake up at five who cares or four who cares just go and work and have fun we have been blessed to do

 All my brothers and i every single day what we dream to do to love a job

love the opportunity to do something on our own and make it bigger and bigger and more fun and get more people around us that is the dream that we had in france

And then when we crossed the atlantic and we came to visit America everything began in 1981

when four french brothers went to America on their first real vacation outside of france they were young and like young people do they were probably looking for something their plane landed in the lake and the four brothers began their journey the sun of california the beaches the huge freeways everything was made to strike them .

They suddenly fell in love with this incredible atmosphere and the opportunities waiting for them they thought that if there is anything that they were looking for this was definitely the right place

We didn't have a name for the company so we find the name by a stupid thing that nobody can believe in a billboard it says ( guess big and very small along the billboard what is in a new big mac)

And one of my brothers said that's it we're going to call the company Guess nobody speak english so except Morins

Mori said

if you use the word Guess you have to put a question mark

and that guess becomes the guess with a question mark and always put it in a red triangle it's as simple as that

 That was the first step, soon guess became the name on their headquarters building on olympic Boulevard just down the street from the billboard that had inspired them

Now they had to find out their first breakthrough product in love with Americana 

The brothers chose an american icon to redefine denim fashion a sexy slim-fitting stone-washed three-zip ankle jean called the marilyn 

There was so much genes in the market that the last thing that the market needed was another denim company

 But we had an idea we wanted to do something completely different from anybody else and the inspiration came from one of the old movies from marilyn monroe  in which in one of the scenes she was wearing a jean very tight

and rolled up so it was really cropped just below the calf and that gave us the idea of coming up with a very tight-fitted jig to fit genes that nobody had 

really before

 It is like today's skinny jeans but this was in 82 nobody had anything like that and we wanted to be short above the ankle 

But we made it so tight that nobody could put the feet through so that's why we decided to put a zipper at the bottom  and that's how the free zip came up

ِAfter that they sent a pair of jeans and a handwritten note to selected department stores 

Bloomingdale's loved the jeans and ordered 24 pairs the unique sexily cut style sold out within a few hours

 after all it was a matter of taste so they mixed up a couple of good ingredients they took the legendary glamor of hollywood and combined it with a dash of natural french chic

Guess started to grow fast

But there was still an ingredient missing in the success recipe the Guess image .

This vision was shaped from its inception in the mind of the youngest brother Paul Marciano 

it was time for guess to be known and of course it was time to change the advertising world while the company was making efforts designing new products and collections

Paul already had the glamorous world of guess clearly embossed in his mind this vision was inspired from the iconic beauty of movie stars from the 50s and 60s like Brigitte Baurdot and Sophia

Once they created a strong brand with strong image recognition

they soon understood the importance of expanding the brand in new categories in order to create a true lifestyle brand

 The marciano's continued their brand expansion as they partnered with key licensees to include watches children's wear eyewear underwear jeanswear shoes accessories houseware and a range of other products

(Once you create an image you will have abrand) he said.

And the brand is made of what you want that image to be

and if you have that,that means now you have people will come to you and say

i would like to have a license of your brand

When you have a brand you have to stay true to yourself

everything you do and how you do it and where you do it everything has to be consistent with a brand

The brand is your most valued asset that you have this is what's going to keep you in the market and in existence for 50 years 100 years

the next logical step was to diversify the business model and expand in new retail concepts that would embody different segments of the lifestyles brand from the success in the 1980s and early 1990s

Guess launched a multi-brand portfolio including

Guess kids 1984

Guess factory 1989 

Guess by marciano 2004

 Guess accessories 2004

credit:Guess

Guess footwear 2006 gc

2007 g by guess 2007

Guess underwear 2009. 

How do we do that

We have everything has to be done according to the brand and i keep saying it it's not all about volume it's not all about cells

It's about how we produce these sales and it all starts with a product then

it continues with the advertising and the marketing in order to bring the people aware of what we're doing 

if it's about your company if it's about

your brand don't forget your roots ever the day you

lose that you lose your identity we're not a

Product image we're a brand image we have

created something that people are dreaming all their life to

have and never achieve that nobody can take it away and that's

the message i want to give you .