Soho Fashion: 20 years of sustainable growth in a changing world. Exclusive interview with founder Jacob Tresckow

Amid global changes in the fashion retail market, many distributors have faced significant challenges. SOHO Fashion is one of the few companies that has not only maintained its business but also found new growth opportunities. Ahead of the company's 20th anniversary, its founder, Jacob Tresckow, spoke with Shoes Report about the company's journey, the lessons learned during the crisis, and its plans for the future.

Jacob Treskov - CEO of SOHO Fashion 

Shoes Report : Recent events worldwide and in our country have hit the businesses of international brand distributors. Please tell us how you've coped and how Soho Fashion is doing now?

Jacob Treskov: This November, SOHO Fashion will celebrate its 20th anniversary . This is a significant milestone for a Russian business, especially considering we haven't experienced any radical transformations. We began our journey with wholesale, but by 2010, having gained experience and strengthened our expertise, we expanded beyond that, adding new sales channels. We always look to the future: adopting best global practices and staying ahead of the curve. Back then, this resulted in opening our own retail stores, launching private labels, and partnering with leading global brands. Today, our hybrid format remains a competitive advantage – the omnichannel approach we introduced 15 years ago is only now becoming the standard for many companies.

В 2005 year I was involved in distributing Tommy Hilfiger footwear and accessories in the CIS, working for the brand's licensee. 2007-m bought the business from the distributor he supervised and began expanding the brand portfolio. By 2010 In 2015, we became a key player in the niche of "clothing brand footwear and accessories" - Tommy Hilfiger, Gant, Marc O'Polo, Napapijri, Strellson, Pepe Jeans. At that time, lifestyle brands were just gaining popularity, and we were among the first to occupy this niche in Russia.

The accumulated experience and deep expertise allowed us to see new opportunities for growth. We reviewed the business strategy and took an important step: at the beginning of 2020, I handed over operational management to a professional CEO to focus on developing promising areas:

- Distribution of sexual health products (2020 to present). We expanded our products from a niche specialty retailer into mainstream retail (Golden Apple, M.Video, L'Etoile). We simultaneously launched these products for sale on marketplaces.

- Distribution of Camel Active (2020 - present). In 2020, we expanded our portfolio by becoming the official distributor of the international clothing brand Camel Active in Russia. The existing franchise network joined the project, which allowed us to quickly strengthen Camel Active's position in the Russian market using already established distribution channels.

- Strategic partnership with the UFC brand (2021–2022) . We became the official UFC licensee in Russia and the CIS, acquiring the rights to produce branded products and launch the UFC Russia online store. Although the project was terminated due to the company's exit from the Russian market in 2022, this experience allowed us to strengthen our licensing expertise and develop mechanisms for promoting a global foreign brand. This was a valuable contribution to our portfolio of expertise. These competencies subsequently played a key role in our next achievement—obtaining the EMU Australia brand license, confirming our reputation as a strong partner for global brands.

I want to say that we consciously began to restructure business processes long before external challenges. We carried out a deep modernization of the wholesale direction and actively developed e-commerce, plus we had 4 more retail projects - SOHO, Clarks, ARA, Picard (of which one was multi-brand and three were single-brand).

It was thanks to the restructuring of processes carried out in advance that the company approached the pandemic period with a stable operating model. This allowed us to carry out the forced optimization of the retail network as efficiently as possible - we closed only truly unprofitable points, minimizing the company's overall losses. The flow of people to shopping centers decreased sharply, which called into question their further rapid rehabilitation. A good example is the MEGA shopping center, which was a leisure center where many went with their whole family on weekends, and at one point it became a huge empty building. 

And at the same time, there was a transformation of marketplaces. Until 2020, most e-commerce platforms were in the development stage, and with the onset of the pandemic, they seriously increased their turnover, they bought out most of the branded goods and we became one of their largest suppliers.

However, there were some difficulties here too. The pandemic situation provoked an influx of all branded goods to marketplaces, since the stores that were closed literally dumped the remaining goods on Wildberries, Ozon, Lamoda for sale, and then it was impossible to return to the previous conditions of working with marketplaces.

But the main problem for us was the issue of parallel imports, which were given the green light in our country due to the departure of many international brands from the Russian market in 2022. The brands that left Russia stopped controlling pricing. Both counterfeits and stocks appeared on marketplaces, shoes were offered at prices much lower than the market price in wholesale channels, and competitive conditions became unequal. There is no point in selling something if a direct competitor offers the same product 40% cheaper.

Plus, in 2022, some brands behaved in an ugly way from our point of view, violating long-term contracts. We understand that this happened under external pressure, but nevertheless, it is not very pleasant, and with some, not all legal issues have been resolved yet.

As a result, we decided to grow not in width, but in depth, shifting the vector of attention from those brands that chose to "leave" to those that wanted to stay and develop in Russia. And, despite the reduction in the number of brands in our portfolio, and perhaps due to this, from 2020 to 2025 our turnover increased by 1,5 times.

Shoes Report: So you started selling more of the brands that you still have?

Jacob Treskov: We strategically optimized our brand portfolio, updating our product range with promising new brands and ending partnerships with unstable partners. Clarks, Camel Active, and EMU Australia (we've been working with them for 10 years) were selected as key partners.

We also started trading independently on marketplaces, which gave us greater capacity, we manage the goods better. Products "18+" and the direction "clothing" gave us additional turnover, that is, we significantly expanded the business.

EMU Australia's single-brand retail presence is currently experiencing high demand, but their summer collections don't meet the needs of the Russian market. Back in 2022, we initiated negotiations for a license to develop EMU's mid-season and summer collections, specifically tailored to our market. This was the brand's first experience transferring production rights. The negotiations took time, but we demonstrated our expertise. And now, finally, in 2025, the long-awaited agreement has been reached!

In the summer of 2026, we will present to the buyer the first summer collection developed by us EMU. After that, we will launch the project of mono-brand retail EMU Australia, which we are going to develop under a franchise.

There is currently a high demand for Western brand stores, and our advantage is that we, as a large distributor receiving goods directly from production, can keep prices more or less at the European level.

We also have the S choll brand.

Shoes Report: This is an American brand, right?

Jakob Tresckow: Yes, but it's owned by a German investment fund. S choll is part of the multinational holding company Reckitt Benckiser. Their footwear division is a separate one, with the design studio located in Milan and production in China, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Shoes Report: As I see it, S choll is doing well now, they have powerful advertising campaigns…

Jacob Tresckow: Yes, that's true. After Birkenstock joined LVMH, it closed its entire wholesale division; it became too expensive and exclusive. School could take away some of its former audience.

We still sell Braun Buffel bags and haberdashery well, it is one of the oldest European brands with almost 140 years of family management. We had a joint venture with them, but due to recent events, it was closed. But we continue to cooperate with them, as well as with 7-8 other brands. There used to be about 30 of them.

Shoes Report: Will you be bringing in a third-party design firm to develop the EMU Australia summer collection?

Jacob Tresckow: We have partners who do design. We use EMU archives, but we add relevant elements - for example, from Scholl. The main thing is to preserve the brand DNA.

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Shoes Report: You'll probably start working on this now?

Jacob Treskov: We're not planning a wide distribution for the SS-2026 collection; we'll be conducting a test run with a focus on quality. First, it's important to develop a solid product, position it correctly, ship it, and sell it well. We want this first attempt to be successful.

We have agreed in advance on sales of the test collection on Lamoda, as an exclusive online partner, and with No One, as an exclusive retail partner. We will also look at individual boutiques. Only after that, in the second half of 2026, we plan to open the first mono-brand store.

At one time, also after requests for the creation of separate retail from wholesale partners, we took up the development of multi-brand SOHO stores. The first SOHO stores were opened under a franchise. Similar requests are already coming from many of our partners to create EMU Australia retail.

Shoes Report: You used to have some really nice SOHO stores in Moscow. Do they still exist?

Jacob Treskov: There are some, but not many. We haven't redesigned them in a while, so they're recognizably attractive. We focused on developing online sales on marketplaces. We thought this was an area where we could be very competitive, and it turned out to be.

Of course, we are present in retail and will remain so. But the problem with multi-brands is that a stable assortment is important to them, and now it is not easy. In addition, against the backdrop of the pandemic and the SVO, many shopping centers have lost their appeal. For some sites, we simply did not renew the lease agreement and closed the stores.

Shoes Report: How many have been closed, how many are left?

Jacob Treskov: We currently have seven stores, but at our peak we had about 40. SOHO boutiques are open in the Moscow region, Arkhangelsk, and Yekaterinburg.

In Moscow, Clarks stores operate in the Metropolis and Europolis shopping centers, and there is also a store in the Greenwich shopping center in Yekaterinburg.

Shoes Report: And Clarks supplies the collections for them

Jacob Treskov: Yes. Clarks is a great brand, but they've had their share of challenges, and there are some nuances to our interactions. We started working with them in 2013, and over the past 11 years, they've had seven CEOs. The brand was acquired by a Hong Kong fund. Clarks has been through a lot of ups and downs—they've gone from premium to low-end, then back to premium again... This hasn't helped us, of course, because stability is a sign of excellence, but they're still a great brand. I consider it an honor to have worked with them for so long, growing and learning together.

Clarks is 200 years old this year, and we are currently running a major advertising campaign on the Russian market.

Shoes Report: So, it turns out that you still see the point in developing traditional retail, despite the fact that people have stopped actively visiting shopping centers?

Jacob Treskov: In Moscow, we have excellent locations at Europolis and Metropolis, and there are also some worthy ones we haven't reached yet, such as Aviapark and Atrium. In the regions, we have strong shopping centers: Gorizont in Rostov-on-Don and Moremall in Sochi. We have strong partners in Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Novosibirsk.

In January 2024, I returned to the position of CEO of SOHO Fashion, we went through a reorganization, some things were changed, tested, and as a result, the strategy was rebooted again.

We have gone through a pandemic, geopolitics and crises - but not only survived, but found new growth points. 20 years is a history of adaptation, where even crises became an opportunity to rethink the business. Today, SOHO Fashion is not just a distributor, but a flexible company that can find new ways in changing conditions.

Shoes Report: Do you already know what you will be presenting at the Euro Shoes exhibition in August?

Jacob Treskov: Despite the reduction in the wholesale section and a more compact stand, the last exhibition exceeded our expectations – customer traffic increased significantly.

The change in wholesale buyer behavior was to our advantage - many partners now prefer to work through distributors due to difficulties with international payments. Even the smaller area of ​​the stand allowed us to create a more intimate and personalized atmosphere for negotiations with Partners.

At the upcoming exhibition, we are considering presenting our spring/summer collections: new items from the iconic Beverly Hills Polo Club, style and comfort in the modern trends of the GAS brand, the always-relevant S choll , and, of course, teasers of the EMU Australia summer collection – the first showing of models developed specifically for the Russian market.

Paradoxically, the current situation has opened up new opportunities for us – we have become closer to our Partners and can offer them additional benefits from cooperation with us.

Interview conducted by Marina Shumilina