Stealth Style

IT COULD BE A RECIPE for how to go broke in the fashion business: establish yourself somewhere far off the style map, target women over 35, ignore the current accessory-driven business trend, and insist on using luxurious fabrics so that your clothes become prohibitively expensive. And don't forget to make sure your heritage is as unhip as possible, something along the lines of your grandmother's founding the family company with an apron business.

Despite all these odds, Akris (an acronym from the name of the above-mentioned grandmother, Alice Kriemler-Schoch), based in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, has elegant women across North America praising its elusive balance of style, fit and quality. Women tend to discover Akris for themselves. Nicole Kidman spotted a coat in a store window on a Sunday evening and ordered it the following morning. Other fans include Susan Sarandon and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Not surprisingly this Swiss family company, now helmed by Alice's grandsons Albert and Peter Kriemler—the designer and the president, respectively—is lauded by retailers for its precise deliveries and perfect execution (at the factory, each garment is accompanied by a dossier explaining what needs to be done and what can go wrong) as well as for actually listening to what stores want. When Joseph Boitano, a senior vice president of Saks Fifth Avenue, explained the importance of offering a cruise collection (a concept less established in Europe), Albert headed to Florida, where he spent weeks studying what chic women want on vacation.

"Akris is in the top 15 brands in all areas of Saks," says Boitano, noting that Saks carries the main line in 20 stores and the bridge line, called Akris punto, in 47 stores across the U.S. "When you consider Akris does not have shoes, handbags, fragrance, and its sales are driven entirely by ready-to-wear, that is a major feat."

Robert Burke, who heads his own consulting business in New York City and was previously with Bergdorf Goodman, says a single salesperson there writes several million dollars' worth of orders for the label each season. Burke even mentions Albert Kriemler, whose name is still far from well known, within the designer superleague: "Albert is unwavering in who he is appealing to. You look at the great designers—Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Giorgio Armani—and what links them is they stick to their own aesthetic, they stick with their customer."

St. Gallen is not where you would expect to find the next Armani. Yet being based not only in Switzerland—which has one of the most expensive labor forces in the world—but in a little town bordering the Appenzell region is an advantage, insists Albert Kriemler. He is not what you would expect of a fashion designer, given that he is rather serious and erudite (his references can include modern art and Russian philosophy). Being isolated means that the tailors and technicians he collaborates with, all of them full time and many with the company for years, think Akris from morning to evening. "That's why I don't work with freelance people," he says. "It's not right for us that someone leaves and misses the evolution in our overall process."