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"Help,” pled the email.  “Renee is celebrating a benchmark birthday next month and all she wants is St John.”  This from my hipster uncle who’s always had a thing for sophisticated women.  But this request was very specific. 

Renee wanted old school St John prior to its failed glamorous makeover with supermodel Giselle Bundchen and sexy Angelina Jolie.  She fancied its gently graded silhouettes before the fashion-forward Tim Gardner–designed runway debut at Fashion Week Los Angeles.  She coveted the classic St John of Hilary Rodham, the Madelines, Condaleezas and Glorias.

With the click of a mouse we were surfing eBay, downloading photos from Desert Hills Premium Outlet and chatting up helpful sales staff at tony Rodeo Drive Resale, a specialist in tweedy knits circa Marie and Kelly Gray.  According to The Budget Fashionista founder Kathryn Finney, these frenzied searches are a weekly occurrence.

When St John executive and iconic covergirl Kelly Gray promised, “I’ll be back” in 2005, perhaps this is what she meant.  After a long hiatus of riding lessons, charity events and self-confessed TV nights of Nip/Tuck, both Kelly and her mother Marie are back as creative consultants at the $400-million Irvine-based headquarters.

In this age of aesthetics, the St John brand commands all the requisite trappings of a fashion dynasty.  First, a close-knit family business stitched from a single spontaneous idea.  Then the Southern Cal startup turned empire sold for a fortune to investors in 1999.  Add fanatical, obsessed customers, those mother-and-daughter pageant luncheons and a micro-economy of suburban shops that lovingly restore and resell the uber-conservative garments.   Pile on rumours of executive disagreement, the extreme secrecy, tales of eccentricity and cartoonishly lavish lifestyles.  Finally top off with hilarious, aspirational ad campaigns, the overt airbrushing, a blight of employee turnover and on-again off-again family involvement.  What really goes on inside that mammoth Orange County compound is the stuff of legend.

Though perhaps we’ll never unravel the threads of rumor, what we do understand is a brand out of synch with the times, unsure of its core identity and a loyal consumer base of mature women who still consider its double knit separates de rigueur armor for their professional, polished lives.

How should brands evolve, excite and entertain constituents without moving past their core values?  How do brands serve a loyal following without compromising freshness?  Can St John’s epically tried-and-true formula serve as its roadmap forever?  For those of us who track and advise brands, Kelly’s second act will be a performance to follow.

By Debra Stevenson of Trend Agitator a Los Angeles-based trend and market insight developer.