Hollywood talent agency CAA — which represents Tom Ford, Tommy Hilfiger, Kerby Jean-Raymond, Chiara Ferragni, Heidi Klum, Cindy Crawford, Nick Knight, Annie Leibovitz and a number of other designers, models, photographers and influencers, in addition to top entertainment talent such as Beyoncé, Brad Pitt and Reese Witherspoon — has formed a global strategic partnership with fashion public relations and marketing firm KCD.
Dubbed CAA x KCD, the venture will explore business opportunities in editorial and runway, endorsements, licensing, product placement and entertainment.
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“KCD is the vascular system of the fashion business, and for us, this is a way to bring what we have into the heart of that business, and find things that we can do together that are grounded in the respective client lists we have,” said Christian Carino, head of CAA Fashion.
With offices in New York, Paris, London and Los Angeles, KCD represents a range of clients in fashion, design and tech, including Amazon, the British Fashion Council, the CFDA Awards, Farfetch, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Vogue.
“It’s a great relationship of mutual respect,” Rachna Shah, partner and managing director of KCD, said of CAA, noting that the late KCD cofounding partner Ed Filipowski was very close to CAA partner Bryan Lourd, and that the two agencies have come together on many projects in the past, including Ford’s star-studded, L.A. runway show on Oscars weekend in February.
Although the CAA x KCD alliance has been in the works since last year, the pandemic and ensuing retail bankruptcies have put more urgency on the need to reinvent how fashion is shown, marketed and sold, and placed more of an emphasis on creating compelling content — film, music and otherwise, all areas in which CAA has expertise and resources.
“As challenging as the time is because of COVID, it’s the most fruitful opportunity anyone could have to reimagine and reinvent some of these businesses,” said Carino. “One of the areas is understanding the new retail landscape from a designer perspective, because the core of their distribution has been cut off at the head.”
“In the past, a client was doing a project, CAA was involved in getting people on board, and KCD was involved from a press or event standpoint, but we weren’t necessarily conceiving of the project together and bringing it to others,” said Shah. “Brands are all looking to get to new audiences now; they can’t rely on just the people who are following them, that’s not enough right now. So finding a new path forward and a new audience to become potential customers is a huge part of our mission.”