Welcome back to yet another article detailing the bad happenings going on at Killstar right now. I have received an email from an employee who wishes to remain anonymous and what they have told me is quite interesting to say the least. Bertram Capital seems to be running the financial side of the company while Tequila-Rose is in charge of the design team, and guess what? They are both doing very badly at their assigned tasks.
Tequila-Rose runs the design team in a very controlling manner; everything has to be run by her and approved by her. Those who lick her boots get spanking brand new titles, while those who try to bring forth new ideas are quite frequently bullied so they end up leaving. Good on them, because nobody should be treated like that. Instead of being innovative with their designs they are just copying the same silhouettes over and over again: just like what I predicted they would last year. Take for instance their black bell sleeved shirt; the only thing they change are the graphics. It’s just the same thing over and over again.
From what I understand Bertram Capital, and Tequila-Rose, refuse to listen to new ideas that would actually help the company. Ideas such as lowering the prices. Instead of that they keep raising the prices. Not just that though; they are using cheaper materials now, which has become very noticeable. This all started when Tequila-Rose went to Bertram Capital, a private equity firm, a few years ago for a cash injection to help steer the company in the right direction. It’s probably the worst financial decision that she could have made because private equity firms exist for just one reason; to make their investors a huge pile of cash. They don’t give a crap about innovation.
Talking about innovation. When Kreeptures, their plushie collection of misshapen creatures, came out people were excited to buy them because they were deemed as collectables; they were done in smaller batches to make them more scarce. Bertram Capital thought that was a perfect money making idea so instead of coming out once in a blue moon they started releasing them weekly, and sometimes even twice a week. Usually just different colours of the same Kreeptures. This annihilated the reason why people were buying them in the first place and in response sales of them went down, way down.
You would think that maybe Killstar would have learned their lesson, but they haven’t. Instead they came out with another line of smaller plushies called Kuties. However, that also isn’t working for them because sales of them have been poor. If you’ve noticed they have also introduced a different line of clothes called Kihilist but I don’t think they know what the hell to do with it. They advertise that this line are easy looks that can be worn during the day into night. Which makes no damn sense because all of their clothes can be worn like that.
Do you remember when all of their remote workers were laid off? What they got offered to move to Brighton was so low that nobody took the deal. However, Tequila-Rose offered her ‘essential’ bootlicker workers a far better deal which they all took. My source has told me that the company will hire a diverse group of people to pad their diversity numbers, but they put a lot of said people into roles that they are not qualified to do; setting them up for failure. The company in general is so toxic that 75% of people in the company have worked there for less than two years which is a huge turnover. I don’t think I have ever worked at a company with that high of a number.
Trust me when I say that this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. They frequently lay off groups of people, which doesn’t always go the way they want it to. Those who were laid off because they weren’t willing to relocate to Brighton had to sign an NDA so that other staff wouldn’t find out the paltry sum they were offered to move. This became such a mess that they had to hire an outside HR company to deal with the fallout. They want to cut expenses so they plan on outsourcing their customer service. That’s right, in the near future when you call Killstar to try to solve an issue you will probably be talking to somebody from a poorer country who doesn’t make that much money. The mantra of the upper management is to do jobs as quickly and cheaply as possible, and it is backfiring on them spectacularly.
How is Killstar doing financially? They are making less money than last year which tells me that their customers no longer trust them to make a good quality product. People are broke as hell right now and don’t want to spend a ton of money on clothes that are as badly made as those from Shein. When you go onto Shein or Temu you will find direct copies of some of their items, such as the striped sweaters and the skull handbags. Why spend £70 on a skull handbag when you can get the exact same thing for less than half that price. This is what frequently happens to companies who source their manufacturing in China. It is a common practice for manufacturers there to copy the designs and sell it themselves.
Basically, Killstar wants everybody in Brighton so that they can be kept on a tight leash and micromanaged. When somebody chooses to leave, or is laid off, another person is given their duties on top of the ones they are already doing. This causes burnout and makes more people leave. On top of that they are now making pickers in their warehouses wear devices that track how fast they are performing; warehouses which are very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. They are acting like a mini version of Amazon; treating their workers like crap and making them work in poor conditions.
The last thing I want to touch on is that they will hire managerial staff and promise them really nice performance bonuses. These managers will come up with good ideas that the company really likes and then they are laid off by Killstar before they can be qualified for said bonuses; throw away the employee and keep the idea. This is a very horrid business practice that private equity firms frequently do and one of the many reasons why they should never be brought into a company and trusted.
Killstar is coming up with a Monster High ‘collection’ in a few days and I bet a whole lot of the silhouettes are going to look very similar to older ones; yet more bell sleeves among other Killstar fashion tropes. How exciting and edgy of them. With yet more and more of their shady business practices coming to light I quite honestly have no idea how much longer this brand is going to last. They have been having constant sales and sending out daily emails. If they do really badly during the Christmas season later this year I can see them going under but only time will tell.
I will continue to write posts covering Killstar as information is relayed to me. If you are a Killstar employee, past or present, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I will keep your identity a secret and treat you fairly.
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