The Empire Strikes Out

Brown is not used to the role of supplicant, but Esprit is the label of the moment, and though she is not there with hat in hand, she is carrying her high heels in hand. At Esprit, company rules forbid 

The journalist Maureen Orth just happened to be there to chronicle the exchange for GQ magazine.1 One of those serendipitous moments reporters live for occurs as Brown sings her readership s praises and Tompkins all but snickers. He has been very picky about where he spends Esprit s coveted ad dollars, and he tells her the Cosmo Girl doesn t interest him. Your covers don t look like our customers, he says flatly. 

Peter Buckley is the quintessential example of Tompkins s hiring philosophy in action the placing of an essentially unqualified but ingenious person in a position of great responsibility—running several of Esprit s international operations, with great success. 

For the twenty-three-year-old Buckley, the entree into Tompkins s world of fashion, A-list parties, and gorgeous models proved irresistible. When he graduated from law school and opened a small practice in the Bay Area, his days paled in comparison, and he soon gave it up when Tompkins offered him a job at Esprit s new fabric operation in India. He knew nothing about the fashion business, but Tompkins assured him he would learn as he went, that all Buckley needed was common sense—assurances that were soon followed by much screaming over the international telephone when a shipment got screwed up or materials were the wrong color or monkeys ate the silk screens. 

Two years later, after a brief return to his mothballed law practice, Buckley agreed to take over Esprit s debt-laden operation in Germany. There, he came up with a cost-cutting plan he felt would save the failing subsidiary within the year. But when Tompkins arrived to take stock of the situation, he looked over the books and announced it was time to cut their losses and close down the European branch. 

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