• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, January 14, 2011

The founder of Kenneth Cole, who goes by the same name, is fond of saying that "today is not a dress rehearsal." Recent years have driven home that harsh reality as the company has tightened its belt by laying off staff, reallocating marketing dollars, reducing inventory, renegotiating rents and closing eight unprofitable stores. Yesterday it announced that its flagship store in Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan would be one of an additional nine "underperforming" full-price stores to close in coming months.

But Cole has also been both an inspiration to many and an inspiring start-up story (we'll get to that at the end), and it was nice to be able to hear CEO Jill Granoff say "what a difference a year makes" in a webcast presentation from the ICR XChange Conference in Dana Point, Calif., yesterday. She went on to report that the company has shown growth for the first time since 2006, in all segments, and has had five consecutive profitable quarters. It still has 100 freestanding stores in the U.S. and 70 more in 50 countries around the world.

Unless you are an investor or competitor, or see poetry in phrases such as "efficiencies in the supply chain" and "maximizing value," I don't suggest that you listen to Granoff's entire presentation. It is enough to know that the company is positioning itself as "the quintessential lifestyle brand for modern men and women who are confident, clever and cool"; that it brings "aspirational city living to the world"; and that it garners 88% in brand awareness and 90% in brand favorability ratings.

If you live in New York, it has been impossible to ignore the presence of Cole, who has been one of the more prominent practitioners of social activism in advertising. He was an early activist for HIV and AIDS awareness, and has also been a staunch advocate for the homeless. Many people seem to like Cole's ads. Some don't. But they do always engage the viewer. They do take a stand. And they do stay somewhat relevant to the product in doing so.

Take a look at the comments for the "We All Walk in Different Shoes" campaign from a couple of years ago, which includes such images as an African American born with Albinism and an Orthodox Jew "who found God in Bob Marley." It really hit home with some. Others make comments such as, "we all walk in different shoes ... but apparently, all women walk in really high heels" and "I guess only really skinny people walk in different shoes."

The ads, in other words, get people talking. And thinking. As did a Kenneth Cole van I saw parked in midtown Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. On the side was printed: "Driving round looking for friends" and the website address, kennethcole.com, and @KennethCole Twitter handle. The company also has a Facebook presence. Frankly, they're not doing anything particularly exciting online, but Granoff suggested yesterday that this would all change in 2011 and that the website was soon to become a very potent channel. We'll see.

I will probably remain more of a Kohl's guy than a Cole guy, at least until Kenneth starts sending me "take an extra 30% off everything" when you use your charge card flyers in the mail, too. (Sometimes I walk out of Kohl's clutching my "Kohl's Cash" coupons -- $10 for every $50 spent on top of the 30% off the already 50%-reduced item -- thinking that I've just gotten paid for upgrading my socks drawer.) That digression out of the way, count me among those who are rooting for Cole's reinvention in cyberspace if only because I admire his gritty beginnings, which were literally in the street.

The legal name of the company, which designs, sources and markets footwear, handbags, apparel and accessories under the brand names Kenneth Cole New York; Kenneth Cole Reaction; Unlisted and Le Tigre and also sells footwear under the Gentle Souls mark, is Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. Stop me if you've heard this story, or listen to Cole tell it himself, but here's how it went down.

When Cole wanted to launch his Kenneth Cole, Inc., shoe business in 1982, he couldn't afford a room at the big trade show that took place at the Hilton in New York City. So he asked the city if he could park a truck outside to display his wares. Not unless he was a utility or a movie production company, he was told. So overnight he changed the name of the company to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., got a permit from the mayor's office and began shooting the epic film, "The Birth of a Shoe Company" out of a 40-foot trailer parked near the Hilton.

"Sometimes there was film in [the director's] camera; sometimes there wasn't," says Cole. But he sold 40,000 pairs of shoes out of that truck and was "off and running."

In New York they call that chutzpah, and it can take you all the way from the curb to a $14.5 million co-op apartment on Sutton Place.