If you haven’t read today’s Guardian interview with Stella McCartney, you’re missing out.
Anyone who even thinks they might want to work in fashion really, really needs to read the article. Especially those who think they might want to hang on to their sense of ethics.
Most of the knowledge and skill that are necessary for a successful design career come from education and hands-on training. Trust me on that.
But, reading a book never hurts. Here are my recommendations for aspiring designers:
Technical books. Reviewing a learned skill is never a bad idea, and may help you understand why your pattern maker is pushing really hard to get you to change something that seems insignificant. Hold on to your design-school textbooks. I still refer to my pattern-making textbook almost every time I whip up a new garment.
Books about the history of fashion. If you are studying fashion, you will most likely have a copy of Survey of Historic Costume by Phyllis Tortora and Keith Eubank. Save that book! Designers have long looked to the past for inspiration; sooner or later you probably will, too. Of course, there are many other books about historical attire, and they’re all worth a look, but Survey of Historic Costume is the big one.
Interested in corsetry? You’ll need Corsets and Crinolines by Norah Waugh.
Chic Savages by John Fairchild. What could a magazine publisher know about fashion? Actually, quite a lot. (Note: though Fairchild has been officially retired for years, it’s long been claimed that W columnist Countess Louise J. Esterhazy is in fact Fairchild himself, and I, for one, suspect the rumor is true.) The book is worth reading for Fairchild’s biting humor alone, though his insights are priceless.
The Beautiful People by Marylin Bender. This book is not easy to find, but well worth the trouble. Bender’s scathing 1967 volume dissects the fashionable jet-set at a time when the Youthquake was still at its peak and Betsey Johnson (only 22 at the time) was the latest super-hot designer. A fascinating glimpse into a key moment in fashion history.
Eccentric Glamour by Simon Doonan. As creative director of Barneys, Doonan knows a thing or two about fashion. Eccentric Glamour is in fact a hilarious, irreverent style guide, but Doonan thoughtfully includes a chapter especially for readers who think they might want to start their own fashion company. (By the way, do take special care to read the “Green Gypsy” profile in Chapter 1. Most of your potential clients will NOT want to wear a burlap tabard.)
Diana Vreeland: Bazaar Years by John Esten. Anyone who even thinks she might want to work in fashion needs to know who Diana Vreeland was and why she was so important. This book is a mere 79 pages long, but offers greater insight into her influence than Mrs. Vreeland’s autobiography (much of which was made-up) and has better pictures. Includes several of her best “Why Don’t You…?” lists from Harper’s Bazaar. I could do without the pictures of Diana in furs (or various recommendations involving the pelts of assorted creatures), but overall, the book is worth a glance.
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas. Ms. Thomas, a fashion journalist, explores in detail how luxury fashion has changed – and in most cases not for the better. She recounts the birth of luxury-goods groups, the decline of couture, the widespread decline of quality…and even visits the ugly, awful worlds of counterfeiting and sweatshops. If you only read one book on the business end of fashion, make it this one. (The End of Fashion by Teri Agins and Let Them Eat Cake by Pamela N. Danziger are also worth reading, but Deluxe is by far the best of the three.)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys by Joshua Levine. Cautionary tales lie within the pages of this book. If you are planning on selling your goods wholesale instead of running your own shop (online or offline), you MUST read it. Especially Chapter 8.
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell. Cheap was published very recently, and thoroughly examines the modern American consumer’s obsession with cheap goods. Not about fashion per se, but potentially helpful when designing for a clientele with varying levels of income. (Actually, everyone should read this book. I’ll review it more thoroughly in a future entry.)
My personal fashion library is much more extensive than this, but these are the “must-reads.” I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t consider them crucial.
At 28, I’m still not used to liking what I see in the mirror.
As a little girl, I hated my boring brown hair and thought my eyes were too gray.
I resented having to get my first bra at age 9.
In one year (seventh grade), I went from a size 6 to a 12 and from a B cup to a C cup. I also stopped smiling in most circumstances because I was fed up with my peers’ incessant comments on my crooked, gappy teeth (no orthodontist was willing to fix my teeth until I was 14). That was an extremely unpleasant year, and halfway through eighth grade, I was falling into some habits that are not easy to break.
I relapsed in college. I’d drag myself out of bed, go to class, drag myself back to my room, and be so exhausted I’d sleep for an hour before starting on my coursework. Walking up ONE flight of stairs, even while lugging equipment weighing roughly ten pounds total, should not exhaust anyone. Eventually, my heartbeat became frighteningly irregular.
At my lowest point, I ate ONE single low-sodium saltine cracker per day.
I was the thinnest I’d been since age 10, but every day I was struggling to keep from passing out. Wanting to be perfect was killing me, albeit slowly.
Finally, I reached my limit. One day, I tucked the scale into my messenger bag and slipped down to the maintenance building. I was an RA, so I knew the maintenance staff would be on a lunch break. The door was open (it was always open during the day), so I went inside, borrowed a sledgehammer, and took it to the alley behind the building.
I took the scale out of my bag, set it on the asphalt, hoisted the sledgehammer, and smashed it into a million little pieces.
I was gasping for breath. My entire body ached. Stabbing pains shot through my back, arms, and shoulders. I felt dizzy. Hot, angry tears stained my cheeks. But, in that moment, I felt better for the first time in months.
(Don’t worry. I cleaned up the mess and returned the sledgehammer before anyone noticed it was gone.)
Given my personal history, why did it take months for me to hear about Operation Beautiful?
The concept is simple, but powerful: write a positive note and anonymously post it somewhere other women will see it. (A quick glance through the blog’s archives indicates that some of the most popular spots for leaving notes include school restrooms, dorm bathrooms, scales at gyms, and even on packages of diet foods at the grocery store.) Testimonials on the site are overwhelmingly positive, and several are from eating-disorder patients.
If all it takes to make a difference is a sticky note and a pen, sign me up (don’t worry, I’ll recycle old notes when the adhesive wears off).
P.S. British designer Mark Fast used three – gasp! – somewhat-average-sized models in his show at London Fashion Week. (Note that UK sizes 12 and 14 are equivalent to US sizes 8 and 10.) One more reason why I love London…
I make no secret of my exasperation with certain celebrities who have no talent, no taste, and zero design skills, yet are inexplicably taken seriously as fashion designers when they decide being rich and famous isn’t enough. I’ve gone over the subject enough times that I really, really don’t feel like rehashing it all again (when I read about the unholy Lohan-Ungaro alliance in the New York Times recently, I struggled to keep from vomiting) so read the archives if you don’t already understand.
The Guardian reports that Harry Potter star Emma Watson is now launching her own line. Am I mad? Not at all. Actually (even though I’m not about to forget she’s the face of fur-heavy label Burberry), I’d like to shake her hand.
Unlike some celebs I can think of, Emma isn’t doing the line for purely selfish reasons:
“I was excited by the idea of using fashion as a tool to alleviate poverty and knew it was something I could help make a difference with,” she said.
“I think young people like me are becoming increasingly aware of the humanitarian and environmental issues surrounding fast fashion and want to make good choices but there aren’t many options out there.”
A celebrity using her influence and popularity to encourage ethical dressing? I, for one, can get behind that.
Emma’s collection for People Tree (which is fair-trade, largely organic, and creates fair-wage jobs in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India) is expected to be released next February. (Heads-up to my fellow strict vegans: when buying from People Tree, watch out for wool, silk, and seashells. Fortunately, much of the line is organic cotton. And the Jessica dress is too cute.)
The New York Times has issued serious words of warning (courtesy of Teen Vogue and other experts) to those aspiring to work in the fashion industry. To put it bluntly, competition is more stiff than ever before, the rag trade only LOOKS glamorous, the industry is in trouble (which means competition will get much worse), and even very talented people can fail miserably. (When I graduated in 2003, the trade was competitive all right, but it wasn’t THIS bad.)
Still want to be a designer, or at least work in fashion? Damn, you’re brave, and I wish you the best of luck. Now get out there, work hard, and make me proud!
In other news, I haven’t been feeling well lately, and it doesn’t help that The Times also reports that Lindsay Lohan has been appointed “artistic advisor” at French label Ungaro, in spite of the fact that her idea of style is throwing on some leggings and some kind of dead animal. I’m trying very, very hard not to throw up right now.
Sunday’s LA Times brought us this story on Paris’ Musée de la Contrefaçon, or Museum of Counterfeiting. The Museum’s goal is to educate the public about the scope of illegal counterfeiting, not to mention its ugly effects.
It’s amazing to think that the Museum has been in existence since 1951 – more than half a century – yet counterfeiting is more rampant (and does more damage) now than ever.
And it isn’t just phony Lacoste polo shirts and fake Hermés bags, either:
Exhibits are stocked with faux foodstuffs (including Tabasco, powdered milk, Laughing Cow cheese, Coca-Cola, Perrier and vermouth), tools (Swiss Army knives, Stanley tape measures), toys (poor quality “Babie” dolls stand elbow to elbow with Barbies), car parts (oil filters, body panels, brake pads, ball bearings) and home appliances (pressure cookers) and, most frighteningly, health and beauty products such as condoms, pregnancy tests and Viagra — the only visible difference between the real and the fake being the shade of blue on the box.
Here, with displays that showcase cheaply made prophylactics, knife blades that lack safety locks and drugs of dubious provenance, the emphasis shifts from aesthetics to safety, reflecting both the changing nature of the counterfeit trade and Unifab’s attempts to give consumers a clear sense of the potential risks that come with counterfeits.
It makes one realize that buying fakes just might be physically dangerous, on top of being immoral. In fact, trade group Unifab (which operates the museum) estimates up to 10 percent of pharmaceuticals are fakes. (I’m not especially fond of meds – I didn’t even have the Vicodin prescription filled when I had my wisdom teeth removed – but it’s a very scary thought.)
Of particular interest to me, and hopefully to everyone with ethical and environmental concerns, is this chilling quote from Marc-Antoine Jamet, current President of Unifab:
“We did a study in France, and most people think of counterfeiting as a game they play with the police…They don’t think about the fact that these companies use child labor, or that if they are making illegal goods they probably aren’t going to care about recycling.”
Can’t get to Paris? Check out Fakes are Never in Fashion. And while you’re at it, read this article from the author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster. Sure, it’s not always easy to muster too much sympathy for the labels that are knocked off, but please attempt to spare some compassion for the victims of the rotten criminals who run counterfeiting operations.
This article in Wednesday’s New York Times reminded me that I’ve been meaning to issue a serious warning to aspiring designers.
Specifically, a warning about some retailers’ unpleasant habit of stiffing their suppliers.
As the article explains, Jake, a hot Chicago luxury fashion boutique, owes a LOT of money to a number of suppliers. They aren’t the first store that has failed to pay designers for goods received, and sadly, they will not be the last.
Some retailers stop paying the bills when money gets tight. However, some don’t pay the bills if they can possibly avoid it in the first place.
As usual, this is one of the things they warned us about in fashion school…some retailers don’t pay up even if they can. One instructor noted that smaller stores are more prone to cash-flow problems (and, therefore, past-due bills) than larger chains. There is a grain of truth to this (Tina Aldatz-Norris, founder of Foot Petals, ran into cash flow issues because a third of her customers were late on payments – and at that point most of her business came from small stores). However, the big guys can still be the bad guys.
Case in point: Barneys. Yes, you read that right. Back in the early ’90s, Barneys developed a bad habit of not paying designers (or contractors, artisans, etc.). In The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys, author Joshua Levine explains the paradox this created for new designers:
“For young designers, the chance to showcase their talent in Barneys could propel an entire career…It was often a life-and-death gamble. Barneys always demanded an exclusive on the merchandise it carried, meaning the designer couldn’t sell to any other store…
In the case of a fledgling designer, Barneys could usually make its demands stick. So when the checks never came, many of these designers had no other source of income to see them through.
Stores know that new designers with limited income frequently don’t have the means to sue them for failing to pay, and that if they are silent for long enough, the designer may very well abandon hope.
Levine goes on to note that smaller designers often work with factors, which advance their payment for a fee and then collect the designers’ accounts receivable. This allows them to start production on the next shipment without having to wait for whoever buys the goods to pay (and it’s not unheard of for stores to pay 90 days after receiving the goods, so this can make a huge difference in the amount of product they can release!).
While there are factors that are happy to work with startups, it’s common for factors to require that a supplier be able to ship $75,000 to $100,000 per year. Some have lower volume requirements, but for working with a factor to be worthwhile, designers really must move a certain amount of product, and for very small businesses, doing so might not be worth the expense. (For more information on factors, read The Fashion Designer Survival Guide by Mary Gehlhar.)
As I’ve said in previous entries, we live in the age of lawsuits, and stiffed designers often can’t afford to risk going public with a list of who owes them money. Do so at your own risk.
It’s technically possible to insist upon payment in full before shipping the goods, but a lot of stores (accustomed to a 30-day, 60-day, or 90-day payment deadline) don’t like this, and may refuse to work with you.
As both a designer by training and a retailer, the practice of not paying suppliers on time annoys me, and the very idea of stiffing them completely makes me nauseous. (How do those people sleep at night?)
I’m square with my suppliers. On one occasion when the store was only a few months old, I had to ask a major supplier to delay shipment for a couple of weeks so we could come up with the funds to pay them. I didn’t like not having the newest product available immediately, sure, but I am just not comfortable with not paying promptly.
If only all retailers felt that way.
Reuters reports (via Perez Hilton and Girlie Girl Army) that Hermés breeds their own crocodiles for bags.
I have to wonder, why is this so shocking? Hermés has owned its own alligator farm in Florida for years for the same reason, so why is it surprising that they are now breeding crocodiles in Australia? I realize not everyone pays attention to this stuff, but it’s not exactly a big secret.
Crocodiles aren’t particularly gentle creatures, and in the wild you’d be hard-pressed to find a fully grown crocodile without a few scars caused by other crocodiles (or, in some cases, reckless humans). Hermés are notorious perfectionists, and cut around scars or other flaws when cutting skins to make bags – if a skin is too scarred, it’s not bloody likely to make the grade. To Hermés, it makes sense to breed alligators and therefore control their environment. Which doesn’t make it any less revolting, of course.
So long as I’m on the subject of Hermés…
About a year ago an interviewer asked me if I thought vegan fashion should be accessible and affordable to all, or if it should retain some exclusivity. My response was that vegan fashion should have a mix of both accessibility and exclusivity, since such a balance would give vegan fashionistas something to aspire to while still giving them something to actually wear.
Hermés is an excellent example of a single company maintaining such a balance. Anyone can walk into an Hermés store and buy a scarf or a bracelet, but good luck buying a Birkin or Kelly bag…and the miles-long waiting lists for those bags keep some clients coming back again and again for a “fix” – such as yet another scarf. (Trust me on this; I occasionally talk to non-vegan fashion fiends as part of my never-ending sponge-method research.) The ubiquitous scarf gives Hermés clients a piece of the brand, but they still aspire to have that Birkin on one arm, and buy it if and when they get the chance, in spite of the fact that they cost thousands of dollars. In fact, Hermés’ sales went UP after 9/11, a time when most retailers were suffering, because that brand exclusivity made more and more people want to buy “one nice thing.”
Aspiring vegan fashion designers would do well to make a note of this. By all means, get your stuff out there so potential clients can easily buy it, but consider making a second line that isn’t so easy to come by. People always want what they can’t have.
I’ve already explained why getting some form of education in design, be it formally (fashion school) or entirely in the form of on-the-job training (internship, apprenticeship), is necessary for aspiring designers.
Today, I’m going to give you some advice on surviving your education. This is the kind of advice I wish someone had given me, so I hope you’re taking notes.
So, you read my first entry in this post series, and you want to know more? Good. A well-informed designer is much better prepared for the realities of the fashion world.
If you’ve already started studying design or seeking on-the-job training (or have already done both), congratulations – you are off to a good start.
Now, here’s a bit of advice you may or may not have already received (but stay with me): Study the greats. Study not only what they are doing now and what they have done in the past, but take the time to note what they are NOT doing.
Sound counterintuitive? Maybe it is. But you will thank me later.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing some variation of what some other designer has already done. But, you must remember that it is a TRAP, and is best avoided to ensure your survival.
Remember the designer-denim glut a few years ago? Everyone wanted to be the next Seven or Rock & Republic, but consumers only need so many pairs of jeans, and few people have huge closets full of $300-per-pair denim (they do exist, but believe me, there are not THAT many of them!). The same principle applies here.
Many designers have gone into the field because they couldn’t find what they wanted anywhere and thus had to create their own apparel, then decided to make it available to other people. If this describes you, by all means do what you want, but find some way to set yourself apart, and diversify your label a little if you can.
For example, Stella McCartney. (Technically, Stella’s vegetarian, not vegan, but stay with me.) What does she do? Well-cut women’s trousers, drapey dresses and tops, and impeccable Italian-made heels so high some of them even frighten ME. And she does them all very well (there’s a reason Gucci finances her label, you know – they don’t do that for just anyone).
What does she NOT do? Menswear, clothing sized over a US women’s 8/10 (hello, Stella? The average American woman is a size 14 and the average British woman isn’t much smaller; don’t you want to make more money?), beautiful-but-reasonably-sensible shoes, and dresses/tops that actually look good on someone with cleavage. Some smart and talented vegan designer really should jump in and fill the gaps she’s leaving; they could make a lot of money if they do it right.
Think I’m just making this up? Keep reading.
Way back in the early 20th century, the fussy couture houses of Worth and Poiret ruled Paris fashion with beautiful designs and iron fists. At first, Paul Poiret sniffily dismissed young upstart Coco Chanel – what was she thinking, making shapeless short dresses, and from jersey (a fabric then only used for men’s underwear) of all things?
She was paying attention to the modern woman. Poiret was not. Chanel’s sleek designs allowed women to abandon uncomfortable corsets and move easily, which became of far greater importance than Poiret’s over-the-top opulence when Europe found itself at war. (World War One meant more women had to work to support their families, and many volunteered for the war effort. Because corsets could hamper mobility and were often boned with much-needed steel, most women happily gave them up in favor of less restricting modern undergarments).
Today, the house of Chanel is still around, and Coco’s influence is still everywhere. Poiret’s house closed in 1929 (the leftover clothes were sold by the kilo as rags!), and he was long forgotten by the time of his death.
Interestingly, Chanel’s understated simplicity in turn opened the door for her archrival, Elsa Schiaparelli, known for such whimsical creations as Surrealist embroidery, lobsters printed on evening gowns, and hats shaped like shoes.
Look at what they’re NOT doing…and step in to fill a gap.
Stumped? Okay, fine, I’ll even give you a couple of ideas.
There are only a few companies making organic suits, let alone well-cut ones made entirely without animal products. (You may have to apprentice to a tailor for a few years if you would like to break into suits, but please just grit your teeth and do it. You can’t buy that kind of experience, and you MUST understand how clothes hang on real human bodies if you want to make a good suit.) And a lot of vegan men greatly resent having to wear (eew! ick! heat-retaining!) polyester.
While there are now several designers making eco-friendly wedding and formal gowns, they often tend toward silk or silk blends, and it’s not that unusual for them to look like beaded nightgowns. Why not look into making formal or bridal wear from other Earth-friendly materials like ingeo (a beautiful corn fiber that resembles silk)? Come up with something beautiful, and I’ll order one myself.
One of the first things Betsey Johnson learned as a young designer was that she could make whatever she wanted, as long as it sold. Be who you are and make what you want, but PLEASE keep in mind that if you are doing the exact same thing someone else is already doing very well, store buyers and consumers are likely to completely ignore you.
If, however, you are doing what you want, AND doing something else no one else is doing well, you’re much more likely to pique their curiosity.
Now get out there and start brainstorming!
