Gerber: https://gerbertechnology.com/

Also Gerber: https://gerbersoftware.com/

Karsten: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karstennewbury/

Mary: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-mcfadden-b274405/

AFP: https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

—

Guests:

Peter Holland, Vice President, Industrial Products Division, Brother International Corporation — https://brother-usa.com

Allison Charalambous, Senior Manager of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Lucky Brand — https://www.luckybrand.com/

Bobby Ahn, President & CEO, New Fashion Products — https://www.newfashionproducts.com/

—

To learn more about American Fashion Podcast, visit https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

If you'd like to be a guest, please use the submission form here: https://www.mouthmedianetwork.com/be-a-guest

Listen to over 250 previous episodes in our Archive: https://americanfashion.supportingcast.fm/

So... a weird couple of months there, for various reasons. Not sure if you noticed some of them. 

Anyway, dropping 6 episodes as quickly as I can get them edited. A few of them are actually from last year and just never got out the door.

Then... fresh new stuff... weekly stuff... the stuff your ears and fashion nerd brain crave.

There is a new feature on our website, where you can leave us a message. We would love to hear from you... SAY SOMETHING: https://americanfashionpodcast.com/feedback/

I just rebuilt our network's website. How's it look? https://www.mouthmedianetwork.com/ 

"With over 15 years working in the fashion industry and 12 in finance, Gabriella brings a unique blend of experience to discuss what is happening with fashion specifically at the retail level – she provides the color behind the numbers. Her company, A-Line Partners, is an independent retail research firm providing the investment community with research from a stable of retail specialists who visit malls across the country on a weekly basis to identify fashion and retail trends.  Gabriella then uses the data to identify inflection points, recognize what is popular in fashion from a grassroots level, and better understand the psychology of the consumer and consumer spending."

https://www.alinepartners.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellasantaniello/
http://instagram.com/alinepartners

https://leancanvasadvisory.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-schepis

For more episodes, subscribe to our Archives: https://americanfashion.supportingcast.fm/ 

The book: https://www.amazon.com/Unraveled-Death-Garment-Maxine-Bedat/dp/0593085973/

https://www.newstandardinstitute.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxinebedat/

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

https://www.toddsnyder.com/

Visit us online at https://americanfashionpodcast.com/ to access over 250 previous episodes in our archive: https://americanfashion.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find additional episodes of American Fashion Podcast in our Archives: https://americanfashionpodcast.com/archives

• https://alabamachanin.com/
• https://journal.alabamachanin.com/
• https://projectthreadways.org/
• https://design.ncsu.edu/

http://www.refashiond.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/supplychainlocalization/

References:

• Evrnu
• N.A.bld
• Savitude
• New York Fashion Tech Lab

As the owner of Industry Model Management, he has been responsible for the creation and promotion of the Model's Bill of Rights, which is discussed in more detail in our previous interview with its Co-Founder, model Simone Aptekman. He is also quite vocal about the Studio Safety Report, which revealed most photo studios in New York City to be operating outside the law and without proper insurance.

• https://federicopignatelli.com/
• http://www.artandfashiongroup.com/
• https://www.pier59studios.com/
• https://www.theindustrymgmtgroup.com/
• https://iamyou.film/
• http://www.studiosafetyreport.com/
• https://www.modelsbillofrights.com/

Find many more episodes in our Archives --> https://americanfashionpodcast.com/archives

https://www.modelsbillofrights.com/

https://www.simoneaptekman.com/

- - - 

For access to hundreds of additional episodes going back to 2014, visit AmericanFashionPodcast.com and subscribe to our Archives.

• Lee Wellington is Executive Director of The Urban Manufacturing Alliance
• Sarah Krasley is Founder and CEO at Shimmy Technologies, Inc
• Lisa Futterman is the Regional Director in New York City for The Workforce Development Institute
• Libby Mattern is the Founder of Course of Trade

CFDA resources: https://cfda.com/resources

Sewist, noun, a craftsperson who cannot be replaced by automation.

- - - 

To access our older episodes, go to https://americanfashionpodcast.com/ and click on "Archives" in the main menu to subscribe to the archives and support the show.

https://www.scoutbags.com/

-

Find more episodes of America Fashion Podcast by clicking "Archives" in the main menu at https://americanfashionpodcast.com/ 

Follow The Mighty Company on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themightycompany/ 

To subscribe to American Fashion Podcast's Archives and support the show, visit https://americanfashionpodcast.com/ and click "Archives" on the main menu.

Amaio: https://amaioofficial.com/

References:

• Drip By Drip - NGO tacking water issues related tot he fashion and textile industries: https://www.dripbydrip.org/
• Women’s Global Empowerment Fund: https://wgefund.org/

Help support American Fashion Podcast by subscribing to our Archives at https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

https://everybodyeveryone.com/

References:

• https://www.commonobjective.co/
• https://eco-age.com/
• https://www.positiveluxury.com/
• https://apparelcoalition.org/
• https://textileexchange.org/
• https://www.microfibreconsortium.com/
• https://www.copenhagenfashionsummit.com/

American Fashion Podcast

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

https://www.canvasandhyde.com/

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

A panel discussion recorded as part of the Fashion Innovate program at the TexWorld USA 2020 trade show in New York City.

Big thank you to Eileen Small from TexWorld for coordinating all of this leading up to the event.

Big questions:

• What is the history here? How did this work five minutes ago? What are the now ubiquitous improvements of the last five or ten years?
• Who are the cool startups in this space, and what are they doing?
• What are the major players doing in this space?
• What does the “science fiction endgame” look like for an ultimate evolution in these technologies? If we are here, and innovators and startups are working on tomorrow, what’s 5, 10, 20, or 50 years out?

Panelists:

• Natasha Franck (EON - https://www.eongroup.co/)
• Teodora Nicolae (Lectra - https://www.lectra.com/en )
• Melissa Rusinek (textile waste expert)
• Andrew Wyatt (CALA - https://www.ca.la/ )

Moderator:

• Charles Beckwith (@FashionTechGuru - https://charlesbeckwith.com/publications )

References:

• GRAILED - https://www.grailed.com/
• STOCKX - https://stockx.com/
• Behemoth: A History of The Factory and The Making of The Modern World (Get it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/38AZ1y0 )
• Clo3D - https://www.clo3d.com/
• The Higg MSI (Materials Sustainability Index) - https://apparelcoalition.org/higg-msi/
• Sewbots - http://softwearautomation.com/products/
• Klaviyo - https://www.klaviyo.com/

Charles Beckwith's list of seven key overlapping and repeating phases of the fashion business product and sales cycles:

1. Ideation and Design
2. Sourcing and Costing
3. Pricing and Financing
4. Manufacturing and Production
5. Marketing and Sales
6. Distribution and Logistics
7. Analytics and Analysis

(Plus HR, accounting, and normal business processes)

More on that at... https://medium.com/@fashiontechguru/end-to-end-fashion-brand-operating-system-platforms-fashiontech-371fff3df795

AMERICAN FASHION PODCAST

As always, you can find us and the archive of past episodes at https://americanfashionpodcast.com/ 

https://shopcuup.com/

For more information about this and similar platforms see, this article on Brand Operating Systems: https://medium.com/@fashiontechguru/end-to-end-fashion-brand-operating-system-platforms-fashiontech-371fff3df795

Keith Recker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-recker-7221834/

Additional references:

• The International Folk Art Market - https://folkartmarket.org/
• Angel Chang - https://angelchang.com/
• Village Embassy - https://vimeo.com/villageembassy
• Jota-Kena - https://www.jotakena.com/

https://www.ca.la/

For additional analysis, see Charles Beckwith's article about End To End fashion platforms on Medium.

With special guest co-host, Dana Thomas, author of the new book Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes.

https://www.badgleymischka.com/

Order Fashionopolis here: https://amzn.to/2sUzAbr

https://www.seekcollective.com

Just to be clear, Billy Reid's PR team flew us down to Florence for Shindig, put us up in a very nice hotel overlooking the river, and fed us all weekend, but the first question we had when they contacted us and offered to do all this was "well, what do the clothes look like?" The brand more than passed the test.

The product is beautiful and all of the stores we've visited are beautifully decorated and well merchandised. So, we were very curious about the man behind the brand. 

Billy himself is an interesting character, and his mission to make fashion happen in a different way seems to be on course. Listen to what he has to say, and let us know what you think.

https://www.billyreid.com

Muscle Shoals documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT96RVS50sc

Comments about this or any other episode? Leave us a voicemail: +1-646-979-8709 , or tag us on Instagram @americanfashionshow or Twitter @afpod.

https://hanianewyork.com

https://www.swipecast.com

https://www.polimoda.com

• https://filofirenze.it/
• http://tprojectshowroom.com/
• https://www.lineapelle-fair.it/en/market-analysis

Isabel and husband Filippo Novelli discuss challenges facing their businesses as they scale and look toward e-commerce.

A special thank you! to Claudia Innocenti, Product Development Manager, for arranging the interview.

http://www.isabelbenenato.com/

Pre-order Dana Thomas' new book, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion--and the Future of Clothes here (link)

Links to people and companies mentioned in this episode:

• Naia - https://naia.eastman.com/
• Dimpora - https://dimpora.com/
• Nature Coatings - https://naturecoatingsinc.com/
• Algalife - https://www.alga-life.com/
• Circular Systems - https://www.circular-systems.com/
• Resortecs - https://resortecs.com/
• Parley For The Oceans - https://parley.tv/
• Neovili - https://www.neovili.com/ 
• The RealReal - https://www.therealreal.com/
• Dana Thomas - http://www.danathomas.com/ 
• Repack - https://www.originalrepack.com/
• Simon Collins - http://www.thehouseofcollins.com/

https://www.mistamina.com/

AFP hosts Charles Beckwith and Cathy Schepis sit down with The Accessories Council's president Karen Giberson and members John Petkanas, owner of Jonevon Furs; Regina Gelber, VP of Product Development and Sourcing at Envisage Group; and Samantha Ortiz, president of Reich Furs.

reference:

• https://accessoriescouncil.org/
• https://www.reichfurs.com/blogs/news/nofurban-an-update-from-reich-furs
• https://www.truthaboutfur.com/blog/new-york-fur-ban-furriers-fight-to-save-sustainable-industry/
• https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/fashion-is-thriving-without-fur.html

http://www.stevenbirnbaumbridal.com/ 

https://www.josephabboud.com/

Subscribe to American Fashion Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, TuneIn, using our RSS Feed, and on many other indexes and platforms.

Looking for where to start? Try our list of The Best of American Fashion Podcast — Major Designers.

https://fashinnovation.nyc/

https://aclbyjojo.com/

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/

https://bkaccelerator.com/pratt-institutes-5-year-experiment-in-changing-an-industry-moves-on/

https://www.nycfairtradecoalition.org/

http://copenhagenfashionsummit.com/

https://accessoriescouncil.org/

http://www.brandassembly.com/

Links:

• indiesource.com

ABOUT AFP: If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks and keep listening!

References:

• https://fashionxt.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tito-chowdhury/
• http://garmentdistrict.nyc/
• http://www.mikesnyctours.com/

References:

• Adalante Shoe Company
• Remake
• Evrnu
• Study Hall

Sarah Flint – https://www.sarahflint.com/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode Listpage. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks and keep listening!

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks and keep listening!

Timecode for reference: 00:00 Intro and Design Flaw / 06:00 NYMD Designers / 16:26 Yeohlee / 22:23 Featured Guests

This show was recorded with a live audience of American Fashion Podcast fans, friends, and fashion industry insiders at The Cutting Room in Manhattan. As part of Design Flaw, a portion of ticket sales goes to fashion industry-related charities. We had a wonderful guest emcee for the evening, Mr. Robert di Mauro.  Our featured guests are Business of Fashion Chief New York Correspondent Lauren Sherman and fashion financier Gary Wassner, Chairman of Interluxe Holdings and CEO of Hilldun Corporation (“Hilldun is in fashion”). They were joined on stage by American Fashion Podcast hosts Charles Beckwith and Cathy Schepis, as well as former co-host Seth Friedermann, who is a fashion business consultant.

In addition to the deep dive interview, first up were some surprise guests, designer Yeohlee Teng representing womenswear, and from the New York Men’s Day event Matteo Maniatty and Suwana Perry from  Descendant of Thieves, Venus Lo who is the designer of Chan Chit Lo, Dae Lim from Sundae School, and Vasilis Loizides of the namesake label Vasilis Loizides. They were joined on stage by representatives of Agentry PR, which organizes New York Men’s Fashion Day, Henry Kessler and Joe Yang.

If you aren’t already getting invitations to be in the audience at our public shows, be sure to sign up for the Fashion Industry Events list on this page: https://www.mouthmedianetwork.com/inviteme

References:

Design Flaw Charities List – https://designflaw.wtf/charities/
Chic Savages (book) – https://www.amazon.com/Chic-Savages-John-Fairchild/dp/0671683349/
Robert di Mauro – https://www.robertdimauro.com/
Garry Wassner on Twitter – https://twitter.com/gary_wassner
Lauren Sherman on Twitter – https://twitter.com/lapresmidi
Seth Friedermann on Twitter – https://twitter.com/sethfriederman
AFP on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/americanfashionshow/
Business of Fashion – https://www.businessoffashion.com/
Interluxe Holdings – http://www.interluxeholdings.com/
Hilldun Corporation – http://www.hilldun.com/
The High School of Fashion Industries – https://fashionhighschool.net/
Course of Trade – https://www.courseoftrade.com/
Agentry PR – https://www.agentrypr.com/
Yeohlee – https://yeohlee.com/
Descendant of Thieves – https://descendantofthieves.com/
Sundae School – https://sundae.school/
Chan Chit Lo – https://www.chanchitlo.com/
Vasilis Loizides – https://vasilisloizides.com/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

Companies and Organizations Mentioned In This Episode

Redress Design Award

https://redressdesignaward.com/
https://redressdesignaward.com/

NRF Big Show

Empowering Retail – http://empoweringretail.com/
Toshiba Commerce – https://www.toshibacommerce.com/
Wipro – https://www.wipro.com/
C2RO – http://c2ro.com/

Texworld

Texworld USA – https://texworld-usa.us.messefrankfurt.com/new-york/en.html
Queen of Raw – https://queenofraw.com/
Brightlabel – https://brightlabel.com/
Helpsy – https://helpsy.com/
Fashion Revolution – https://www.fashionrevolution.org/
BF+DA – https://bkaccelerator.com/
Ecotextile Magazine – https://www.ecotextile.com/
Fabscrap – https://fabscrap.org/
Fashiondex – https://www.fashiondex.com/
Fashion Mingle – https://fashionmingle.net/
Global Fashion Exchange – http://www.globalfashionxchange.org/
Querincia Studio – https://querenciastudio.com/
MCM Enterprise – http://www.mcmenterprise.net/
Maker’s Row – https://makersrow.com/
AGH Trimsource (aka Trimlab) – https://www.trimlab.com/
InVogue Studio – https//invoguenyc.com/
USA Beading – https://usabeading.com/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs-sqVPHnal/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs-r3OpHOBI/

Finery – https://www.finery.com/

Flourish & Thrive Academy – https://flourishthriveacademy.com/
Thrive by Design Podcast – https://www.flourishthriveacademy.com/podcast/
Tracy Matthews – https://tracymatthews.com/

Urban Zen – https://urbanzen.com/
Urban Zen Foundation – https://urbanzen.org/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

We recorded this interview with a live audience at their offices in Chelsea and were joined on the mic by Lawrence and Joseph, as well as Project Runway All Stars alum designer Daniel Vosovic, whose new brand The Kit is a collaboration under the Resonance Companies banner, as you’ll hear all about in the show.

A short event recap video: https://vimeo.com/310797445

https://vimeo.com/310797445

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

• The Retail Marketing Society – http://www.retailmarketingsociety.org/
• The Robin Report – https://www.therobinreport.com/
• J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide Enterprises – https://www.jrkwwe.com/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

Susan Hull Walker is the Founder of Ibu. We interview her about her global artisan textile network and mission to save the skills of distant artisan communities that are threatened by the pressures of global development.

Ibu: http://www.ibumovement.com/

Ann Roth – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0744778/
Giovanni Lipari – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2269417/

Big Lives – https://biglives.co/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

Strapped – https://strappedmfg.com/

Malia Mills / https://www.maliamills.com/
Course of Trade / https://www.courseoftrade.com/

In the studio, we have Mark A. Heuer, PhD, Associate Professor of Management, Susquehanna University; Prof. Dr. Sarah Jastram, Hamburg School of Business Administration, Dr. Jürgen Meyer Chair of International Business Ethics and Sustainability, Department of Strategy & Leadership; and Zara Berberyan, Research Assistant, Hamburg School of Business Administration, Department of Strategy.

Links to the books:

• Eco-Friendly and Fair: Fast Fashion and Consumer Behaviour
• Sustainable Fashion: Governance and New Management Approaches

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

https://accessoriescouncil.org/

A lingerie brand and an accessories brand, both relatively new companies, both selling some wholesale and some direct to consumer, both making a name for themselves in the marketplace. This is a conversation with Aaron Luo, CEO of Caraa (which is designed by Carmen Chen Wu), and Thistle and Spire founders Lily Chen and Maggie Bacon. Their approaches to the redefined marketplace and new selling dynamics, despite existing in relatively disparate product sectors, are remarkably aligned.

Links:
Caraa – http://www.caraasport.com/
Thistle and Spire – https://www.thistleandspire.com/

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!

Elizabeth Pulos is an expert in the field of CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, and has been an overseas factory inspector in many places around the world. In this interview, she speaks about her experiences in China, Bangladesh, and South America, and how compliance issues affect the fashion supply chain.

We have a large number of technical references for this episode:

• Sustainable Accounting Standards Board – SASB – https://www.sasb.org/
• Global Reporting Initiative – GRI – https://www.globalreporting.org/
• Social & Labor Convergence Project – https://slconvergence.org/
• Sustainable Apparel Coalition – https://apparelcoalition.org/
• Maker’s Row – https://makersrow.com/
• Accord on Fire and Building Safety In Bangladesh – http://bangladeshaccord.org/
• Alliance For Bangladesh Worker Safety – http://www.bangladeshworkersafety.org/
• Glasgow Caledonian New York College Fair Fashion Center – https://www.gcnyc.com/fairfashioncenter/

“When you’re distinctive through merchandising, you become an attraction.”

Joseph Cicio – Friends Bearing Gifts (Amazon)

It’s South American Fashion Podcast this week, as we talk with Carlos Jereissati, CEO of Iguatemi, about how his company manages and promotes the most popular malls in Brazil. The conversation covers a bit of South American fashion and a lot of insight on Brazillian fashion culture.

“The mall industry in Brazil is a very different industry from the U.S. First, because our cities are designed differently. They’re much more dense and vertical cities, comparable more to the Asian type of cities than the typical American cities, especially when you think about the suburbs and where the malls started in the U.S. So, we are more in downtown areas, very dense, and we became this meeting point for people. And half of what we have inside our malls are leisure, lots of restaurants, lots of services like fitness centers. We have live theater exhibition areas. So, it’s a much more alive environment that has retail in it, and it’s become very much a part of life in the cities of Brazil.” – Carlos Jereissati

Iguatemi:

http://iguatemi.com.br/

Iguatemi Talks (conferences):

https://iguatemi.com.br/iguatemitalks/

Get invited to our live events:

https://americanfashionpodcast.com/american-fashion-podcast-live/

Kristy Caylor is one of the co-founders of the wildly influential luxury sustainable fashion brand Maiyet, as well as former President of Band of Outsiders. Kristy recently launched her latest business venture called ‘For Days,’ a new circular retail model that addresses the need for fresh basics without costing the environment. The premise is simple – endless access to new, 100% organic t-shirts, made in LA, starting at $4 each. Once you stain, rip, or wear-out a shirt, you just send it back to be recycled, and For Days will send you a new one.

In this interview she discusses the company’s interesting new approach to recycling textiles with the active involvement of consumers. She also talks about her experiences working with the World Economic Forum.

• https://fordays.com/

Sara Rotman is the Chief Brand Officer at sustainability-focused clothing brand Les Lunes, and she is rebranding Les Lunes while it rolls down the highway. Such action would not typically be advisable without a full stop, but Sara is a professional, and in this interview, you’ll certainly hear why.

“We are all about strong opinions and soft clothes.”

Sara’s background is in art direction and marketing design, which began in the music industry, developing album covers and running photoshoots for record labels, and then evolved into a strategy career for advertising agencies. She founded her own agency, servicing major clients from Nina Ricci to Carolina Herrera to Tory Burch. After 20 years she sold the agency she started and has gone looking for new challenges, which led her to Les Lunes. She discusses her approach to helping established brands change their message and approach to consumers to cope with a changing marketplace.

“You know, you think you’re speaking to a 25-year-old urban woman. Well, maybe you were 10 years ago, but that woman has grown up with the brand and she’s moved on, and she’s in the suburbs now, as an example. And the current 25-year-old urban woman maybe isn’t so aware, or interested… or believed that you’re her mother’s brand. And I think that’s sometimes not obvious to the brands that I’ve worked with in the past.” – Sara Rotman

Michele Gerber Klein is a philanthropist and the president of legacy clothing brand Joan Vass. She recently published an extensive new biography, Charles James: Portrait of An Unreasonable Man. It is the first full biographical work on Charles James, one of the most influential designers of the 20th Century. This interview with the biographer explores how the book came about and touches on several key periods of the designer’s life, as well as his major influences.

purchase Portrait of An Unreasonable Man on Amazon

A conversation about sustainable fashion, featuring Luna Atamian Hahn-Petersen of sustainability and social impact consulting firm Salterbaxter, Nicole Heim of ethical and sustainable fashion brand Cienne, and Saloni Shrestha of the ethical fashion brand AGAATI.

“Even just understanding sustainability, it’s so complicated. I think having experts in your corner is the only way to go. I don’t care if you’re big or small, just because it’s such a complex topic and people are so scared to talk about it, so if you are going to talk about it I think it’s good to feel confident in what you’re saying.” – Nicole Heim

• https://agaati.com/
• https://ciennenewyork.com/
• http://www.salterbaxter.com/
• https://fabscrap.org/

The iconic California Style designer, Trina Turk, reflects on changes in her company’s approach to commerce and responding to customer needs.

“At the heigh of the contemporary market, our customers wanted new deliveries every single month, and that’s how we ended up with eleven. We don’t deliver in December or January or something like that. But, because there is so much product out there, and because of the whole shift in the way people are shopping, we’re really starting to question whether eleven deliveries per year is still necessary.” – Trina Turk

“Really what it makes sense to make in L.A. are things that are relatively simple styling. And the reason that we’re still able to produce in Los Angeles when many of our competitors no longer produce in Los Angeles is because our styles are more about letting the fabric speak for itself, and we don’t really do lots of complicated fussy styling. Our styles are usually about silhouette and about fabric. And of course there’s detail on the clothing, but we don’t do a lot of super-complicated styling. So what would make sense would be something that had simple lines, not a ton of needlework or sewing detail. Definitely, nothing embellished. Any type of embellishment could not be done in L.A. because it would be too expensive. And you know, our dresses can see from anywhere between, well — you know, we have a less-expensive collection called Trina by Trina Turk, so there may be a dress would be $128, and then our most expensive dresses would be up to $600. So we have a little bit more room to play with pricing in our contemporary world, than if you were in another department in a department store, say.” – Trina Turk

References:

• Trina Turk – https://www.trinaturk.com/
• California Fashion Association – http://calfashion.org/ 

This is the final interview in our Los Angeles mini-series, which looks at the garment industry in Southern California.

Robin Lewis and Jan Rogers Kniffen are two of the world’s most influential experts on the retail landscape… and they love to argue. Hand on to your shopping bag as we take a look at the massive change happening in the retail marketplace. Also, look out for Robin’s book Retail’s Seismic Shift (link below).

Robin Lewis
Chief Executive Officer
The Robin Report
http://www.therobinreport.com/

Jan Rogers Kniffen, CEO
J Rogers Kniffen World Wide
https://www.jrkwwe.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Retails-Seismic-Shift-Respond-Customer-ebook/dp/B06Y5RD7B4

Guests Stephan Rabimov, Julie Zerbo, and Mickey Boardman discuss the current state of fashion journalism. Charles Beckwith asks if it can even exist at major publications. The conversation turns to movements like #meetoo and its impact on the fashion industry and culture.

Julie Zerbo is the founder and editor of The Fashion Law. Mickey Boardman is the Editorial Director at Paper Magazine. Stephan Rabimov is the Director of Fashion Journalism and the Social Media Center at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Fashion Journalism Episode Links:

• http://www.thefashionlaw.com/
• http://www.juliezerbo.com/about/
• http://www.papermag.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/askmrmickey/
• https://www.academyart.edu/academics/social-media-center
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabimov/
• https://www.instagram.com/shitmodelmgmt/

Discussing the logistics of managing one of the world’s largest costume rental houses with the Director of the Universal Studios Costume Department, Poppy Cannon-Reese.

Poppy is a former costume designer who stepped into the role a few years ago and brought new organization and technology solutions to the massive Universal Studios working archive.

• Poppy Cannon-Reese https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0134287/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/poppy-cannon-reese-7126aa73/
• http://universalstudioslot.com/costume

This is Part 11 of our Los Angeles mini-series.

Los Angeles Magazine called Pocket Square Clothing “the king of the Made In L.A. accessories scene.” The brand was started in 2011 by two UCLA graduates who set out to just make interesting things. Andrew Cheung and Rodolfo Ramirez are the founders, and they speak about clothing the “gentleman of today” in this interview from the Downtown Los Angeles Fashion District near their new flagship store.

“I studied architecture formally, he studied business and film, and our mutual interest in fashion just came through a GQ subscription and being like, ‘one day we’d like to dress that way.’ … I don’t think the fashion scene in Los Angeles is as big as we would like for it to become, so part of our mission for our brand has been bringing exposure for all the creatives in Los Angeles who are in the menswear industry, and the flavor and identity and stylistic qualities that they add to that industry.” – Rodolfo Ramirez, Pocket Square Clothing Co-Founder

https://www.pocketsquareclothing.com/

Sara Angelucci is the woman behind Armature, a Los Angeles-based clothing and jewelry brand. She makes and sells zeitgeist-inspired pieces both ready to wear and unique in the Venice area near the beach. Despite having her work dangling from the ears and necks of some of the most beautiful people in Hollywood, the designer is surprisingly low key in this revealing interview about her approach to her sometimes strikingly original work. THe interview also covers Sara’s personal take on having her work copied by others and the nature of manufacturing artisan jewelry in Los Angeles.

“Right now I feel like the best way to make the most out of my margins is to sell it myself online.” – Sara Angelucci

References:

• https://www.shoparmature.com/
• http://www.floperkins.com/
• https://theresidencyexperience.com/

“Los Angeles is basically one of the largest cities that all of America does garment production in, so we have a lot of vendors that have buttons, trims, whatever. So, technically if you have a wholesale license and you Google deep enough you can find it.” – Christine Ko

This interview with Los Angeles-based Venia Collection designers Christine Ko and Keeter Ly involves a lot of tech talk. The sustainability-focused brand, which sells to fashion-forward knowledge workers around the world, spends a lot of energy on R&D. They sourced fish leather from Canada, hang out with the Silicon Valley crowd, and are part of the group developing the Neue VR marketplace and its proposed shoppable immersive online experiences. A fascinating conversation with two designers who aren’t afraid to try new things.

Husband and wife design team Anthony Cucculelli and Anna Rose Shaheen met while working for Diane von Furstenberg, and then moved to Italy together, where they worked for major houses such as Emilio Pucci and Roberto Cavalli. They now have their own custom demi-couture clothing line, Cucculelli Shaheen, which employs advanced fitting technologies.

Guest co-host Gretchen Harnick (Parsons) joins for this interview which delves into the differences between working with large American and Italian houses and doing business independently in New York.

“In Italy, if you dream it you can do it, and there is a team to make it happen. Whereas, I think sometimes the challenge in New York is you can dream it but you have to figure out how to make it happen. But it goes both ways because if you can figure out how to make it happen you can do it. Whereas, I think in Italy it’s not so easy for young designers to get off the ground, up and running.” – Anna Rose Shaheen

Cucculelli Shaheen is carried in Bergdorf Goodman and on Moda Operandi.

“Each dress has its own palette. That’s the amazing thing. Instead of doing our palette for the collection, we really think about what’s the palette for each piece, and how does each piece sit next to each other.” – Anthony Cucculelli

https://www.cu-sh.com/

“It’s a very exciting time in fashion right now. It’s exciting because anyone that has a passion to start a clothing line– ten years or so ago you would have to go overseas, you would have to get big production, you would have to get into all the big box retailers, if you couldn’t get into them you weren’t selling– now with the advent of the Internet and we can sell online, there are so many brands that are strictly online. So, you could literally draw a sketch of an idea you have, or as long as you could convey your message to a production house in America, anything could be done. The production that we can make in America is amazing, and we’re all previewed to a free brand name that no one knows about, it’s called Made In USA. Made In USA is a great brand name. It’s the same if you and I go buy a suit and it’s Made In Italy. We’re like, ‘oh, it’s great quality.’ That quality still exists in America, so if people want to get into the business, just put your heart into it. Don’t spend a dollar to save ten cents. Do your development– do everything– correctly. Launch it with a small collection, and as long as you are willing to put your efforts into it, people are willing to buy it. Made In America is having a huge comeback. We have a lot of clients who are growing.” – Adam Khoda

Adam Khoda is a long-time garment manufacturer, president of The Elite Fashion Group and founder of veterans-support brand Never Forgotten Apparel. He fled Iran with his family at age 11 and came to the USA when he was still fairly young. He is very proud to be an American citizen and cares a great deal about Made In USA. Adam coordinates factories for both overseas and Made In USA production, but as you’ll hear in this interview he has a definite preference between those two options.

This interview is part of a Los Angeles Fashion mini-series.

Links:

• The Elite Fashion Group
• Never Forgotten Apparel

Continuing our Los Angeles fashion adventure, Charles speaks with two men who are changing how boxers and MMA fighters dress for work.

Will Hoover is a veteran designer who knows downtown L.A. fashion like few others. He is the founder and designer at Paul Dunne, a co-founder with J.R. at I.G.M.O.B. Clothing, and teaches at Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM). Hoover discusses what L.A. fashion is all about, the impact of runaway real estate development in the Los Angeles fashion district and surrounding areas, and how fashion students are learning their trade on the West Coast.

The FIDM campus is downtown, and in the face of this real estate pressure, they are still expanding. FIDM has been providing associates degrees for some time but is now introducing bachelors degree programs and adding a menswear track as the school expands.

Also in the studio, J.R., whose I.G.M.O.B. label stands for I Got My Own Back. The brand that started as a personal trainer’s basic marketing approach now produces high-end high-performance clothing for the world’s top MMA fighters. J.R. entered fashion sideways after finding himself drawing looks in his real estate office. A very interesting story.

https://www.instagram.com/igotmyownback_fighter/

https://www.instagram.com/pauldunnestyle/

http://www.igotmyownback.com/

http://fidm.edu/

They’re riding high with the boho chic trend, but that look was in the Bob Marley song-inspired Johnny Was brand’s main playbook for a long time before it was popping up everywhere. As executive vice president, Catherine Nation says, “We’ve been doing this for 30 years, these signature embroideries, and it’s fantastic that we’re in-trend right now. That’s very helpful, but this is just what we do, what we’ve always done: signature prints and embroideries.”

In this interview, Catherine Nation and CEO Rob Trauber discuss the classic California brand’s legacy and future, and how they manage e-commerce, their own stores, and selling wholesale for the brand. Johnny Was is opening a lot of stores, uses interesting marketing strategies, and is using big data to keep up with their customers, so Trauber and Nation have a lot of insights in this discussion about how to best approach those things. Johnny Was has recently opened a New York City store on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan.

https://www.johnnywas.com/

Continuing our look at the Los Angeles fashion scene, in this interview Charles speaks with designer Jemma Swatek, whose popular Lykke Wullf brand is all about the Scandinavian cowgirl.

“I moved here and I tried to get a design job, and I interviewed with some really big companies, and I would be like ‘So where’s your knitting department? Where are your machines? Where are your swatches?’ And they were all like, “Oh, we don’t do that. You just go in the swatch closet and you pick something out and you decide on a yarn and you’re basically making tech packs all day for China. And it’s not like I was completely naive, but I was like ‘Woah, this is like… not what I want to do at all.’ You know, because I’m a creative person, and sitting around doing tech packs, I have nothing against the people who do them, but that’s not really designing to me. Ultimately, that’s why I started my own brand.” – Jemma Swatek, Lykke Wullf

https://lykkewullf.myshopify.com/

California Apparel News covers the global fashion industry from a West Coast perspective. In this interview, Apparel News Executive Editor Alison Nieder speaks with American Fashion Podcast host Charles Beckwith at the California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles. The discussion covers the Downtown Los Angeles fashion scene, L.A. Fashion Week, denim abroad, West Coast textile manufacturing, and several other topics.

https://www.apparelnews.net/

If you’re on Instagram at all, Lisa Brezinski (@lkbphotography) is one of those photographers whose sexy sexy fashion photography work you’ve seen. Lisa provides insight on the Los Angeles fashion scene‘s constant need for edgy images, how video has become a more important part of fashion shoots, and the massive gap between the marketing budgets of large and small brands.

Jason Sweet from Salesfloor

Salesfloor is helping bridge the gap between online and brick and mortar shopping. Their omnichannel clientelling mobile app gives unparalleled new agency and business intelligence to store associates on the traditional salesfloor. Jason Sweet is Vice President of Sales for North America, and in this interview speaks with Cathy and Charles at the Nation Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York.

ABOUT THE HOSTS:

Cathy Schepis advises luxury brands on strategy. She was most recently the President at the vertically integrated direct selling company Doncaster. Prior to that she was a Vice President of Design and Merchandising at Kate Spade & Company, Director of Design and Merchandising at Anne Klein Collection, and managed research and product for Federated Department Stores. She joined the show as co-host in 2016.

Charles Beckwith is an expert in the intersection between fashion, media, and technology. He created American Fashion Podcast as a way of promoting local sustainable fashion while Executive Director of the Fashion Media Center. Prior to that, he was the editor and publisher of the online fashion magazine modaCYCLE. He currently serves as Director of Communication for the non-profit Save The Garment Center, and a Founder and the Director of Innovation at MouthMedia Network.

This is a special preview of a new podcast from How Stuff Works called Dressed: The History of Fashion.

Links:

• • dressedpodcast.com
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher

Trevor Sumner, CEO of Perch Interactive, talks about how the use of their smart displays can result in a “30-80% sales lift while driving 5-10X customer engagement.” Perch uses sensors in their display units to provide customers with product information and an interactive experience. The company was part of an early class at the New York Fashion Tech Lab. Their in-store technology helps hybridize the brick and mortar and online customer experience, moving us closer to that seamless experience everyone seems to want to move toward.

flag photo via user HARRIS.news on Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Charlie Cole is the Chief Digital Officer at Tumi and recently became the Chief Global Officer at parent company Samsonite Holdings. So… this episode is about accessories, specifically luggage, and how these giant companies approach selling it.

This is also a crossover episode with our sister show Fashion Is Your Business, so you’ll hear hosts from both series asking questions in this episode.

“We’re a product company first. And now we have to create innovative ways to push that product into the medium that we manage, and that’s what I think a lot of digital leaders fall down, is they think they are the dog instead of the tail.” – Charlie Cole

Recorded in front of a live audience in the O.N.S Clothing menswear store in Soho (71 Greene Street), a conversation first with Geo Hagan, content director at O.N.S Clothing, followed by O.N.S Creative Lab partner designers Abdul Abasi and Greg Rosborough of the Abasi Rosborough brand. Also joining the conversation, Sharifa Murdoch, co-founder of the Liberty Fairs trade show.

photos by Andy Jackson

Sidney Morgan-Petro is the Retail Editor at WGSN, a think tank with deep connections to the fashion and lifestyle businesses. Big on the horizon, purple for sure, but what is a scandi cowboy?

Richard R. Shapiro is the Founder and President of The Center For Client Retention. Richard has spent decades studying how to keep customers coming back to stores. This is rather important, considering how much it costs to get them in the door in the first place.

“I’m a believer in technology, as long as it enhances the customer relationship.” – Richard R. Shapiro

Richard is the author of two books on the subject, The Welcomer Edge: Unlocking The Secrets To Repeat Business and The Endangered Customer: 8 Steps To Guarantee Repeat Business.

“When you have a relationship, it’s not a guarantee, but it is kind of that glue that helps retain that customer.” – Richard R. Shapiro

The conversation covers both brick and mortar and e-commerce strategies and brings up powerful insights about how to bridge those experiences well.

Retaining Customers References:

• The Endangered Customer (book)
• The Welcomer Edge (book)
• Hug Your Customers (book)

Rick Helfenbein is the President and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which is a trade association lobbying for the interests of roughly 350 companies and 1,000 brands in our nation’s capital.

This episode features a discussion about national trade policy as it relates to the fashion industry.

photo by Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0

A roundtable discussion of the human components of the fashion industry. Panelists include Fashion Mingle founder Melissa Shea, Human B founder Boaz David, and Rachel Tobias from the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator.

Fashion Mingle is a community platform that was started in Austin, Texas, helping independent designers find contractors and suppliers in cities across the United States. Human B is a consulting firm which facilitates production. The Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator is a part of Pratt Institute which serves as an accelerator and community hub for fashion businesses in Brooklyn.

Norma Kamali has a long history of innovation and anticipating “the moment” again and again in fashion and the New York City community. In this interview recorded with a live audience at Spring Place in TriBeCa, the designer talks about her work and life and how they intersect. She describes key events in her career along with her personal transformation to a minimalist lifestyle.

“I work with a lot of e-commerce accounts, and they’re fun to work with. They’re all doing well, and when people are doing well they experiment, they want to collaborate, they want to experiment with you, and there’s conversation. When people are doing well it’s friendly and it’s happy and it’s good. When people are not doing well, some really awful things happen. Deceit and dishonesty, and stuff that you just don’t want in your life happen. But we’re in a very good time now, because e-commerce is really emerging as a way to reach individuals and to give each and every one of us an opportunity to make a choice to have great service and to have a good experience.” – Norma Kamali

Additional parts of the interview delve into Norma Kamali’s personal theories about how to improve relations between men and women, the thought and practice behind The Wellness Cafe, and her own podcast, Norma Kamali Life.

Can Fashion Save The Planet, or At Least Make It Better?

Lisa Mazzota , the producer of RiverBlue, an environmental documentary, is passionate about rivers. Hear Lisa, Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs, designer and co-founder of Tabii Just, Charles and Cathy talk about a documentary that is starting a lot of conversation.

There are rivers around the world that have been declared biologically dead from toxic, chemical waste that is a result of clothing manufacturing.

Consumers need to ask how their clothing is made, and then ask themselves if they are fulfilled by fast fashion, or can we as consumers change our value systems.

The consumer holds a lot of power and can learn a lot from documentaries like RiverBlue.

“The idea that we have to buy something all the time, what is that fulfilling for us?”-Lisa Mazzota

We’ll talk about the progress that is already leading this movement, and how consumers can play a powerful role.

“It’s a big task, but there is responsibility on the part of the consumer to say “I am not going to buy this anymore”- Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs

RiverBlue References:

• FashionHeros.eco
• Fashionrevolution.org
• Worldriversday.com
• Fashiontakesaction.com
• LAbeyondthelabel.com
• Ecosessions.com
• Riverkeepers.com
• Waterkeeper.org

Elaine Kwon used to help run Amazon Fashion. Now she is the founder of Kwontified, an e-commerce management and SAS firm. She and her partner Jordan Taylor consult from the points of “what is the best business model for me to use on Amazon” and “how do I grow my business on Amazon?”

Questions addressed in this episode include: What platform do you use to sell on Amazon? How do you get a “verified brand” on Amazon? How do you identify your products as eco-friendly for Amazon searches? What kind of qualities do you need to have on and to sell through Amazon? Are there minimums? Is Handmade at Amazon an Amazon version of ETSY? Will a customer forgo a discount on a product if they know they’re going to get free shipping?

“Just like how pure play brick and mortar is seen as outdated today, pure play e-commerce will be seen as outdated tomorrow. And I think that the way to really thrive in what retail is becoming is to adopt what we call the new retail values, which essentially is when you stop dividing the channels that you play on, but you really start integrating what that means for the consumer across the board. So, you’re taking online offline. You’re making sure that the experiences that the customers see online are consistent and have parity with what they’re seeing offline, and that the two are not separated.” – Elaine Kwon

Anya Ferring is Factory8’s Product Development and Local Supply Chain Specialist. Factory8 helps designers and brands large and small manage a streamlined developed and Made In USA production process.

Factory8 References:

• China Snaps Up America’s Cheap Robot Labor
• USAID
• Create-A-Marker

“I just feel like we’re at an oversaturation point, where it’s kind of like if everything looks like this it doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
– Eliza Brooke

Eliza also wrote pieces titled “How to Sell a Billion-Dollar Myth Like a French Girl: The origins and consequences of everyone’s favorite Parisian fantasy” and “The Myth and Magic of California Style.” The conversation gets into this a bit as well.

Minimalism References:

• Outdoor Voices
• Sqirl

Nicole Giordano is the founder of the online designer community platform StartUp Fashion, where she helps designers figure out what’s next and how to keep moving forward with their businesses and brands. She has brought along a group of designers from the community to talk about what they do and how they collaborate through the StartUp Fashion platform.

Maggie Gillette is the founder of The Giving Bride, a specialty lingerie line for brides, which is making a big splash at bridal showers. Julia Ahrens is the founder of Miakoda, an ethical fashion label where she strives to get closer to the mark on making an impact with her clothing without making an impact with her clothing. Lisa Selwitz is an advertising world creative who started making a collection called Lily-Lark, which is all UV sun-protective parasols.

The discussion gets into thoughts on wholesale versus direct sales, how the designers define success, and how one gets into lingerie.

Fashion Posse References:

• Lily-Lark – https://www.lily-lark.com/
• StartUp FASHION – https://startupfashion.com/
• The Giving Bride – http://www.thegivingbride.com/shop
• Miakoda – https://www.miakodanewyork.com/
• The Lingerie Selection – https://www.thelingerieselection.com/ (trade show)

A conversation with two designers whose businesses are very much about the fit of clothing. Melissa Mendez of Melissa Mendez Design Studio is a freelance technical designer who spends a lot of time working with clients who “just have an idea” and don’t know much about the engineering of clothing, helping them bring visions into reality. Kristen Allen’s label Exclusively Kristen is designed for women with ample bosoms who tend to look a little too provocative when putting on normal clothing items. She sought out to solve her own #bustygirlproblems and created a product line with a fiercely loyal following. Also in the discussion: email marketing advice and plus-size lingerie insights.

Fit To Wear References:

• Create-A-Marker – https://www.facebook.com/createamarkernyc/
• AWeber email marketing tech – https://www.aweber.com/
• Exclusively Kristen – https://www.exclusivelykristen.com/
• Melissa Mendez Design Studio – http://www.melissamendezdesignstudio.com/

Jewelry brand Van Cleef & Arpels, part of the Richemont group of companies, has an exhibition of new one of a kind jewelry pieces in a special experience space created by renowned American artist Robert Wilson. The “Noah’s Ark Inspires Van Cleef Arpels” exhibition is at the Cedar Lake event space on West 26th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan. As Ruth La Ferla in The New York Times says, “From Nov. 3 to 19, visitors will be treated to a display of the jeweler’s menagerie of exotic animals, designed as brooches and showcased in a series of recessed glass enclosures cresting and dipping rhythmically along the walls.” For tickets to see the installation, go to ARKVCA.com.

This episode has two parts. First is an interview conducted by Filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein, with the artist Robert Wilson and Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicholas Bos. Second is an interview conducted by Charles Beckwith and Cathy Schepis, with the same two gentlemen, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bos.

Among other things, Charles asks Mr. Wison to talk about light, and Cathy wants to know more about fashion collaborating with the art world.

https://www.arkvca.com/

American Fashion Podcast is a fashion show for fashion people, diving deep into the designing, making, and selling of garments and accessories through long-form interviews with people at all levels and in all corners of the business. Past guests have included Ralph Rucci, Naeem Khan, Reem Acra, Teri Agins, Tim Gunn, Lauren Sherman, Nick Graham, Simon Collins, Mickey Boardman, Deb Johnson, Jeff Staple, threeASFOUR, Anita Dongre, Yeohlee Teng, and many others.

Sandra Gault is the CEO of True Gault, a fashion technology start-up company which uses a mobile app to measure your feet and build custom-fitted high heels at a far lower price point than the average for bespoke footwear. In this interview, she talks about the measurement, fabrication, the thought behind the product, and Nikola Tesla.

https://www.truegault.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

Abe Burmeister just wanted a better pair of pants, but the quest has taken him and Outlier co-founder Tyler Clemens on a long strange road through the depths of the fashion industry. They now release a new product every week, constantly developing new ideas and trying them out on eager fans. The company has a strong ethical fashion ethos, and a fascinating product development process, which Abe details in this interview.

“There is a core functionality to almost everything that we do. That resonates with people and gives them a reason to come back and buy more. We’re interested in a deep level of quality, so it’s not just ‘oh, that looks cool.’ How does it function? What do the fibers do? Where do they come from? How are people treated all along the supply chain?  These are questions we can’t always answer completely. When you start digging into fashion supply chains, it gets really deep and far back.” – Abe Burmeister, Outlier.nyc

Outlier.nyc References:

• Abe’s Reddit AMA from 2013

Amy Zhou is COO of the online fashion wholesale marketplace Brandboom (link), which is giving bulk purchasing of luxury apparel a digital dimension for brands and retailers.

Thorsten Roth is a veteran fashion and lifestyle photographer who currently teaches a continuing education photography course at the School of Visual Arts entitled Photographic Identity: Artistic Self-Expression and Professional Application.

Izaskun Zabala discusses her business and history as a New York City-based jewelry designer whose major inspiration is an idea of timelessness. We also talk about ancient cultures and palm reading, though that provokes a bit of an argument when she tries to explain how palm reading is a science.

Timelessness References:

• Denisovan
• Basques

Our guest, Nick Blunden, is the Chief Commercial Officer at The Business of Fashion. In this episode of American Fashion Podcast, he discusses the new Business of Fashion Professional “information platform and community.”BoF Pro is a members’ platform and community furthering BoF’s mission to “open, inform, and connect the global fashion community.”

We also discuss BoF’s editorial process and tone, and Nick reveals who really reads and approves all the commends on the articles, why BoF is publishing a print edition twice yearly to feature their long-form content, and how the company thinks about its member and leadership events.

The Ensign is an e-commerce platform showcasing American luxury menswear: https://theensign.us/

Co-founders Luis Morales and Jason Wagg have backgrounds defined by work for premiere labels like Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren. In this interview they discuss the state of American menswear design and domestic garment manufacturing, and the company they are running to amplify and ride its resurgence.

“We really waned to highlight and create awareness in America on the design talent that is here, but also the fact that it’s resolating on a global level, and that was always our goal. We wanted to take the concept of Neo-American Luxury to the global consumer.” – Luis Morales

“It wasn’t surprising that so many Japanese retailers were very invested, and were very interested in designers that we wanted to work with that were based here in America. What was very surprising is how little American retail support they had. We understood the first part of it, but the second part was really– it really reaffirmed that what our idea was, and what we felt our motivations were, were in the right direction.” – Luis Morales

“One of the exciting things about menswear right now, is that guys don’t have that uniform anymore. We don’t have to wear suits and ties, and sometimes it’s great to wear a suit and tie, but now it’s a more special thing. Now when you wear a suit and tie you want it to look right. You want it to be for a certain occasion, and you are able to distinguish yourself in a way that you weren’t able to before, because everybody was wearing a suit and tie.” – Jason Wagg

“Every single one of our designers is a passion project for us, because we believe in them. Our business is to take an investment in them, a lot of times emotionally, and we want to communicate that to other people, and we want them to get excited about it too.” –  Jason Wagg

Jim Moore details how he directs fashion coverage and visual language at the leading men’s magazine. He discusses their Best New Menswear Designers of America feature, and its new global variant in collaboration with Gap. Mr. Moore has been at GQ for nearly 40 years, was instrumental in the creation of New York Men’s Fashion Week, and delivers deep insights into the here and now of men’s fashion.

“I think what you’re finding is this new breed of designers that really… they have a mission, they have a business plan, and they want to get their clothes into Barneys or they want to do a collaboration with Uniqlo someday. They’re hungry and they’ve got good ideas, and we have a lot of original talent coming out of America. I think that is something to celebrate, and we’re really interested in that.” – Jim Moore, GQ Creative Director

References:

• Mordechai Rubinstein
• Five Four Club
• Fred Segal
• Reinge Clothing
• Popeye Magazine
• Brutus Magazine

Almost every week a new store is opening in SoHo, and this week that store is Anita Dongre’s Grassroot, at 484 Broome Street. The store feature’s the premiere Indian designer’s vision of sustainable fashion, featuring the Grassroot line which provides employment to artisan villages in India, as well as a bridal boutique.

In this interview, she discusses where the concept for the label came from, what she hopes to accomplish in New York City, and how she approaches management of the vast House of Anita Dongre fashion company.

Recorded at Voyager HQ in Manhattan.

Guest co-host Pavan Bahl joins for this episode from the Fashion Is Your Business podcast.

This is the second half of American Fashion Podcast’s roadtrip to the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator (PFI).

This roundtable is with current members of the incubator class, Janell Wysock: www.janellwysock.com, Latasha Hall – facebook.com/Lillie-Designs-by-Latasha-172429349472334/, and Sara Keel – www.penrosedesignstudio.com/shop. Executive Director Elissa Bloom helps lead the discussion. Conversation centers on the launch point for new designers and new brands, touching on design, marketing, business strategies, social media, and runway shows.

references:

• The Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator
• The Brooklyn Fashion Incubator

note: transportation for this episode was paid for by the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator

Charles is in Pennsylvania at the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, speaking with PFI founder and executive director Elissa Bloom, as well as incubator alumni Nigel Richards, Milan (Milano di Rouge), Sherrill Mosee (Minkee Blue).

“The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator at Macy’s, Center City, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia, Macy’s Center City, Center City District, and various educational institutions devoted to fashion design in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator is the first of its kind in Philadelphia. The city is fortunate to be home to nationally-recognized fashion design schools including Moore College of Art, Drexel University and Philadelphia University.”

Nigel Richards produces a menswear line, which rebranded while he was participating int he incubator. Milan produces streetwear and has a heavy media / events tie-in, and Sherill Mosee produces are handbags with modular sections.

note: transportation for this episode was paid for by the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator

As the Director of Influencer Talent in the Hearst Branded Content Studio, Brittany Hennessy connects influencers with brands for collaboration. The content they produce is featured by dozens of Hearst publications, including Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Seventeen, and Redbook. Influencer marketing is a hot business right now. Brittany shares how she cuts through some of the noise to see the players and the field.

Brittany and her husband Alexander are the Co-Founders of CreatorsCollective, which provides advice to influencers and brands about how to work with each other.

“I think it works best when all of the pieces work together. People are very quick to move all their money into influencer marketing, or pull all their money from TV. It works best when it’s all a cohesive plan. And I think that’s the struggle most people have, is they can’t figure out how to make everything work together.” – Brittany Hennessy

Also, Charles discusses his recent work with the Save The Garment Center. STGC is a non-profit which protects the critical infrastructure of the New York fashion industry. They have a new position paper on the future of the garment industry. Join STGC as a member [here].

Mizzen and Main

Kevin Lavelle is CEO of Mizzen and Main, a menswear line that prioritizes function over tradition in its fabric selection. In this interview, the conversation covers…

• running a clothing business from Dallas
• competitive AdWords strategy for e-commerce
• YachtCaptcha and the coming of SkyNet
• making menswear that doesn’t have your customers asking “what was I thinking?” in ten years
• running a designer-less brand

“All the blood in the water that’s happening from the broader retail world… it’s a really exciting time to be an apparel company. Just, with the changing nature of people’s buying habits, and Amazon is just changing the way people think about what it means to buy things online, even more than they already have, pop-ups and retail partnerships… all of those things… there is no shortage of opportunity out there. For all the fear that’s happening, some of the old guards might go away, and that’s sad from a legacy perspective, and it’s going to require some pretty significant changes, but I can’t wait to see what’s next.” – Kevin Lavelle

Julien Labat On Edun’s Sustainable Choices

There is fairly little true long term thinking in the fashion industry, but it’s not surprising to see it come from an LVMH brand. Edun is a very special company, with a very special mission. It was started by Ali Hewson and her husband Bono, with the intention of making sustainable high end fashion in Africa. It has been a long road with a lot of learning and building, and rebuilding, as revealed in this interview with a new New Yorker, CEO Julien Labat.

“I think you can tell that we’re going through this moment, and it’s about every brand needs to increase this conviction about who they are and the value they stand for, and being sure they offer to the customer something that is relevant but also so they cure a need. I think that the whole thing is about identifying who is the customer at the moment with all this changing, and this political and economic and social change: what the customer really looks for. And I think the answer is that the most of the customers don’t know themselves. And I think it’s where the brand’s work is really to recreate this and definitely also bringing the customer to be comfortable with their purchase.”- Julien Labat

“I think we’re going to something which is maybe a little less seasonal, but you need to still refresh your offer, and bring more consistency.” – Julien Labat

Stephanie Maslansky Brings Marvel’s Stories To Life On Netflix

Stephanie Maslansky is the costume designer behind several Netflix series based on the Marvel comic book universe: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and now Iron Fist. She was previously on American Fashion Podcast episode #94, and is now back to deep dive into her work on Iron Fist. In this interview she discusses how she created updated filmable versions of the character looks from the comic books, her appreciation of the cosplay movement, and how her team creates business suits compatible with kung fu.

“I don’t know if you guys know about cosplay. Cosplay is a wonderful thing that I just learned about a couple years ago myself. People dress up as their favorite characters, in superheroes, television shows; it’s really evolved. Just as comicons have evolved. It’s not just about comic book nerds anymore. It’s all the television shows, animated characters, characters you create from your brain.”

“These people who create these costumes, the work is often extraordinary. Just as good, if not better, than what we do. I’ve seen some things that can be compared to visual effects, and yet these people create them in their basements or their garages. It’s quite extraordinary.”

Designer Nick Graham (website) refers to his menswear line’s customers as the perennial millennials, and from his rapid retail expansion, he seems to be tapping into something very interesting. The recent New York Fashion Week Men’s show for Nick Graham featured Buzz Aldrin, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and the planet Mars. In this interview he discusses how he built a brand now found in hundreds of retail stores in under three years, and teases the over the top concept for the next fashion week show. His insights on how to start a fashion business both confirm and confound the common wisdom.

“The first three years of a business are critical. The first year you figure out exactly what you are, you take your hits. The second year it starts to gel in your mind and the market’s mind of what you represent, and then you get your sourcing and your production ready. And the third year is really when you launch. The first year is not a lunch year, the third year is always a launch year, I think.” – Nick Graham

References:

• Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction (book)
• John Elliott (designer)
• John Varvatos (designer)
• Paul Smith (designer)

Independent and Emerging: The State of The Business

Seth, Lisa, Cathy, and Charles are live on stage together for this first live audience podcast, which circles back to the heart of where the show began: wanting to help independent and emerging designers with ecological, social, and financial sustainability.

Guests for this episode are three of the most knowledgeable women in the entire industry when it comes to the wants and needs to independent and emerging designers: Nicole Giordano of StartUp FASHION, and Debera Johnson and Deborah Alden of the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (Pratt/BF+DA).

The conversation starts with Seth summarizing the state of the industry ten years back, and goes into where we are now, with detail about direct and wholesale sales, the availability of sustainable materials, and how independent and emerging designers can approach functioning in the chaotic state of the industry today.

This is the first of several planned American Fashion Podcast: LIVE shows, and listeners are encouraged to use the Live Show form to sign up for free tickets to similar upcoming events.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-uUpGB10X/?taken-by=americanfashionshow

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-vyQkBJF9/?taken-by=americanfashionshow

Pop-up stores, experience spaces, temporary showrooms, events, photoshoot locations, and other temporary space needs are the domain of a web and mobile app called Peerspace. They’ve helped us gather a group of experts to talk about the relatively new but certainly growing trend of temporary retail.

In the studio for this episode are Gemma Sole, co-founder of Nineteenth Amendment; Parisa Wang, founder of fashion accessories brand Parisa Wang; Aliana Galan, Senior Project Manager at The Lionesque Group; real estate investor Fred Piumelli; Jason Levine, General Manager at Peerspace; and Rony Chammas, CEO at Peerspace.

Some of the topics on the table include retail fatigue, legal issues around temporary leases, and how landlords are adapting to the new paradigm.

FIYB listeners get a 10% site-wide discount up to $100 through 9/30/17 at www.peerspace.com/p/fashion

Some Model Tycoons

Shivani Honwad is a lawyer helping imported fashion folk with green card issues, while Jessica Perez is using her new Tycoon App (iOS) (Android) to help freelancers keep up with the dollar bills, and Aine Campbell is helping models prepare for life Beyond The Runway.

This episode touches on a broad spectrum of issues affecting legal immigrants who work in fashion. We also discuss how Tycoon App is getting freelancers paid on time. Jessica and Aine talk about their experiences working with modeling agencies in relation to immigration, what models do when they stop modeling and have no other resume, and their advocation for the passage of the new Freelance Isn’t Free Act.

References:

• U-Booker
• T-Project Showroom’s Handbag Course

John Nicolopoulos

John Nicolopoulos is a partner and the retail & restaurant leader at RSM, a leading tax, audit and consulting firm. John has more than 35 years of combined retail and accounting experience, and is on the show to talk about his company’s recent Retailer Omnichannel Survey, and what was learned about industry retail trends in their research.

References:

• RSM Retailer Omnichannel Survey
• 9 takeaways in middle market omnichannel retail
• They Were Expendable (movie)

“It’s okay if your answer to ‘do you have another job right now’ is ‘yes.'” – Nicole Giordano

There are a lot of sites that promise to help emerging and independent designers, but few have the depth of Nicole Giordano’s StartUp Fashion portal. What started as a blog has grown into a global community, where designers share knowledge and resources online.

In this interview, Nicole talks about her community and the two biggest problems independent designers face: financing and manufacturing.

“I hope that I’m never making them think that the more traditional approach is something they shouldn’t do. All I’m trying to do is remind them that it’s not the only option, and there’s a lot that they can be thinking about that is just as great.” – Nicole Giordano

References:

• Chetna Singh

A consultant on fashion branding and marketing with several decades of experience in the field, Bill D’Arienzo, PhD, is in the studio talking about right and wrong approaches to marketing and sales in the fashion industry. His company, WDA Brand Marketing, advises some of the biggest players in the business. Whether they listen is an interesting story.

“You have to characterize the differential nature of your customers. Who is spending? For what? And if you just have the names, you don’t have a database.” – Bill D’Arienzo

“We’ve got to get some of the words out of our heads. You hear retail, wholesale, those are traps. Because the realities are no longer what those old definitions are about.” – Bill D’Arienzo

Fashion Branding and Marketing references:

• Brand Management Strategies: Luxury and Mass Markets (book)
• The Hatred of Poetry (book)

Bayard Winthrop, American Giant CEO

Vertically integrated Made In USA brand American Giant has become an icon in the movement to “make it here.” Founder and CEO Bayard Winthrop is the man who hired a former Apple engineer to design their first sweatshirt, and has driven the company to be consistently best-in-class among the new generation of Made In USA brands.

“I think that if you’re asking a customer to make an exception for you because you are a U.S.-made brand, I think you are never going to get out of first gear. At the end of the day we owe our customers the right to make a decision based on fit and quality. And after that, after clearing all of those hurdles, if they want to support American Giant because we are an American-made brand, that’s awesome. That’s fantastic. But I owe it to my customer to compete on fit and quality and value first, because that’s what they ought to be making their decision on.” – Bayard Winthrop

In the studio is Flying Solo founder Elizabeth Solomeina, along with member designers Elena Rudenko, Silvia D’Avila, Jenny Lai, and Stephanie Schedraui, who were instrumental in helping to plan and execute the collective’s fashion show.

On the phone is the fashion show’s publicist, Cathleen DaCosta Bombard. Cathleen is also the founder of the opiate addiction awareness non-profit Heroin Is Not Chic.

The American Fashion Podcast hosts are a bit more a part of the story in this episode. Charles Beckwith produced the show for Flying Solo, and pulled in co-host Cathy Schepis to help manage backstage.

This episode also introduces a new joint venture podcast, between Flying Solo and Open Source Fashion: The SoHo Show (iTunes).

CLO Virtual Fashion Director of Operations Daniel Seo

A fashiontech startup called CLO Virtual Fashion (link) has developed software that lets you drape fabric in the computer and see how it will really fall and move. This is remarkable and groundbreaking technology. Our guest in the studio is Daniel Seo, Director of Operations at CLO, who has been responsible for much of the thinking behind how the software supports designers’ visions and needs.

“At the core of what we’re doing, we’re really trying to change the way that design is communicated. And that’s not just between designers and the end consumer, it’s more so between teams. Patternmakers can talk with the designers. They can understand what they’re doing because you see it actually happening as you’re making the changes, so any change you make to the 2D CAD pattern, you see it immediately reflected in the 3D environment.”
– Daniel Seo

References:

• Gerber Technology
• Monsters Inc. (animated film)
• Big Hero 6 (animated film)
• Frozen (animated film)

Round Table on The Future of Retail

The National Retail Federation is having a giant trade show in town, and it provides an opportunity to have several retail technology executives around a table for a discussion about the future of the businesses they serve. Participants in the panel are Carlos Ponce, Business Development Director at Tlantic; CEO of Infinite Peripherals, Jeff Scott; Gerber Technology Chief Marketing Officer Bill Grindle; and Craig Witsoe, CEO of Elo. The seven main topics on the table are…

• The current state of retail, and recent changes in effectiveness, including discussion of the recent mass closings by Macy’s, Sears, Kmart, Limited, etc.
• Where is the retail industry being pulled? If or when will a balance be reached between online and offline shopping?
• Customer experience: where is it failing, where is it shining, what can be done better?
• New retail technologies: how they will affect how shopkeepers and customers interact, both with each other and with products?
• What is going on with cybersecurity for the future of retail and loss prevention technologies?
• A discussion on using big data for marketing and sales, and how they interrelate with analytics, and how that is changing.
• A general discussion of innovation, and what is truly outside the box in retail right now.

References:

• In-Store E-Commerce
• Ralph Lauren starts testing interactive fitting rooms in NYC
• Amazon is opening a physical bookstore in New York City in 2017
• 4 Important Differences Between Multi-Channel & Omnichannel
• KPI
• Maker’s Row

Costume designer Paloma Young talks about the development process behind her current Broadway show, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. It is a new musical based on a 70-page love triangle story inside the much longer Russian novel, War and Peace, written by Leo Tolstoy and originally published in 1869. Some of the visual and audio elements of this adaptation are very tied to the history, and many are far more contemporary, projecting a fascinating singing and dancing collage of the connections between now and then.

“In our costumes, I have a lot of Easter eggs. Maybe ten percent of the audience every night is going to see them, depending on what corner you are in or who you are paying attention to when.” – Paloma Young

Costume is a vital part of the communication of the show, and Paloma Young soundly delivers with a remarkable array of costumes. This interview with the remarkable young artist uncovers a detailed process and a deep thoughtfulness. She previously won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design In A Play for her work on Peter and the Starcatcher in 2012, and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 puts her squarely on the line for another.

Curator Jessica Regan

We went uptown to The Metropolitan Museum of Art to interview Costume Institute curator Jessica Regan. Her remarkable exhibition, Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion, is on display through February 5th.

The exhibition highlights iconic recent acquisitions in the museum’s collection. Many of these pieces have never been displayed for the public. The exhibition includes work from some of the most distinguished and influential designers, covering the 18th century to today.

Jessica talks with Charles Beckwith and Cathy Schepis about both the current exhibition, and general trends in garment design over the centuries which it demonstrates. This vital historical context informs and gives a depth of perspective to where we are with fashion today.

She also provides a behind the scenes context to how the Costume Institute creates an exhibition, and where they get all those fantastic mannequins.

Also, look for The Met’s upcoming solo exhibition featuring the works of maverick designer Rei Kawakubo, opening in May.

Leaders of three companies making the charge toward better use of materials for sustainability and a closed loop for textiles include Patrick Robinson, designer and founder of Paskho; designers Beth Hynes and Harrison Taylor Johnson, founders of the brand Vestment; and Jessica Schreiber of the textile waste recycling non-profit Fabscrap.

“When I started Paskho, the key thing that bothered me was how was I going to source fabric, because I felt that I couldn’t just go out there and buy more fabric and become part of this sort of circle of buying fabric every season, more than I need, and keep making things and adding to the world’s landfills, adding more stuff into the world that I’m not sure anyone needs.” – Patrick Robinson

For many who embark on the path of making fashion more sustainable, there is a spiritual element, a driving force that tells them this what they are doing is right, forcing acknowledgement from others who are still doing it wrong. The question must be asked by any participants in the creation of garments and accessories who encounter this movement: are you making something that will do more harm than good out in the world?

References:

• Project Runway: Fashion Startup
• Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator

In the studio, Simon Collins, former Dean of Fashion at Parson’s: The New School of Design, founder of Fashion Culture Design: The Unconference, and a globally recognized speaker and slogan master on the subject of good design.

Simon talks about retail fatigue, see now buy now, the changing nature of Fashion Weeks, diversity, American politics, and a whole world of other ideas in this whirlwind episode.

“It’s like sustainability– Whose fault is it? It’s our fault! It’s everyone’s fault.” – Simon Collins

References:

• Haka (dance)
• Madison Maxey
• Amanda Parkes
• Dashing Tweeds

Purposeful Decisions

Already a star of the sustainable fashion world, Tabii Just designer Tabitha St. Bernard has decided she wants her company to be about more than just selling clothes. This episode explores her pivot away from wholesale accounts to being a lifestyle brand expressed though more direct customer relationships in e-commerce, trunk shows, and popups. Tabitha’s business advisor in this transition is Tessa Maffucci, who also joins us in the studio.

At the core of the need that prompted this change is the inherent lack of information about what end consumers really want and need in the tradition wholesale relationship. To change the dynamic, Tabitha has assembled an interesting customer information resource, in the form of a collective of women with different backgrounds and body types who give her regular feedback about the brand and her new product ideas. They are also contributing blog content to her website, forming an online community centered around the brand.

Charles talks about how to approach advertising your e-commerce site online.

Raphael Lombardo, Leather Man

photos by Charles Beckwith

In fashion, accessories now rival or even outshine the garment business. In the past, American Fashion Podcast producer Charles Beckwith has avoided having many accessories designers on the show because he felt he lacked the vocabulary to host a good discussion about them. So, recently he enrolled in T-Project Showroom’s Leather Handbags Design course, a one-week intensive on materials, design, pattern making, hardware, mass production, and the market for leather handbags.

This episode is a conversation with the course instructor, master handbag pattern maker Raphael Lombardo, who is the mind behind developing product designs for some of the most successful leather accessories of the last several decades for the world’s most iconic brands.

Also in the studio, one of the managers of the T-Project Showroom in New York who coordinates the education program, Giovanni Stasi.

A question for our audience:

Is there a sustainable thread that could be used in leather production as an alternative to polyester and nylon thread? Linen thread jams the machines and cotton thread is too weak. Is there a new material that could be used?

References:

• Simac Leather Technology Fair
• Lineapelle Leather Materials Fair 
• Horween Tannery In Chicago 

Reshoring, an awkward word for an essential concept: bringing manufacturing back from overseas. Instrumental in this process are new agile factories, able to produce at low cost in smaller quantities. One company creating such factories, and making a major difference for a lot of emerging desingers and even established brands adapting to new market conditions, is Kathryn Hilderbrand’s Good Clothng Company, on Cape Cod and in Fall River, Massachusetts.

In the studio for this episode are Kathryn Hilderbrand and two of her advisers: a public policy expert who served in the Obama Administration, Mark Linton, and fashion industry veteran and Project Runway superstar, Tim Gunn.

“Well, I think Kathryn is beautifully addressing our biggest challenge, which is to re-shore.” – Tim Gunn

What is different about these new more agile factories? What can a home sewer learn in 12 weeks that makes them ready to sew in a factory? Is the capacity for re-shoring to the United State ready, or will it be ready?

Denovation – abandoning an idea or technology, which had formerly, perhaps wrongly, been seen as progressive.

Will Welch

GQ Style‘s Editor-In-Chief, Will Welch, is the man at the helm of a brand new approach to a broad appeal fashion magazine for men, investing in multi-platform content with attention rivaling the printed pages. Seth Friedermann calls in from the far reaches of Eastern Pennsylvania to talk mens style, mens fashion business, and music culture.

This episode is about… How do magazines work now? How should designers think about advertising? How do men shop? What defines the current moment of menswear? Who should you listen to about what matters in the industry and trend tracking? Yes, that last one was a trick question.

References:

• Male Fashion Advice section on Reddit

Save The Garment Center

We’ve been hearing about Save The Garment Center for years, but it’s a bit difficult to gauge the organization’s progress as we see more hotels and condos replacing manufacturing and showroom buildings across the protected zone in midtown Manhattan.

“Save the Garment Center was started in 2007 as a grassroots campaign by factory owners Samanta Cortes, Anthony Lilore, Paul Cavazza and Larry Geffner. This campaign was in response to City Hall’s plans to lift the 1987 zoning laws that had protected the leases of the Garment Center fashion tenants for the past 23 years. Save the Garment Center’s initial goal was to keep the manufacturers and suppliers in New York’s Garment Center from being pushed out of the district, or having to shut down all together.” – savethegarmentcenter.org

In this episode, Anthony Lilore, Samanta Cortes, Caroda Inc. garment factory owner Ida Leigh M. Law, and Create-a-Marker Inc. owner Paul Cavazza provide an update on the organization’s progress.

Also in the studio, Flying Solo Collective founder Elizabeth Solomeina, and Artbag owner Chris Moore, whose business not only manufactures high end leather accessories for his 1130 Madison Avenue store, they also recondition and restore vintage bags and other accessories.

References:

• CFDA Fashion Manufacturing Initiative (list of factories)
• Maker’s Row
• The Garment District NYC Fashion Directory
• DG Expo
• Park Avenue International
• Village Tannery

Clothed In Cool

Charles Beckwith and Seth Friedermann chat over Skype about…

• How important is content creation in selling fashion?
• How to think about building an e-commerce website in a more holistic sense?
• Charles tries out “mass customization” and hits a wall.
• How do you know that the ad agency isn’t just telling you what you want to hear?
• Does trying to “stay relevant” keep you from being clothed in cool?
• Who are the trendsetters today? Are they really just the same people they were yesterday?
• How insane is aspiration luxury as a strategy for new and small brands?
• Marketing vs. Branding… and yes, it’s important.

References:

• King Content: Monster or Hero? (BoF / GQ Style)

Patricia Mears is the Deputy Director of The Museum at FIT, and author of numerous Fashion Studies books.

Fashion historian Patricia Mears is in the studio with us this week, talking about The Museum at FIT, and her historical perspective on the fashion business now vs. decades past.

Topics:

Who collects clothing and other bits of fashion and preserves it in private fashion history collections or donates it to museums? What is the dollar value of rarer pieces, and has that changed in the last couple years? What is the most active hot spot for original global street style? Is there a need for multiple smart curatorial voices in fashion studies? How is fashion being absorbed by consumers and the culture today? How do we identify names of fashion design and construction geniuses whose work has now been more or less forgotten? How does Patricia Mears, fashion historian, define the characteristics of the overall collection held by the Museum at FIT?

Now vs. Then:

“I think it’s going to continue to be tough. If you read some of the quotes and interviews from designers from the 20s and 30s, you’d think they were talking about today. ‘There are too many people,’ ‘there is not enough demand,’ ‘I’m trying to market my goods,’ ‘I can’t get the money from wholesalers for fabric,’ and ‘the department stores are giving me a hard time.’ I think the thing that has changed so much is access to The Internet, and that kind of aspect of social media, having a much larger voice.”

Now vs. Tomorrow

“One of the things economists are saying about manufacturing around the world is that we’re going to see a real drop in jobs. And while this election cycle is motivated by that in part here in the United States, one of the main reasons for that is automation, and that’s going to be moving ever-forward.  I also think that we have to rethink how we train people coming up.”

References:

• Fendi makes fashion history at the Trevi Fountain – video – (CNN)

Flying Solo is a new fashion store in the popular Soho designer shopping area of Manhattan, where there are many, but it is also a different store in the retail landscape. The clerks working the store in shifts are not hourly wage slaves, but the designers of the clothing on the racks and the accessories on the shelves. For someone with a large brand this would be impractical, but for an emerging designer it seems to fit like a glove.

Designers Elizabeth Solomeina and Katie Lares stayed late in the store for this brief introduction to the store and “the movement,” as they call it.

Now open at 224 Mulberry Street in Soho, the Flying Solo retail concept brings designers closer to customers, and customers closer to satisfaction.

Ecocult founder Alden Wicker moderates a panel of fashion sustainability leaders, featuring jewelry designer Melissa Joy Manning, Zady.com founder Maxine Bedat, Maiyet co-founder Kristy Caylor, and womenswear designer Mara Hoffman.

The panel covered a wide range of issues facing designers who are trying to manufacture using the most sustainable methods possible.

More photos and a deeper outline of the discussion will be available on the Ecocult website.

photos by Rachael Elana Photography

The story of a swimwear designer who came the long way round. “When she was 16, Tala Raassi went to a party. She talked to boys, and wore a mini-skirt. She was punished with 40 lashes and five days in jail.” That is the beginning of her story, but what happened in the following years is a story far more familiar to our audience, that of a designer trying to figure out how to get into and stay in the business of fashion.

Fashion Is Freedom Author Tala Raassi

The book, Fashion Is Freedom: How a Girl from Tehran Broke the Rules to Change Her World, outlines some of the most common problems young designers face, from working with the wrong partners, to support behind aspirations to be an artist from one parent and not the other, to starting with a t-shirt line, to getting tied up with the lower tier entertainment industry bottom feeders who promise the world and deliver less than advertised (including a certain nightclub-dwelling New York con artist currently running for President of The United States), to hitting the infamous low minimums wall, to crazy international travels with strange people and that universal human connection that transcends spoken language. Directed at women, and especially young girls, the book shows a way through dark and difficult chapters, though an interesting story for just about anyone. It is a cautionary but inspiring tale, well worth the read.

In The Studio

In the studio with American Fashion, Tala goes into more detail about how she solved certain problems, how she started writing opinion pieces about fashion clashes between the Western and Muslim world, and how she finally turned a string of bad luck into dozens of wholesale accounts around the world.

AFP Gets A New Website

This is the first episode of American Fashion Podcast published on our new revamped website on our new domain name, americanfashionpodcast.com. Our new email address is now info@americanfashionpodcast.com.

The preeminent American designer’s designer, Ralph Rucci, is back with us (swing back to episode #50 to listen to the previous recording). In this episode, Mr. Rucci updates us on his RR331 venture, the couture work he has been doing for private clients, and his plans to return to show during Paris Haute Couture.

There is also discussion of his take on the current retail environment, opinion on the exposure level of the Michael Kors brand, pre-show jitters, and Rucci’s interest in working with classic American brands like Levis and Hanes on updating staple garments. The conversation turns to his thoughts on fast fashion, making high fashion accessible, the changing seasons and schedule changes for Fashion Week, and the shift he sees coming away from darkness and toward leadership in the industry again by “kind people.”

References

• Ralph Rucci Teams Up With Moda Operandi for Made-to-order Initiative (WWD)

Attorney Lois F. Herzeca is the author of the preeminent fashion law survival guide, Fashion Law and Business: Brands and Retailers. In this episode she talks about how fashion brands get funded and gives tips and tricks for how to make that process run smoothly, both for investors and designers.

References:

• Nineteenth Amendment
• Betabrand
• Golden Seeds
• Lawrence Lenihan on Fashion Is Your Business episode #115
• Resonance

Lion’esque Group founder Melissa Gonzalez helps brands set up camp to sell and be known. The company provides fashion pop-up store strategy, deployment, and management for a wide range of clients both inside and outside the fashion sphere.

The temporary pop-up shop trend seems to have been catching on as steadily as the decline of traditional brick and mortar retail establishment, and can be a smart response to a number of different needs, from simple brand awareness building to flash sales that clear out merchandise.

How do you gauge the value of working with specific influencers, when most are not at all proven to drive conversions? How do you run analytics on a pop-up store? How do you do a pop-up in another city? How do you make informed decisions while running a pop-up store, rather than one-off conclusions? Is running a pop-up store a good way to prepare for opening a traditional brick and mortar store? What’s the difference between a pop-up and a trunk show? Is this a good strategy for small brands?

References:

• author Paco Underhill’s books on buying behavior (Amazon)
• The Pop-Up Paradigm (Amazon)

Charles Beckwith an Richard Spiegel (The Fashion Tribune) are ranting about fashion week (damn the fashion week, full speed ahead). We sat down at the end of New York Fashion Week to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is rather raw and almost a behind the scenes conversation, of the kind that promoted the creation of this series.

Also in this episode is a backstage interview with designer Tadashi Shoji at his Spring 2017 collection show (at the 20:50 mark), and a chat with designer Austin Scarlet about his new experiment with non-bridal ready to wear (at the 23:15 mark).

Should emerging designers be doing fashion shows? Should Fashion Week even exist anymore? Where else should fashion shows be happening that they are not now going on? What happened to the party and the love and the spirit of fashion week? Is there a simple way to get it back? What would happen if fast fashion ceased to exist tomorrow? Why does the US Government tolerate cheap imports and trade deals that flood our market with fast fashion?

References:

• Monse
• Tadashi Shoji
• Reem Acra
• threeASFOUR
• Made Fashion Week
• Kate Miles
• Wanabees Have Ruined Fashion Week (NY Post)
• Esteban Cortazar
• Mathieu Mirano

Yeohlee Teng Interview

Yeohlee Teng (bio) has been a fixture of the New York City fashion design, culture, and industry for decades. Her store at 12 West 29th Street is a destination for women seeking clothing of a rare quality, the product of an intelligence and thoughtfulness that is both the mark and mind of its creator.

AFP hosts Charles, Seth, and Lisa attempt to interview Yeohlee about fashion then and now, disposable culture, her approach to design and technique, and a range of other topics, but she interviews them back, in this fascinating exchange about what is important in fashion and the life of highly conscious creative people.

Highlights:

You have to be careful who is telling you what the definitions are in this industry, because there’s this [message], “well, this is what the consumer wants, and so we’re just giving them what they want,” without acknowledging that the consumer has been trained to want that. And therefore, they can probably be untrained. – Seth Friedermann (15:22)

You would be surprised at how smart the women are who come into my store. I don’t have to tell them anything, they know. They know what looks good on them. They know the value of what they’re buying. They know how long it will last. They know how many places they can wear them to. They knwo it travels well. They know they can hand wash it. There are people that I could inform, but there are a lot more that could inform me. – Yeohlee Teng (25:04)

I think compassion plays a role. A lot of women are forgotten in the fashion world. I dress everybody. I have no prejudice. – Yeohlee Teng (31:36)

References:

• Humans Who Design
• Madeleine Vionnet
• Claire McCardell
• American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion
• Richard Martin
• Made In Midtown

Fashion Week Pre-Game Show

New York Fashion Week is next week, so we’ve gathered some great minds to help you get your head in the game. It’s the New York Fashion Week Pre-Game Extravaganza!

Guests in this episode include Fashion Unfiltered founder and editor Katharine Zarrella, Decoded Fashion founder Liz Bacelar, ace runway photographer Udor (Instagram), and guest host Cathy Schepis.

Fashion Week show formats continue to evolve. A few seasons ago, many in the industry were shocked at the introduction of so many presentations replacing runway shows, and there have been experiments with social media-based shows, 3D effects, and fashion films. What’s now, and what is next?

Have bloggers disappeared from the front row? What is the role of individual social media influencers now? Where are we with See Now Buy Now? Is it getting big, or just buzz? Why aren’t there more top customers at the shows?

All this and more, in our New York Fashion Week Pre-Game Extravaganza!

references:

• With New Iconography at Play, Gucci is Banking on Legal Protection
• NYC Casting Calls Facebook Group

Mass customization has been a big buzz term in the fashiontech sphere for a couple of years, and a company spearheading the implementation of the idea is Bow and Drape. Aubrie Pagano (bio) founded the company in 2012 and has been making pathfinder decisions in the fashion future space ever since. Granted, it’s a lot of kitsch, like sweatshirts bearing slogans such as “Namaste In Bed” and “Humble Like Kanye,” but the course toward customers being able to make requests for changes to garments when shopping online is unmistakably part of fashion’s new frontier.

Guest host, photographer Stephen Eastwood

references:

• AFP Episode #79. with Cindy Gallop and Frank Spadafora

Albertus Swanepoel

Albertus Swanepoel is a hat designer from South Africa who has been working in New York for several years, and has collaborated with some of the biggest designers in the world on many of the most memorable runway shows.

Questions raised: Why don’t more people wear hats, and is it a growing or a shrinking business? Does e-commerce work for hats? What is the state of fashion in South Africa right now? What does traveling do for the perspective of a fashion designer? Do accessories designers fit well into the CFDA’s matrix of members? Is it possible for the CFDA to help or even understand brands that are worth less than a million dollars? Why is there a warthog on Albertus’ website?

references:

• Marianne Fassler
• Clive Rundle
• Black Coffee
• Reem Acra
• What Happened at Oscar de la Renta? (NY Times)

“Having engagements be the end goal of a social media strategy is like having looking be the end goal of cooking. The goal of social media strategy is to drive sales.” – Seth Friedermann

In Pursuit of Luxury

Behind the scenes with the panelists and organizers as LIM College hosts a conference on luxury in partnership with Brooklyn College and The University of Hertfordshire. In Pursuit of Luxury is an academic and industry crossover conference, focused on the luxury products market.

Part One includes Christopher Ferree, the Lanvin brand manager at Bergdorf Goodman; Veronica Manlow of Brooklyn College; and Travis Haglin, former Ralph Lauren executive and General Manager for Burberry.

Part Two includes Shaun Borstrock, Associate Dean of The School of Creative Arts at The University of Hertfordshire in England; Veronica Manlow of Brooklyn College; and Jacqui Jenkins, Dean of Graduate Studies at LIM College.

Highlights:

• “From a market standpoint, we’re going to shift to the brick and mortar being where the entertainment happens, where the emotion and excitement can continue to happen. E-commerce will be able to be kind of for that utility, that quick easy pickup. Something that, ‘I know I want this, but I’ve experienced it in the store. I’m going to make my purchase now.’ It’s allowing for that ability for an aspirational person to go in, have fun, connect with the brand. They might not be ready to purchase then, but they’ll go, whatever time they need to save up for that item, and then they’ll order online because it’s convenient. And then they’ll go back.” – Travis Haglin (7:42)
• “They actually want, whether it’s a young latin guy, young black guy, young Asian kid who’s studying in the States, he wants to come to the store. He looks online. He shops online. They’ve told me that they want to come into the store. They want to buy it in the store. Buying into that dream, buying into that idea of ‘I can go to the boutique, and find it, and have that experience.’ Rather than just the transaction of being online.” -Christopher Ferree (9:13)
• “What I’m hearing is the commodification of luxury has happened, and we’re starting to see the rejection of that in going back to the individual, almost a bespoke process, speaking to the artisanal, the craftsman who put the essence into what made luxury really what it was. Due to our business demands, we’ve, in essence, commodified it.” Travis Haglin (22:15)
• “LIM will be launching a luxury program next year, and for us this was an opportunity to develop really the conversation: luxury from an academic and industry perspective. But more importantly, to identify partners to work with as we go forward in building out our program.” – Jacqui Jenkins (37:16)

References:

• Goods of Conscience
• John Elliott

Author Michael Gross

Michael Gross (website) is the author of a number of books on the subject of elitist worlds, from billionaire condo buildings to model management. His new book is  Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers, and he is in the studio with American Fashion Podcast to talk about it.

Also in the studio, a guest host: fashion and beauty photographer Stephen Eastwood.

A Great Conversation

Discussion begins with Mr. Gorss expanding on how he came to write this book in the beginning, then turns to Mr. Eastwood’s comments on the transition from film to digital for fashion photography and into the social media space, which is where the book ends. An interesting conversation comes up about whether the golden age of fashion magazines will come back, with Gross and Eastwood on opposite sides of the argument. Are there any magazines that stand as an oasis in the corporate brand management approach to editing fashion? Where is the line between editorial and advertorial? Has it moved?

Gross talks about some of his favorite stories from the book, particularly regarding Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Alexy Brodovitch, and more. He also talks more about the AIDS crisis and the absolute darkness it brought down on the fashion industry’s leading creatives, when “every week there was a funeral.”

The recording includes some commentary on the passing of Bill Cunningham, who is not featured in the book.

Fashion Photography Tips

Stephen Eastwood give some advice on taking photos yourself, for designers who can’t afford a professional photographer yet. The group talks about interference from clients and editors on set, and the difference between people who get in the way with ignorant micromanagement and the people who come in with ideas. Michael Gross talks about his experience watching a massive advertising campaign being executed by a team of 30 technicians.

References

• Public Speaking (film)

Designer Domenico Vacca welcomes guests from the Open Source Fashion and Fashion Media Center communities at his private DV Club above the new Domenico Vacca flagship store on 55th Street in Manhattan, celebrating 100 episodes of both American Fashion Podcast and Fashion Is Your Business.

As part of the party, Charles Beckwith interviews Mr. Vacca about his new flagship store, which has been designed as a brand experience space. This is not a new concept, but one that is growing in popularity. As e-commerce becomes more prevalent, selling products in a brick and mortar retail store becomes less important than conveying brand identity, so special brands need special spaces and special experiences.

The suitmaker talks about sticking to Italian cuts for his menswear in the US market, and how and why he resisted wholesale pressures to change his approach, holding on to fine stitching and high grade materials. He embraced consumer education instead of bowing to US domestic market pressures.

Milestones

This 100 episodes celebration comes just days after we reached the milestone of 9 terabytes of audio files delivered to our audiences, which would translate to about 670 weeks of continuous listening if someone cared to listen to all the .mp3 files we have served. To date, episodes of our shows have been downloaded nearly 900,000 times.

Both the American Fashion Podcast and Fashion Is Your Business teams want to thank everyone who has spent either one hour or two hundred hours listening to the shows over the last two years, and all of the wonderful guests who have given their time and energy to telling great stories as part of our programs. We keep talking because you keep listening.

Fashion Ignores So Many Womem

Our interview with Cindy Weber-Cleary, the former fashion editor of InStyle Magazine and now co-founder of the shopping site Apprécier, which serves the vast number of women over 45 years of age who seem to be widely ignored as customers by the fashion industry.

Has online shopping changed how women over 45 dress themselves? Do affluent women seek bargains? What has happened to brand loyalty? Why are so many magazines still failing?

references:

• Suite 1521
• Shoppable
• Gary Graham
• People Style, Fashion e-Comm Site Busted for “Confusing” Native Ads (The Fashion Law)

This is part two of the live audience recording with Rebecca and Uri Minkoff.

In front of a live audience, sibling designers Rebecca and Uri Minkoff talk about building a thriving brand in the midst of a chaotic industry with failing systems. Guest host Rob Sanchez from the Fashion Is Your Business Podcast. This is Part One of Two, with the second portion of the interview being on the Fashion Is Your Business podcast.

Ethical Writers Coalition members Kasi Martin (The Peahen) and Alden Wicker (Ecocult) talk about living a sustainable stylish life.

Sustainable Living References:

• Helpsy
• Trash Is For Tossers
• Thrive (book)
• Eco Intelligent Polyester (for furnishings)
• Slack
• Reddit
• Ecouterre
• How To Pitch A Conscious Blogger
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (book)
• Suzanne Rae
• Titania Inglis
• Reformation
• The-Acey
• Kitty Ferreira
• Everlane
• Ecocult Shopping Guide
• The Peahen Shopping Guide

To find more episodes of the series or search for a specific guest, refer to our Episode List page. If you would like to be a guest on the show, there is a Be A Guest page. You can find press coverage of the show on our Press page. There is also a Media Kit if you’re interested in partnering with us or sponsoring the series. Our email address is info@americanfashionpodcast.com and our voicemail line is 646-979-8709. You can find American Fashion Podcast on Facebook, on Instagram @americanfashionshow and on Twitter @afpod. To sign up to attend our live shows, visit the Live Shows page. Thanks for listening!