fashion
break it down: hussein chalayan
Still think you can’t honour your creative vision and find success? Clearly you haven’t met fashion designer Hussein Chalayan (well, neither have I, but that won’t stop us from analyzing his playbook).
Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 1970, Chalayan moved with his family to England in 1978 and studied design at London’s famed Central Saint Martins. He immediately raised eyebrows with his 1993 graduate collection, called “The Tangent Flows,” which included clothes that he buried in his backyard and later dug up to exhibit. Struck by the strange beauty of his vision, luxury London retailer Browns snapped up the whole collection and displayed it in-house.
The publicity spree continued when Chalayan won a fashion competition sponsored by design-forward liquor brand Absolut. The win meant that at age 25, Chalayan was given approximately £28,000 in financial backing to develop a collection for the 1995 London Fashion Week.
spring 2009 ready-to-wear
His reputation for avant-garde, intellectual, rigorous designs grew and Chalayn soon connected with the famously eclectic Icelandic singer Björk, who wore a Chalayan jacket on the cover of her 1995 album, Post, and donned several of his pieces throughout her Post tour.
For the next three years, Chalayan was a design consultant for New York knitwear label TSE. He also designed for Marks and Spencer, worked with Italian clothing manufacturer Gibo, and served as fashion director for Asprey, the British jewellery and luxury goods company, all while designing and showing his own label. He was also named British Designer of the Year for 1999 and 2000, and in 2006, Chalayan was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
fall 2008 ready-to-wear
What’s most impressive is that Chalayan has had serious low points to match all those career highlights. When TSE terminated his contract in 2001, it forced Chalayan into voluntary financial liquidation. He refused to go down without a fight, however, and restructured his company to design a comeback collection later that year. In the following seasons, Chalayan had to move his studio three times and at one point, he worked from home with his entire team before relocating to Paris.
Collaboration has always been a key part of Chalayan’s creative ethos. He’s designed laser LED dresses with Swarovski and in 2008, he was named the creative director for sports lifestyle brand Puma — just to name a few of his more famous match-ups. He’s now partnering with Susie Crippen of J Brand Jeans. And if you’re after more highbrow credentials, Chalayan’s work has been exhibited at London’s Design Museum, The Tate Modern, The Contemporary Art Museum in Tokyo, the Musée de la Mode in Paris, New York’s F.I.T., and at the 51st International Venice Biennale, among others.
spring 2007 ready-to-wear
The position
Chalayan’s name is synonomous with experimentation. He’s the futuristic designer who has sent models down the runway in self-undressing clothes and repeatedly pulls from world politics, science, culture and technology to produce creations that blur the lines between art, fashion, performance and culture.
The math
Talent and audacity
After spreading himself — and his finances — too thin in the early 2000s, Chalayan stripped his business (if not his designs) back to basics and refocused his brand. He continues to produce collections that challenge and inspire. You never know what to expect from Chalayn, and everyone from well-heeled fashion houses to sneaker companies are eager to leverage his modern, in-your-face creative attitude and technical skill to boost their own cool quotient.
Will he go too far with the commercial collaborations? That’s a matter of time and opinion. For now, Chalayn provides a terrific model of how to stick to your creative guns and still build a career that works. And if you fall down, return to your original vision and think hard about what really matters. Then get right back up again.
spring 2007 ready-to-wear
everyday inspiration
Victoria, the prolific and design-savvy blogger behind sfgirlbybay, just did a lovely post on inspiration boards. Peeking at other people’s creative mishmash of photos, clippings, mementos and objects is like reading their diaries. I’ve got one hanging beside my desk, and Victoria’s post is a reminder to keep it fresh. Here are some great images from the inspiration board 2010 Flickr photo pool. Click on each photo to see the original upload. Enjoy!
from Aunty Cookie
from beatriz macias
from chelliswilson
from afewthingsfrommylife
from coco+kelley
from Lari Washburn
from museumpiece
meet jason matlo
photos courtesy Jason Matlo
Jason Matlo makes clothes that make women look good – and not just in a day-at-the-office kind of way (unless you work for a certain Condé Nast publication, perhaps). We’re talking slinky, shiny, drapey dresses, sleek cigarette pants and sharp jackets. The Vancouver-based fashion designer sells his creations in select locations from Edmonton to Boston to San Juan, but everything is designed and manufactured in Canada.
Born in Calgary, the 39-year-old, self-described “blackaholic” usually wears darker tones than the women he dresses – witness his Jet Set Barbie resort collection for spring / summer 2009 – but he’s got a famously sparkly personality and a dead-serious work ethic.
Jason made his first splash in the fashion industry when, fresh out of school, he won the 1998 Smirnoff Designer of the Year Award. Since then, high-powered clients have worn his dresses on red carpets at the Academy Awards, Gemini Awards, JUNO Awards and Leo Awards. He also appeared in an episode of the Life Network / Oxygen reality TV series, Making it Big, winning the opportunity to display his designs in the chic windows of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The Jason Matlo brand currently includes his main ready-to-wear collection, a bridal collection and a new line, Babe, which retails at about half the price of his ready-to-wear pieces. His style is a mash-up of cultural, aesthetic and historical influences, with a special eye on the modern femininity of the 1930s. But the women who wear Jason’s clothes are not exactly fanning themselves in the back garden. These are bold, confident creatures who are writing their own rules – much like the designer himself.
1. What fuels your work?
There are so many variables and components that fuel my creative process. I think the process seems insane to people who look into my world, but there is an order and structure to the chaotic madness.
First, there are timelines and deadlines. It is not easy to be creative on a deadline, but I am energized and fuelled by deadlines and a fashion market with a voracious appetite. I’m very inspired by the women I dress: my private clients who are very strong, successful, confident women; my mother, who has always had an amazing sense of style; Edie Bouvier Beale and the Grey Gardens documentary.
LADY GAGA!
I’m a bit of a cultural voyeur. My eye is fed by movies, architecture, books, magazines, drag queens, senior citizens, Starbucks and my friends. It is all a massive tapestry of eclectic inspiration that somehow results in a collection each season.
2. How do you organize the less creative parts of your business so you still have time, energy and focus to practice your craft?
Running a successful fashion design house today — and I qualify that statement with “today,” because the industry has changed so much over the last decade — can be illustrated as follows: 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration. There is very little creativity about what I do, so I have to be really creative to do it. I’m required to create a constant balance between fashion ideas that make a cohesive collection that also flatter the body with razor sharp price points. Creating a collection with design and commercial value is the Golden Ticket! To answer the question on time and energy to focus on my craft; between midnight and dawn, the eleventh hour, time is my most precious resource. I’m always in a race against time!
3. Is there another creative pro whose business model you admire? Why?
This is such a cliché but here we go: Madonna.
I don’t think the majority of people would see Madonna as a creative pro or a business model. I DO! I so admire her drive, tenacity, bold naked ambition, and unrelenting determination. I believe she is a business person who knew where she wanted to go. She is a visionary.
She is a master of disguises, the media, and promotion. She has created a product that is important and contemporary over a 30-year time span and until recently, was totally relevant and modern. She is a cultural zeitgeist.
4. How many revenue streams do you have in your business?
I’m streaming. I have as many ways to make money as there are days in the week. Ready to Wear collection, Babe diffusion and Bridal are all streams coming from the same body of water, and there are also my private couture clients. I’m not afraid to work hard, so I’ve always been able to earn money.
5. What is your bread-and-butter income source?
Private couture clients. I have a group of fashionable ladies in Vancouver that have supported my work even before I received any critical acclaim. They are true devotees of fashion. They have never faltered in their loyalty to me. They still support me, even now that the clothes are available in stores. I love them!
6. Do you have a passive income stream?
NO! Everything I do involves a lot of hard work!
7. What tools or money-making opportunities & ideas do you think most artists don’t fully exploit?
Frankly there are not enough tools or funding available for creative people in Canada. I’ve looked, I assure you. There is so little support for the arts in Canada, with exception of Montreal, which very much supports the arts. It is actually disgraceful how the arts and creative people are under-funded by our government in this country. It is why we lack the rich creative history of other countries. If you want to do anything creative in Canada, good luck to you!
8. What has brought the most opportunities and attention to your work?
This is a hard thing for me to pinpoint. I think I’ve always operated from a critical mass perspective. So my process has always been more revolutionary than evolutionary. By this I mean I would accept several opportunities at the same time. So when you introduce many variables at the same time, it’s hard to track which one or ones are the crucial components. The reality TV show [Making it Big] was probably a big help, or was it the Academy Awards gown? Who could speculate? Maybe it was a combination of it all. Getting attention seems to be the only thing that has not been hard work.
9. What is the best investment you’ve made in your career? What has been the biggest waste of time and / or money?
The best investment that I have ever made in my career was in building my team. I have a group of people who work with me and are the backbone of what I do. I have invested in them, trained them, and taught them tricks of the trade such as sewing, draping, pattern drafting, you name it. They have been loyal and have stood by me when times were tough and the money was lean. You cannot undervalue your support staff and you cannot be heard as a single voice!
I’ve been very good about time management and money. Time is money and I don’t like to waste either!
10. Where do you stand on the “selling out?” debate?
Sell Sell Sell!!!
Thanks, Jason!
stores that survive
photos by Deidre Schoo for the New York Times
In Wednesday’s New York Times, Cathy Horyn wrore a story called “Yes, We’re Open” about five new fashion retailers that are swimming upstream against the recession. It’s an appropriate topic after Black Friday in the U.S. and the newly-minted Cyber Monday, which offers online retailers the chance to cash in on the holiday binge.
It seems the bruised North American economy has created a predictable pattern where stores close or lay off workers and strip down their inventories. “But nothing quite conveys the confusion and sense of retail sclerosis as the high-end ladies boutique, lights on and empty, its owner selling the same six fabulous designers as everyone else, the same droopy China-made knit that shouldn’t cost $600 but somehow does, and not a chance, barely a glimmer of hope, that enough customers will care to buy something,” writes Horyn.
At the same time, lower rents and longer leases can also help newcomers to open the doors and turn their visions into reality. In New York and its burroughs, stores like Against Nature, JF & Son, Metal and Thread, Self Edge and Victor Osborne are attracting loyal new customers — often with a carefully curated mix of handcrafted, bespoke, vintage and forward-thinking items. It’s small-scale shopping without escalators or loyalty cards.
Certainly that’s nothing new, and the shift toward actually meeting the man or woman who stitches up your skirt has been gaining momentum for at least half a decade. But it’s still encouraging to read these retail profiles. According to Horyn, “beyond favorable rents, beyond an interest in traditional things, the new stores say a lot about the fashion world. That there is a disconnect between the customer and the people making clothes. That men have replaced women as informed, upward-moving shoppers. That designers will have to take control of how their clothes are produced.”
Here in Vancouver, those words also ring true. Every day, I walk past a pair of gorgeous-but-empty boutiques that opened in the last calendar year. I’m waiting to see which one shuts down first — even though they’re a beautiful addition to the neighborhood. At the same time, some retailers struggle with crowd control on a busy Saturday afternoon. Stores like Gravity Pope and Plenty come to mind. They can’t keep people out if they try. So what’s the difference? In my opinion, the survivors have these attributes on their side:
scale — small is beautiful. We’re sick of big box, big budgets and overblown, anonymous corporate retailers. Stores like H&M and Topshop are still getting a pass on this rule, but even they’re capitalizing on collaborations with designers such as Sonia Rykiel, Comme des Garçons, Matthew Williamson and Viktor & Rolf.
relative value — buyers will shell out more cash for the cashmere scarf if it’s a lovingly hand-knit, one-of-a-kind piece of fashionable art. Then the extra cost makes sense.
service — the owner who remembers your size and calls when something perfect arrives? That’s always been good business, but somehow it feels more meaningful today. Connections matter. Supporting small business is a social and political statement.
craftsmanship — who isn’t sick of hems that wait for the most inconvenient possible moment to unravel? Well-made products make sense. We’re seeing a long-overdue return to repairing things that were made right in the first place, and spending money on something that won’t be tossed in a month.
meet teresa smed
If you’ve attended a fashion or handmade gift show in Vancouver, you always know when Teresa Smed is in the house. Women swarm her Dotted Loop booth five deep – making it nearly impossible to glimpse the deliciously tangled pieces she crafts from ribbons, charms, chains, pearls, feathers and found objects.
Fashion runs fast in Smed’s veins. As a student in Athens, Georgia, she developed a line of bags and clothing made from recycled vintage fabrics. She returned to the creative drawing board, however, after a house fire destroyed her collection and life as a single mom of two brought her back to Canada in 2003.
She took a jewellery class and quickly fell in love with the medium. On a road trip to Calgary, Smed stopped at an antique store that was shutting its doors. She glimpsed the shelves of glittering antique baubles and suddenly, Dotted Loop was born. “Instantly, my whole world came together,” says Smed. “I just knew that’s what I was meant to do. I bought the entire collection, came home and started taking it apart and making new stuff.”
That collection is long gone (save a few key pieces that adorn her home studio), and Smed has since burned through piles and piles of remixed and recycled treasures. Her work has been featured in Elle Canada, Fashion, Flare, the Georgia Straight, and sells at retail stores across Western Canada. Then there are those insatiably fashionable women (and men) who snap up her pieces at shows like Portobello West and One of a Kind. As Smed sums it up, “beauty does come from ashes and old can be made new again.”
1. What fuels your work?
Antique and vintage jewellery. It’s unbelievable how inspirational it is. I’m also totally inspired by rock and roll. I just designed an entire collection around Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced album and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I’m also really inspired by Gucci, Coco Chanel, and couture. Runway fashion is huge. I read Vogue religiously.
2. How do you organize the administrative parts of your business so you still have the time, energy and focus to practice your craft?
It’s really, really, really challenging. I spend so much time developing the business and building it and doing everything it takes. Little by little, I’m hiring people to help out, but I still do a lot of it myself. I have come to realize that I can’t make the same things more than once. Everything is one-of-a-kind, but the Glam Vintage Remix collection uses the same designs with different materials. So, outsourcing and having those re-created is a very good thing. It also helps me to stay focused on the more higher-end, wearable art pieces.
3. Is there an artist or creative pro whose business model you admire?
I pick and choose, and lots of different people definitely inspire me. I’ve worked closely with Wardell Professional Development and gotten tons of advice – things like putting systems in place and outsourcing where you need to do so, plus organizing a business in a way that’s sustainable.
I often think about the woman who created Robeez shoes, Sandra Wilson. She’s a mom and she grew her business, but not too quickly. I also talk to lots of local artisans and I like to take a lot of people’s opinions into consideration. To me, that’s how you learn. I never want to have the perspective that I’ve got it all figured out. I always want to learn more.
4. How many revenue streams do you have?
I sell wholesale to boutiques across Canada, I sell directly to consumers at markets and tradeshows, and I sell pieces directly from my website. I also donate to silent auctions and charities. Technically, I’m giving those pieces away, but I really feel it puts my name out there and brings in business.
I chose not to go on sites like Etsy. There’s some unique, amazing stuff, but there are also lots of people ripping each other off. I feel you can put yourself in a really vulnerable position, because there’s so much copycatting going on.
5. What is your bread-and-butter income source?
It’s split about 50 / 50 between wholesale and retail. I’m currently working to find ways to improve my online sales and I’m working with web developers to enhance search engine potential. That’s an area I’d like to maximize, but I need to get comfortable with updating the site all the time. It takes lots of work.
Press also brings a lot of traffic to my website. Whenever I’m featured in a magazine, my website sales usually spike for about two weeks.
6. Do you have a passive income stream?
The wholesale side requires a lot less time and energy. You do need to follow up, but you just fill the wholesale order, people re-order again in 2-3 months, then you package it up and send it out. It’s not the same as having to be physically present at the shows, having a killer booth and chatting with people for four days straight. It also leverages the power of outsourcing those repeated designs.
7. What tools, money-making opportunities and ideas do you think most artists don’t fully exploit?
I invest a lot of time and energy and resources into marketing, and I think it really pays off. It’s so important. I have a graphic designer who has worked for me from the beginning and I have a publicist who does quarterly press releases. I have a professional photographer doing the photo shoots. I really want that area to be polished. I’m all about bootstrapping and pulling together friends and family to make things happen, but when it comes to marketing, I firmly believe in spending the time, the energy and the money it takes to make it super polished and to communicate what you’re doing.
Also, I don’t consider myself on the playing field with all the local jewellery designers in Vancouver. I consider myself on the playing field with Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci. I want to be considered a high-end, fashion-forward jewllery designer. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think I’m Gucci – but I’m setting my goals and my bar at the highest possible level, not somewhere in the middle. I want to push myself to attain my goals.
8. What has brought the most opportunities and attention to your work?
Having a publicist. And nobody really cares who you are until you’ve been featured in a magazine. For example, with one magazine, I had to overnight product samples, pay huge FedEx fees and send jewellery on at least 15 separate occasions. It didn’t go to print 15 times, but on the 16th time it went to print and it changed the face of my whole business.
9. What has been the biggest waste of time and / or money?
There are many things that I have done that one might consider “mistakes,” but sometimes mistakes are the most valuable thing a person can do. The ability to learn from your mistakes makes them all worth the while.
10. Where do you stand on the “selling out?” debate? Do you believe it’s possible to sell out?
Good question. It is very possible to sell out. I almost think I am selling out by selling anything at all. However, I believe it is important to stay true to my values of honesty, growing organically, buying and producing locally, waste reduction, and prioritizing community and family sustainability. If I remain true to these fundamentals, then I won’t be selling out.
Thanks, Teresa!