American Fashion Podcast

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.