At the crux of the fashion industry is the designer.  And on Friday at FIT, Afingo.com gathered a group of top designers (and a Market Director), each with a different tactic of how to launch their line as high as possible. Fern Mallis, the influential creator of NY Fashion Week as we know it, was the moderator of this panel. Having played a major role in the launch of so many flourishing careers, she asked all the right questions to pull out their start-up success stories.  

PANELISTS:

Steven Cox & Daniel Silver: Duckie Brown

Adam Lippes: ADAM

Miguelina Gambaccini: Miguelina

Bibhu Mohapatra: Bibhu Mohapatra

Randi Packard: Fashion Market Director of Real Simple

When did you first know you wanted to be a designer?

DUCKIE BROWN: Steven Cox's fashion love initially erupted with the Duran Duran music video for "Rio". He worked 34 years in the industry, becoming the “belt-as-tie Ralph Lauren” and the “all-black aggressive ponytailed Calvin Klein” among many other transformations as he jumped from job to job, always wanting to launch his own line.

ADAM LIPPES: Instead of becoming a doctor or lawyer like he was supposed to, Adam Lippes followed his boss at the Polo Ralph Lauren store to “Oscar de la Renta University” where he learned everything about the fashion industry – from patternmaking to store opening - from one of the very greatest in the business.

MIGUELINA: She was also supposedly destined to be a doctor, but altered her path when she started turning cheesecloth into hand dyed dresses that her friends loved. When the orders started pouring in, she called Johnson & Johnson to order more cheesecloth and made the dresses herself. Only, the problem was they started ripping! She had to recall her first garments, but has gotten her textile glitch worked out since then. Test your garments first. Lesson learned.

BIBHU MOHAPATRA: He began making dresses for his sisters out of curtains and his mother’s saris in his little village in India. Though he studied economics; that was his ticket to the States where he earned his masters in the subject. His passion to “make shapes out of something flat” powered through.

Money. How did you get it?

DUCKIE BROWN: The ability to get Duckie Brown off the ground sparked with Cox’s life and business partner, former TV exec, Daniel Silver. Funded by their own savings, they lived and breathed Duckie Brown for the eight years they resided at the studio in which they created their unique high-end men’s fashion line. They made their first collection of 17 pieces on $10,000. They don’t take a salary, they cycle their money round and round into the business.

ADAM: While he started with money from family and friends, he was soon majorly invested in by the Richemont Group, the same company that owns Chloé, Vince and many great others.

BIBHU MOHAPATRA was funded through investments from his family and friends in India, and he created his first collection from his studio on the Upper West Side. Ah, how much did he have to start with, Fern asks? $200,000. But he somehow managed to dwindle his way down to $30,000 in 3 months.

MIGUELINA got funding from her family and went for it.

What was your “big break”?

ADAM got a call from Oprah Winfrey herself telling him how much she loves his t-shirts and she would like this many and here was her Amex number and if he charged less than retail she’d return them. Soon after, she invited him on her show, and sooner after that he sold hundreds of thousands of t-shirts. He got so many orders that he simply had to throw some away.

MIGUELINA’s moment came when when Jennifer Lopez wore her dress the day she broke up with Ben Affleck. That picture took to the world like wildfire. That was the first time in six years her business became profitable.

BIBHU MOHAPATRA:“There’s never the right time, just the right time for you,”

DUCKIE BROWN:“You just got to jump off the cliff.”

What’s the one thing it takes to make it?

Desire - Daniel Silver, DB

Money - Steven Cox, DB

Talent. - Adam Lippes

Passion - Miguelina Gambaccini

Balance of beauty and commerce - Bibhu Mohapatra

Be nice. - Fern Mallis

All: Be confident. Believe in yourself. Edit. Start focused.

When the collection is ready, who sees it first?

Bibhu Mohapatra and Adam Lippes simultaneously say “Stylist.”

Questions from the audience:

How do you get your collection into stores and press?

ADAM: Keep the email short. Who are you? Who is your customer? What’s the price point?

FERN MALLIS: Send a look book with page numbers and contact info on each page – make it easy for industry people to contact you. Include a line sheet. Clearly label everything.

Is it better to have your clothes in a showroom?

RANDI PACKARD looks at designers through all different mediums, so it’s up to the designers which way their clothing will be presented best.

DUCKIE BROWN has shows their main collection out of their own studio, mostly because there aren’t many other menswear collections like theirs and they would get lost in a lot of denim. It’s also a money issue – they have their Florsheim by Duckie Brown shoe collection in the Maguire Steele showroom because they have more funding money behind it.

MIGUELINA: Best advice she ever got from a PR company was to “Sprinkle moon dust over your collection”.  

Launching later this month, Afingo.com is a self-proclaimed “match.com” for designers and factories. Their goal is to provide real world knowledge and connections to fashion professionals and newbies alike to enable sustainable production and the ability to Get It Made.