September 8, 2010
By ERIC WILSON
THEY are not exactly a New York Six. Fashion always loves a moment, and none has captivated the industry quite so thoroughly in recent times as the ever-booming population of impressive young designers who have staked their flags proudly in Manhattan. Not a decade ago, the captains of industry were asking themselves who could revive American fashion in the eyes of the world, since the big guns of New York had grown stale, retired or expired, and Paris reclaimed the mantle as the place to be. A Paris Six emerged, as Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for The New York Times, noted in 2005, citing a small group of designers who held the most profound influence over global fashion at the moment, comparable to the Antwerp Six of the early 1990s, or the Japanese designers who dominated Paris in the two decades prior.
What is most exciting about what is happening in fashion now, however, is that it is not just six names who are making waves in New York, but an entire generation of designers who have the potential to transform what we think of as American fashion. The majority of designers showing during New York Fashion Week, which begins today, started their labels within the last decade, chasing the dream of fashion in a city that has not always been so hospitable to talented designers. In fact, very few who started here since the 1980s managed to survive.
Yet there are more new designers working in New York fashion than at any point in its history, a rush of tenderfeet that one can say with some certainty began in 2002, when Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, two students at Parsons the New School for Design, sold their senior collection to Barneys New York and became the toast of the industry with their label, Proenza Schouler. Their example changed the way young designers looked at their careers. They no longer had to apprentice for years or scream to be heard — New York was crazy for the new.
The savviest among them have created businesses that have eclipsed their predecessors in both scale and speed. Alexander Wang, who started his street-meets-couture collection in 2007, reached $25 million in sales last year; Phillip Lim, his contemporary, has flagships in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Seoul. Their generation, which grew up with the Internet and the ease of access to information, is keenly aware of the power of fashion today in popular culture. They are also incredibly well connected, having formed a mutual support network through the many new initiatives designed to promote designers in New York, and uniquely suited to the moment.
“I suppose this is the first generation that has had access to everything in the palm of their hand,” said Simon Collins, the dean of the school of fashion at Parsons.
“They can find factories on their phones.” Among the new designers are a handful who have shown the greatest potential, six of whom The New York Times invited to a round-table discussion about their generation, their designs, their business strategies and their futures. Joseph Altuzarra started his sharp women’s collection after working at Givenchy in Paris. Sophie Theallet, who worked for years in Paris before coming here, is the latest winner of a grant from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue magazine. Alexa Adams and Flora Gill, of Ohne Titel, bonded while working for Karl Lagerfeld and found their work complementary. (Ms. Gill was traveling and unable to attend.) Wayne Lee, whose label is Wayne, got her start as a buyer at Barneys. Max Osterweis, of Suno, happened on a great idea while he was traveling in Kenya — to build a collection that celebrated its textiles and helped revive a garment industry there. Patrik Ervell began making men’s wear after working at magazines like V.
What follows is a transcript of that conversation, edited for space and clarity.
Q. Do you feel that you are part of something that is happening right now? Do you sense this shift taking place in fashion?
MS. ADAMS: I would say I do. Especially when I was in school, you just had these huge labels, like bigger older labels, and there was an expectation that you were going to work for them. There wasn’t a sense that anyone could start their own design label. But I feel like, even since we started, you are seeing all these people at the same time. I don’t know what goes through people’s minds, why we are doing the same thing at the same time, but definitely.
Q. Is there something that happened that caused that change? Is there any one reason people started thinking, I can start my own line now?
MS. ADAMS: The only thing I can say is the globalization of fashion, which I think is really amazing. There used to be an idea of an American fashion, French fashion or European fashion, and maybe an Asian fashion or a Japanese fashion. It’s not that way anymore. If you are inspired by different designers and different places in the globe rather than just American fashion or New York fashion, then I think people feel much more open.
MR. ALTUZARRA: There is a definite sense of community here, which is very different from somewhere like Paris or Milan. I think it exists more in London, but the idea that you can succeed as a young designer is something very important in the industry in New York. It is something that people want to support. They are looking for talent, and they are looking for new things. I also think, when you look at Paris or you look at Milan, there are just so many really big, huge houses. This is a very practical matter, but they take up a lot of room on the schedule and budgets in general for stores. It’s just a lot more difficult to break into those markets.
Q. And you think New York has more room for new faces, new lines?
MR. ALTUZARRA: Yes, people are always looking for what’s new, which can be detrimental, because you could be a flash in the pan.
Q. Sophie and Joseph, you both worked in Europe but you decided to start your businesses here. How do you think your presence affects what people think of as American fashion?
MS. THEALLET: For me, I think it’s very important to be in New York because, as Joseph said, you don’t have the weight of the old-fashioned couture houses that exist in Paris. You don’t have this big group, so it’s possible for you to make something in New York because the people are willing to know about you and they give you that chance, and I think it’s fantastic. You don’t find that in Paris for sure, because it’s more closed. I was inside that Paris business, but here it’s more open. All the designers know each other, we hang out together.
Q. What do you think defines American fashion today? It always used to be good old-fashioned sportswear and practical clothes. Now it seems something that’s hard to put your finger on.
MR. ERVELL: There isn’t really an aesthetic school you can point to and say, this is what’s happening in New York. It really is varied, and there are a lot of directions. But maybe what you can point to is that there is room for a lot of smaller, very specific points of view. I think that is unique here.
MR. OSTERWEIS: I started with the concept I wanted to do something useful and helpful in Kenya and start a business there. I had been collecting textiles there, and somehow I thought fashion would be really easy, because I didn’t know anything about it from a business point of view. But I also felt there was a need to have a print-driven line, and I wanted to make clothes for friends so I just did it. And then I realized how hard it was once I started, but we were lucky enough to have support early on.
MS. LEE: You have to be a designer who is receptive to what your customers want, but at the same time you have to have your vision. For me, inspiration comes from when I am away from fashion. I really enjoy going to museums, to new places. That is really when I pick up inspiration. It’s from my surroundings, the book I’m reading, people I’m with, conversations I’m having. At the same time you have to have your vision, but you also have to be receptive to what customers’ needs are, so you try to find a medium.
Q. What about production, figuring out the retail and editorial worlds? How did you go about doing it? Was it hard for you?
MR. ALTUZARRA: Well, I had worked at other companies before in Paris as well. And I think that was very helpful when I was setting up the company. Just having a global vision of how things generally work with the press aspect and the commercial aspect was something that guided me through how I set up my company.
MR. OSTERWEIS: Doing it in Kenya where there is not a tradition of high-end women’s wear being made was incredibly difficult. There’s no kind of industry that is pre-existing. We have to work a little bit ahead of schedule just because we’ve got such a big, difficult production monster that somehow I’ve created.
Q. Who gave you the best advice?
MR. ERVELL: For me, the most important incubator for my business was the store Opening Ceremony. I had things in the store, like two or three pieces, when they opened, and really grew within that store for the first two years or so before it was anywhere else. That process of building up very slowly, before having any showing to the press or anything, was really valuable for me.
MS. THEALLET: For my part, it was Janet Brown, in Port Washington. She was a retailer. I was doing a company called Motu Tane before, and that company stopped. She called me and she said, no, no, no, you cannot stop. You have to continue what you are doing. I am going to call every retailer to say to wait for you, and she said to my partner, you are to function like an iPod. She helped us to make that decision to continue and make Sophie Theallet a brand.
Q. Did you say function like an iPod? What does that mean?
MS. THEALLET: Yes, to be really strong, and you are to make decisions really fast, and don’t think about the problems that you are going to have. You have to go, and that’s it. We don’t want to hear about complaining or whatever. Just go.
Q. Well, that brings up an interesting point. Michael Kors, just before the C.F.D.A. awards this year, made a comment about how quickly the spotlight shines on new labels today. He said: “The spotlight is so quick, it’s really hard to start anything under the radar. I don’t know if you can still let a business percolate and grow naturally.” How do you all cope with the speed of exposure that is a result of the media frenzy, as well as the Internet age, and can you work it to your advantage?
MR. OSTERWEIS: We got a lot of attention, even before we had a single piece in a store. We had Time magazine come to Kenya to spend a week with us two or three months before we had anything in the stores because they were interested in the business model. I also talked to you before I had a single piece in a store, which meant that we had to control our growth, because our capacity wasn’t there. We still control it, because we are building the capacity.
MR. ALTUZARRA: I think you can control the limelight. I mean, you don’t have to say yes to everything. You can pick and choose and decide how you want to grow. Of course the Internet part is a little harder to control, but at least for magazines and for written press, I think that you can completely control how much exposure you get. The way I look at the development of the brand, it has been really important to wait for the right things to come along and not just jump on the first story that was offered to us. It is true that there is a thirst for newness in New York, and it’s easy to build something up, but when you are building it so fast, it’s also very easy to collapse. I think if you control the way that you build your brand, image-wise, but also in terms of distribution, you have a much more stable base over all.
MS. ADAMS: I would definitely agree with that. For all of us who are new, it’s actually a huge opportunity. It’s almost like, not a democratization of fashion, but something where there is this limelight that is looking for new things. You get the choice of what exposure you want, instead of begging to be part of a story of older brands and bigger companies. I especially like all the blog and Internet press, because I think it’s really interesting to see all different people’s viewpoints. Fashion doesn’t have to be so monolithic or just one voice.
Q. What goes through your head when you have a show?
MR. ERVELL: Anxiety and stress. It’s not fun at all. I mean, really, it’s such an archaic way of showing clothes if you’re just doing a runway show with people sitting down. It’s kind of bizarre if you think about it. It doesn’t really make that much sense, the logistics of it, getting everybody there on time and sitting down. But at the same time there is a kind of magic that happens. So it has its plusses and minuses, but what you think about is that it is incredibly stressful.
MS. THEALLET: I would love to send a tape to the journalists and that’s it, but it’s not possible, really, because the people complain about the show, but at the same time they need to go to the show to see what you are doing. I know it’s not an easy way, so I’m doing a presentation this year, so it will be a bit different.
Q. There’s a lot of noise around the shows these days. What do you think is driving the either the interest in New York in fashion or in Fashion Week?
MS. ADAMS: I think it’s the energy, and fashion as entertainment, which I think is a shame. I’m interested in more of a craft tradition or working with interesting materials or the idea of a personal relationship with clothing. Everyone wants to go to a show, but you can see it in any picture anywhere on the Internet one hour afterwards — or at the same time if we stream the shows. In terms of who I wanted to reach, there is a specific person who feels something in common with the clothes, rather than the idea of fashion as reality entertainment or drama.
MR. ALTUZARRA: There is also a lot of curiosity in general. To me, a lot of it is fueled by blogs and the Internet. Look at Anna Dello Russo’s fame, thanks to the Internet. It’s incredible to me that people outside of the industry know who Carine Roitfeld or Anna Dello Russo are because it’s such a really small, insular heart of the fashion industry. A lot of people that I seem to see in front of show venues are just there to take pictures or to see people going into the show, not even necessarily trying to get in.
Q. Does that ever make you feel like a novelty in that regard, having everybody watching you?
MS. THEALLET: If you choose to do fashion, anyway, you make the choice to be watched. Somewhere, even if you don’t want to say it, you want the people to watch after you. We’re all here because we want success. That is also the reality of why we are doing what we are doing, because we can do another job.
Q. We’re also at a point where there are a lot of new initiatives that are designed to help designers survive in New York, from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue and the Fashion Incubator around the corner. Have these things really helped designers in New York?
MR. ALTUZARRA: Yes, definitely. These initiatives are very specific to New York. They were definitely a big draw when I decided to open the company in New York. I think there is a monetary and financial aspect to all of these initiatives. They just help you out with money. But there is also a huge press aspect to it as well and exposure that is very rare. It doesn’t really exist in other cities. It doesn’t exist in Paris. It doesn’t exist in Milan. The amount of exposure you get from the C.F.D.A. Vogue Fund is really astonishing.
Q. Who inspires you as designers? Who are your role models?
MR. ALTUZARRA: I think, not necessarily aesthetically, but as a business, Dries Van Noten is a really interesting business, because it’s based on clothes, which seems pretty much near impossible. It’s privately owned. It seems like a very stable business. And it’s a pretty big business. Whenever I go into an appointment with a store and I ask what’s selling well, it’s always Dries Van Noten, pretty consistently.
MR. OSTERWEIS: I like Dries as well, and I think Junya Watanabe and Rei [Kawakubo] I like quite a lot.
MS. ADAMS: Even before we started our company, I have always been inspired by the way Raf Simons has grown his business.
MR. ERVELL: When I was a teenager in the ’90s, I was looking a lot at Helmut Lang. When I think about what’s a good business model or what’s a good approach to treating a brand and all these things, I always think the way he did it was impressive.
MS. THEALLET: Of course, Azzedine Alaïa, for the way that he is, because he is doing collections exactly as he wants. Dries, as you say, for the way that he makes a business, and Prada also. And Yves Saint Laurent for his personality and for what he did in fashion.
MS. LEE: I really admire Martin Margiela. He is very visionary, but he has always paced his exposure, and his line always stays true to what he believes.
Q. So not one American designer? Do you think that’s telling?
MR. ALTUZARRA: I was thinking about this before. A business like Ralph Lauren I admire. I just don’t know if that is something that can really be achieved anymore. That level and that size, that all-encompassing product range, that lifestyle. I just think it doesn’t feel like it’s really possible anymore. On that scale, something like Prada is a little more attainable. What I think is interesting about Prada is that there is also this idea of a created heritage. Prada is not that old of a brand, but it feels really old, which I think is really smart, which is what Ralph Lauren did. Essentially he appropriated America as his legacy and his heritage.
Q. What did you mean when you said it would be impossible just to sell and design clothes today?
MR. ALTUZARRA: That’s exactly what I meant. There is a very interesting disconnect, sometimes, between what clients are looking for and what buyers are looking for and what designers are making. You can do something really well in Italy with beautiful fabric, and it’s going to cost $2,000 at retail, but Zara is going to make the same thing in Portugal, one month later, for $250. The people who are really discerning will buy your product, but most of them will just want the look of what you made and buy it at Zara. I think it’s become harder to have a big business based on clothes. There are very practical financial concerns, like you have much smaller margins. There’s demand for high-quality clothing with high perceived value at a lower cost. We’ve tackled this issue by keeping our cost structure very, very small. We’re an extremely small team, basically making sure that we build our sales before building basically the infrastructure of our company and the cost structure of a company.
MR. ERVELL: I don’t know if I’ve figured out the secret, but something that has helped a lot, especially in the last six months since we launched it, is online retail, selling at retail price directly to the customer online. That has changed the way the business is run.
MR. OSTERWEIS: Do you sell internationally online?
MR. ERVELL: We do, but mostly the orders come from North America, which is understandable.
MS. ADAMS: We’ve had a huge amount of growth in China, which has really been interesting. I guess politically or economically, you are seeing there is more money in China, and people are interested in buying clothing from new designers. They are really open, so for us, we’ve seen a lot of growth there. It’s been surprising and interesting. Age really isn’t an issue for us in Asia, especially in China.
Q. Is China on your minds today? Everyone in the industry is trying to figure this out. Given that yours are new businesses, what can you do?
MR. ERVELL: For me also, Asia — non-Japan Asia — has been really big for me, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and also now starting mainland China. It’s a mystery to me, because I’ve never been there, but at the same time, it seems to work and they seem to be interested. They buy it well and they are informed. It’s been a really big part of our growth in the last year or two.
MR. ALTUZARRA: Do you make a different product line for them?
MR. ERVELL: No. Same wholesale prices.
MS. ADAMS: We don’t do different sizing. We do the same thing as we do for everyone else.
Q. We’ve heard from a lot of stores that young women in their 20s are just not as brand loyal as their predecessors might have been. How do you as designers deal with this generation that is shifting away from brands?
MS. ADAMS: I actually think it’s fantastic because it’s not so much about people obsessing over a brand, or over perceived luxury. I don’t know about everyone here, but that’s the way I dress. If I see something I love, whether it’s vintage or our own clothes or some shoe I find really beautiful that I see, that’s how I dress rather than feeling like I’m only going to buy one look. Someone’s going to tell me how I should dress? Or what my look for the season should be, and I’ll buy a designer head to toe? I just don’t think that’s realistic to how people want to dress. And to me, I think it’s freeing for how we design our clothes.
Q. Do you have to design a certain number of sweaters and pants with the stores and magazines in mind? Especially online sites where they are really focusing on categories when you’re shopping?
MS. ADAMS: I think about categories, definitely. You want a well-rounded collection. I don’t want to just have some items and then miss out on something else. We also see what people are interested in, in terms of what we buy, what sells better, or what people are particularly interested in. The good thing about having your own business is that you see how you are being received, but also, you have the power to make the decision of what you are actually going to design.
Q. What was the single best decision that you have made?
MR. ERVELL: I think just starting small and slow, and that’s not everyone’s approach. It was mine. I literally just started with two or three pieces in a friend’s store and just built it very gradually from there.
MS. THEALLET: To apply to the C.F.D.A., because it made my name recognized as an American brand. People were thinking I was a Frenchwoman who does fashion and comes to New York to sell to New York, which I am not doing. My company is American, and everything that I am doing actually is done in New York.
MS. LEE: I think the single best decision was for me to have a smaller company structure. I take over a lot more responsibilities, and, in a way, I get to learn a lot more.
MR. ALTUZARRA: I’d have to agree, that’s also the best decision I’ve made, to keep the company very small and the infrastructure very small.
MS. ADAMS: I would say for me, probably to work with another partner. Myself and Flora design together, and we have a third partner, Stephen [Courter], who works with us on the financial side, on the press and sales, and also merchandising. That has been really freeing and helpful for us, business-wise, because we can focus on the collection.
MR. OSTERWEIS: For me, I think it was hiring Erin [Beatty], who I design with. For one, she knew what she was doing, and two, she also has worked in big companies and small companies, so she also had a big say in how we structured the company. I definitely needed a lot of hand-holding. I probably still do.
Q. Well there’s also a new generation of press out there, the fashion bloggers. What do you think of them? Do you take them as seriously as you take the traditional media, or more so? And whom do you follow?
MR. ERVELL: I think some of them are really insightful and have really interesting things to say. Going back to Twittering and things like that, I think there’s an advantage in keeping that at arm’s length as a designer. If people know that you’re going to the grocery store or...
MS. THEALLET: ...doing your laundry...
MR. ALTUZARRA: I think it’s like a pendulum, and now we’re in this moment where it’s just very extreme. I have a feeling that if all of a sudden, if everyone is Twittering, and everyone is live-streaming their show, there is going to come a point when everyone is going to want to see the show that is not live streamed. They are going to want to know what someone who is not Tweeting is doing.
Q. What do you think the future of this city’s fashion is going to be?
MS. THEALLET: I thing it’s becoming more and more huge. I think people are really watching more and more what’s going on in New York with all these new designers. I think people are looking at what’s going on, because there is a lot of effervescence and it’s great. It’s a takeover.
MR. ERVELL: I’m guessing it’s probably harder to start a company now than it was four years ago. The economy, it’s a completely different world now. Maybe there was a window where there was a lot of space to start new. To start new now might be harder.
Q. One last question: How do you know that you’ve made it?
MR. OSTERWEIS: Give us a few years.
MS. THEALLET: When I’m going to have an atelier the way that I dream, because so far, I am a really small company. I have like two persons working with me: my partner, myself and my seamstress and that’s it. So when we know that we are going to make it, I’m going to send you a postcard from an island.
MS. LEE: I think we’ve all made it. We’re all actualizing our dreams. We’re all doing what we want to do, so in a sense, we’ve made it.
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
THEY are not exactly a New York Six.