Trading in the tech life for a new cutting edge
Tech geeks and fashion usually clash. Think pocket protectors, hiked-up pants and T-shirts festooned with inside jokes for software coders.
But when Silicon Valley entrepreneur Rob Meadows thought about fashion, he imagined a purple-green halter dress and shiny suits of gold lace. So after he sold his mobile software company, Lumitrend Inc., in 2006 for millions of dollars (the amount was not disclosed), he decided to start his own clothing line rather than create another tech company right away
“I didn’t want to jump from one 20-hour technology day to another,” he said. “And of course there’s the parties, the beautiful women, the fun parts of it as well.”
His line now sells at small boutiques such as Inago on Third Street in Los Angeles and he has made a special line for Nordstrom.
High-tech entrepreneurs such as Meadows are notorious for starting company after company, fueling California’s economy with new concepts and successes. But some leave tech for less geeky pastures: They start vodka companies, they become vintners, and yes, they even go into fashion.
“A lot of folks, when they have wealth, find things that will be interesting and unique to their lives,” said Al Osborne, faculty director of the Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA. That often means becoming involved with nonprofits, starting health food restaurants or investing in green technology, he said.
Making it in fashion is very different from succeeding in technology. It takes years for a fashion line to be profitable because the profit margins are slim.
And in some cases, they’ll be competing with people who have a lot of cash lying around: think Sean “Diddy” Combs’ clothing and fragrance line Sean John, and Jennifer Lopez’s lifestyle brand JLO.
“Whether you’re a starlet or a rock star, everybody wants to have their name on a label,” said Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Assn.
Selling that label to the masses, though, is a bit tougher, she said. New designers have to create a pattern, make it fit for people of different sizes, and design something that someone would actually want to wear.
“The hump from start-up to real company, that’s where they fall,” she said.
For tech entrepreneurs, it’s often precisely that challenge that attracts them to fashion.
Sep Kamvar sold his personalized search engine, Kaltix, to Google Inc. for an undisclosed amount in late 2003 and began to work for the tech giant. But he grew restless.
“I had done a technology company,” Kamvar said. “I was ready to try something new.”
Kamvar and some friends began making shirts and other pieces for friends, then hired a Stanford University undergrad with a fashion background. They started a menswear line called Distilled Spirit (the name was later shortened to Distilled) that featured button-down shirts, hoodies, outerwear, pants, shorts, T-shirts and, just for geeks, jackets with a built-in iPhone pocket.
Now Distilled is sold in Bloomingdale’s and similar stores as well as boutiques in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo.
Sure, events including Men’s Fashion Week in New York were fun, Kamvar said, but the clothing industry presented challenges he never faced in tech. Anyone can create an Internet start-up for very little money and, with some good programming and word of mouth, attract millions of users.
But a fashion line requires cash to design and manufacture clothes, and few stores will even look at you until you’ve been around for a few seasons.
“The industry is a lot less glamorous than portrayed,” Kamvar said. “The number of fashion parties I’ve been to has been small compared to the amount of time I’ve spent sending something back to the factory.”
The fashion industry could use a little bit of an infusion from technology, said Shuang Wang, who was a tech industry consultant before he co-founded JuJu the Showroom, a New York-based PR agency and fashion showroom that helps designers break into the U.S. market. He has tried to bring more efficiency into the fashion industry by having his clients use software and computers to track their garments.
“For an industry so focused on the new and the next, they’re very backward for things that will make them more efficient,” he said. “We still have stores faxing things to us.”
Other entrepreneurs also see the fashion industry as the perfect place to deploy their tech knowledge. Louise Wannier had always loved fashion, but she spent her career founding or co-founding several tech companies, including Gemstar Corp.
When Wannier decided she needed a break, she enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in L.A. She was inspired during class one day to start a company that recommends and sells clothing to women based on their body measurements and fashion tastes. She created MyShape, based in Pasadena, and later opened an online store.
“I knew we could use technology to solve this problem,” Wannier said. “It’s the perfect marriage of my love of interactive design and my love of fashion and design.”
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