Fashion 88 : Designer Makes a Living Out of a Suitcase

Abbijane’s company is small enough that she can still: maintain offices in the living room of her mid-town Manhattan apartment; stuff her entire fall collection in a carry-on bag; send hand-written thank you notes (plastered with x’s and o’s) to reporters after each interview.

After 10 years on her own, the 30-year-old designer’s firm could be bigger, maybe even gigantic. But she chooses to remain one of New York’s best-kept fashion secrets.

Until recently, however, her claim to fame was her friendship with the late designer Perry Ellis. She met Ellis when he spoke to a fashion class at New York University.

“He was unknown, still working for (scarf designer) Vera. But he was absolutely brilliant about merchandising,” Abbijane said. (She uses only one name; her surname is Schifrin.)

Recalling when Ellis received his third Coty Award nomination (he didn’t win the first two), she said he was so “fed up with the whole system,” that he boycotted the awards dinner and handed his tickets to her. When Ellis won, Abbijane hopped onstage to collect his award.

She achieved a sort of celebrity status as a result.

Abbijane now stands on her own reputation. “I’ve got the best possible clients--musicians, actresses. (She maintains the highest discretion and refuses to drop names.) I’m like a secret on a certain level,” she shrugs.

But the secret’s gotten out. Abbijane has twice been approached by conglomerates, “good companies,” she said, who have offered to buy her name, put her in a fancy office and make her an overnight star.

“Big companies are always looking for young designers,” she said on a recent trip to Los Angeles. “They make it look like candy. There’s a big push, you make a big media splash, and then you know what happens. Gone,” she said, referring to other designers who’ve signed up with big backers and then quickly disappeared from view.

“I don’t want anyone to tell me to make that skirt shorter, because everyone is wearing short skirts now. I’ve been making short skirts for so long they used to sell in the bathing suit department at Henri Bendel’s.

Nothing in her line retails for more than $500, because “no one I know wants to spend $20 million on her clothes. Everyone who has a job wants to throw something on and look fabulous.”

The Abbijane label is available locally at Apropos.