Designs on the Big Time
While some of the biggest, best-known fashion companies in the city are securing their place in the national league, a whole other group of companies, tiny in comparison, are having an impact across the country as well.
These are businesses where the designer is the owner, usually has no business investor-partner, and puts his or her own name on the label--Bryan Emmerson, Tere Tereba, Richard Tyler, Harriet Selwyn, Rachel London.
They don’t have designer assistants, their production staff usually consists of four or five full-time seamstresses and their sales volume ranges somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000, which is minuscule compared with such multimillion dollar operations as Saint Tropez West or ABS.
Yet, these small-scale designer names are on the lips of every cutting-edge retailer and fashion editor who comes to town.
Emmerson and Tereba worked independently until last spring, then joined forces. Now they co-own the business, put both their names on all the clothes and sell to Henri Bendel in New York as well as Shauna Stein in Los Angeles, along with a few other top stores.
Emmerson crafts Chantilly lace and hand-dyed silks into lightly structured, utterly feminine designs. Tereba drapes soft fabrics into romantic shapes that fit executive or fanciful occasions, depending on accessories.
Rachel London crafts organza flowers into crop tops, hot pants, halter dresses and stoles. Madonna owns an outfit, and singer Jodie Watley owns dozens. The playfulness of the clothes lends itself to children’s wear too, and London wholesales a small collection of children’s styles to Barney’s, Bloomingdales and Saks in New York. Her Melrose Avenue shop is easy to find.
Harriet Selwyn made her name in the late ‘70s, with Fragments, a fashion concept that generated many others like it--Multiples, for one. Later, Selwyn scaled her business goals down, started a company with designer Marilyn Peck and made clothes for special occasions in luxury fabrics but basic shapes. Long, flowing silk polka-dot skirts, oversize satin T-shirts and velvet broomstick skirts, after the American Indian style, are among recent designs. The Ecru boutique has been a showcase for the clothes.
Now Selwyn has separated from Peck, and is going forward on her own. Richard Tyler burst onto the ready-to-wear scene several years ago, having built a business designing custom wear for rock stars.
When he opened a store about a year ago, he kept the Mod Squad-meets-Charles Dickens style he was known for, and the impeccable tailoring, as well as the flashy elements--velvet collars on men’s jackets, bright Chinese silk vests to wear under men’s and women’s business suits.
The store, Tyler Trafficante, opened as a joint venture with his then-fiancee, Lisa Trafficante. Now Wilkes Bashford in San Francisco carries a selection of his styles, and the rockers recently found him again. He outfitted Annie Lennox, Paula Abdul and Ringo Starr for recent concert tours.
None of these designers has the budget for expensive fashion shows, but Tyler staged his first in late September. Actually it was a wedding followed by fashion show instead of a typical reception. He and Trafficante were married in the store just before the models started down the runway in a tent across the street. It would have been an appropriate arrangement for any of these determined designers. All of them are married to their work.
