Up AND Coming
Even as major players in the fashion industry were falling to their knees--Anne Cole, Marc Jacobs, Adolfo, Bob Mackie and Carolyne Roehm--scads of would-be Los Angeles designers blithely started their careers.
Only a handful would survive.
“A successful business takes more than a dream and a sewing machine,” says Alan Millstein, publisher of the New York City-based Fashion Network Report, a trade publication.
It takes money.
So accessory designer Carrie Forbes sold the ruby ring her grandmother left her to buy the leather for her first collection of handbags.
She and the other designers profiled here have managed to tread treacherous waters for the past few years in Los Angeles, where a shrinking number of stores have taken fewer risks on new talent. “The average fashion-design business lasts three years. If (one) lasts for five, it is considered a roaring success,” says Millstein.
Daniel Norzagaray did time on a junior line called Jigsaw before his backers gave him the chance to create higher-priced women’s clothes under his own label.
Pamela Barish toiled quietly for years in New York before moving home to Los Angeles and becoming “a 22-year overnight success,” she says.
The Lews, Michael and Doris, moved in with her grandmother when their fledgling menswear business sucked up every last penny.
Some day, their tales may eclipse the one about Calvin Klein.
According to fashion lore, Klein was making polyester clothes by day and designing his own line at night when he met a Bonwit Teller executive who encouraged him to make an appointment with the New York City retailer’s fashion director. Rather than risk wrinkling his coats and dresses on the seat of a taxi, Klein pushed his garment rack, with a broken wheel, 20 blocks to the store.
In a few years, the telling will probably include three feet of snow on the sidewalks Klein traveled. That’s the way humble-beginnings stories grow.
A Surprise ‘Serious Business’
LABEL: Carrie Forbes
DESIGNER: Carrie Forbes
STORES: Neiman Marcus, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, Fred Segal, Ice, Madison
PRICE RANGE: $100 to $400
Carrie Forbes used to be a flak. In the late ‘80s, she was the public-relations professional behind Jerry Seinfeld. But she found her job at a Los Angeles P.R. firm wanting. “It wasn’t very satisfying trying to catapult (clients) to stardom,” she says. Had she hung around, Forbes might have enjoyed the rocket-ship ride with Seinfeld, but the L.A. native deplaned in 1989 to make silk scarves. Intending to begin her fashion career with a line of handbags (“I could never find one I really liked”), she says she lacked the know-how and the funds to buy leather in quantity. Forbes took the ruby ring her grandmother had left her to Christie’s auction house. The $7,000 in proceeds allowed her to make the jump from regular paycheck to entrepreneur.
She made scarves and evening bags and, 18 months into her new career, had a hit with crocheted handbags. They were either teeny-tiny or satchel-size and sold at Barneys and Madeline Gallay.
Donna Karan took a liking to Forbes’ work and asked her to do handbags for her resort collection, now in stores. Forbes has since declined to work with other designers--”even though the association gives cache,” she says--so she can focus on her own label.
“I never thought it would turn into a serious business,” she says. “I just knew I didn’t want to work for anyone else.”
‘It’s My Only Passion’
LABEL: Cielo by Daniel
DESIGNER: Daniel Norzagaray
STORES: Nordstrom, I. Magnin, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel
PRICE RANGE: $80 to $200
Daniel Norzagaray’s first job after graduation in 1986 from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles was designing large-size T-shirts and maternity wear. Not exactly his dream job, but , he says, “I was one of the lucky ones. Most graduates don’t get the opportunity to design for quite a while.”
He inched up the design ladder, from maternity smocks to club clothes for juniors, “those tight Lycra dresses with doodads hanging off them. Well . . . they were popular once,” he says.
Norzagaray wanted to do a line of contemporary women’s clothing and, after a year of designing Jigsaw, a dressy junior line, he was rewarded. His backers, Chyan Inc. owners Jim Sauer and Marlen Horn, let him loose. His first efforts were picked up by Barneys and Henri Bendel.
“I take the Euro look and translate it for a more American type of retailer. It’s simplified. I see Karl (Lagerfeld) doing softer dressing with clean and simple lines and I do the same, but I drop the corselets. Americans don’t want or understand corselets,” he says.
The 27-year-old Los Angeles native is fairly obsessed with fashion. “It’s my only passion; it’s all I think about,” he says. “I’ve even followed women in restaurants as they’ve walked to the bathroom, just to check out their hemline.”
‘I’m the Rock ‘n’ Roll Chanel’
LABEL: Pamela Barish
DESIGNER: Pamela Barish
STORES: I. Magnin, Maxfield
PRICE RANGE: $180 to $570
Pamela Barish would prefer to hide behind the skirts of her creations and let her clothes to do her talking.
The painfully shy designer was pressed into professional service when her friends wanted clothes like the ones she sewed for herself. The friends told other friends and before long, Barish was making velvet dresses for the Hollywood fashion circle. Rosanna Arquette, a longtime fan of Barish’s romantic dresses with brocade bodices, had the designer stitch wedding garments for her and groom-to-be Jon Sidel. Laura Dern, Jennifer Grey and Anjelica Huston are also customers.
The supermarket tabloids have fed a bulging scrapbook of shots of her dresses on women attending movie premieres and parties.
“I’m the rock ‘n’ roll Chanel,” Barish says.
The private sales funded her first collection, earning rack space at Maxfield and I. Magnin in the summer of ’92.
Barish plans to keep her list of celebrity couture clients, add a few more stores and keep the business small. “That way I can keep my eye on the quality,” she says.
But she has bad news for the celebs who keep asking for velvets: She’s finished with that fabric. “I’ve been doing that for two seasons; it’s time to move on.” Next: “A combination of peasant and Zen-type looks. It’s rich, opulent and raw.”
‘Now Things Are Phenomenal’
LABEL: Imaginary Concepts
DESIGNERS: Michael and Doris Lew
STORES: Menswear-- Cignal, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Marshall Field, Dayton Hudson, Adventure Bound in Pasadena; Women’s wear-- Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bullock’s, Koala Blue.
PRICE RANGE: Menswear, $30 to $250; women’s wear, $40 to $80
Los Angeles native Michael Lew risked alienating his family to become a designer. He secretly changed colleges, giving up agriculture and business classes at UC Davis for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco. When his parents caught on, they weren’t pleased, Lew recalls. But they came around about the time he won an FIDM contest to design over-the-top evening dresses for TV’s “Dynasty.”
Lew met his future wife and business partner, Doris, in school in the mid-’80s, but they didn’t marry until 1990. (One of those boy-meets-girl-but-doesn’t-marry-her-until- he-sees-her-merchandising-and-production-skills sort of stories.)
By then, he was designing his own line of menswear--unconstructed jackets with patch pockets, lace-up shirts and plaid vests of lightweight cotton. The couple added a women’s line of long tube dresses, skinny knit skirts and cropped cardigans. Both collections, under the Imaginary Concept label, began to sell, but it took every cent the Lews had to fill orders. That’s when they moved in with Doris’ grandmother.
Just when things looked the bleakest, financial backers came calling. Then, in November, Michael was nominated for a Rising Star award by the California Mart for his menswear.
“Last year we gave up everything,” says Michael. “Now things are phenomenal.”
