Gen Art

Since we do not have much to do right now (yeah right) Diego and I have decided to enter a contest for Gen Art! It is a design contest in which you have to enter two womens looks. The first prize is $10,000 to create a ten piece collection for Fall. The winner will be able to show the collection at Fashion week here in NYC in February!!! We figured we had nothing to lose so we both came up with some designs to enter!! It was a fun little contest to enter, but a ton of work!! We did our patterns and then sewed up the garments. Check them out below! My friend Courtney graciously volunteered to model and did a FANTASTIC job!!

JEREMY'S







DIEGO'S

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Orders???? and other updates!

Well, it's been two weeks since we dropped the samples off at Intermix and still no word. I hope we hear some great feedback, but you never know how these things work out. They have had them for two weeks, which is great, there was also Thanksgiving holiday within these two weeks, Oh well, sometimes its a waiting game. We hope for the best!


DAILY CANDY
So we are going to have a story done on JAUNT by DailyCandy!!! The Dallas edition. I'm really excited about it because it has the potential to create an awareness of our line. I was emailing back and forth all day yesterday with the editor sending pics and info for the story. They are super great for considering us as a story and we wish them all the thanks in the world!! Please check out their website, you can find a link on the right side of the page.

FortyFiveTen
We are still waiting to hear back from FortyFiveTen about an order....I sent an email yesterday just to follow up with the buyer. Everyone is always so busy in this industry!!! It's cool though....we are very excited that they have considered us at all. The boutique really is a testament to design driven fashion and luxury and is merchandised with the utmost attention to detail!

FALL
Through everything we have to get done for Spring and getting press we also have to begin working on the Fall collection! I am really excited about what we have planned for the Fall. We are still going to keep some of the same idea going, offering pieces that are "generous" in fit and still flattering. We are also adding a few pieces to the collection that will be more "tailored," they are not strictly tailored, but it is something with a little more structure. The quality of fabric is still going to a knit. It's an amazing knit that we have sourced and it has such a great hand to it! (feel to it) it will be exactly what we need to do some lightweight jackets, blazers, skirts and some bitchy pants!
It is always easier for me to work with moods and themes when designing. It keeps everything cohesive and really helps to create the look of a collection. We have chosen some nice details for the collection this season concerning finishing and construction. The whole theme is inspired by moths. These are extremely interesting to both Diego and I and is turning out to be an extraordinary resource of inspiration for everything from finishing to color palette.
Also, for Fall we are going to do a few accessories in the collection that will be really fashion forward! They will be accessories like scarves, etc. things to wear and accent with clothing. We have a pic of the trend board we are using for Fall!



Fall is sizing up to be a very interesting season for us!

BTW we are still waiting to hear about when the meeting for Neiman's is.....I know things do not happen over night, but sometimes it is so hard to be patient!!!

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Back in NYC

After getting back to New York there was more work to do, follow up is very important in this industry. We had to reach out to everyone we met so we can keep the lines of communication open. There was alot of emailing to be done, but we were happy to do it.

Now we had to look forward and strategize our next step!

A couple of weeks after we got back from market we were contacted by a rep we had met at market. She has a showroom there in the Dallas market center where we were showing our collection. She viewed our collection at the show and was interested in possibly carrying our line in her showroom. She was going to be going to LA for a week and was going to be meeting with Neiman Marcus upon returning to Dallas. She was contacting us because she would like to present the collection to Neiman's, of course we were quite excited at this opportunity and decided to jump on it. We quickly set about getting the collection ready to ship back to Dallas for the meeting. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the best outcome, the collection has not been presented yet, but the preliminary comments about the collection are very promising!
We sent the collection out on a Thursday evening so it would be in Dallas in time for the meeting. The next morning we received another email from the assistant buyer from Intermix! She said she had heard about our collection through the grapevine and wanted to see any info and price sheets asap! Again, we were on the move to get everything together and get it to her, no resting on your keister at times like these. They contacted us a few days later and were interested in seeing some of the samples we had. Obviously we are keeping our hopes up for the best outcome. In any case, they have now seen our collection and are aware of our existence.

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Market!!!

We decided we needed to try and get to a market, in order to show our spring line, duh. Since we really wanted to be able to show in Dallas and it was the best option for us at the time we booked a flight!! It was such a great experience going to market and representing ourselves. We were able to get some really great feedback on the line and see what store buyers were thinking about our collection.
The whole trip was really great! I flew down on the 20th of October and it was a crazy morning trying to get everything together and get my ass to the airport on time!! I was starving when i got on the flight! I was constantly going over in my head everything that had been done doing a mental checklist.
All marketing had been sent out? CHECK!
All linesheets were up-to-date and with me? CHECK!
Lookbooks? CHECK!
UGH!!! Full flight? CHECK!
Smelly man sitting right next to me the whole flight? Definitely CHECK!! I mean come on!

I was super nervous and super excited about the entire situation. There were so many questions going through my mind.
What if people hate it?
What if we look completely unprofessional?
What if we don't make a sell????
Then what?
I decided to stop freaking myself out and just be happy that through the hard work we had done, we had gotten to a point that we were actually going to market. This whole experience has taught me a most important thing. I have to proceed with the faith that everything is going to work out. I'm not always sure how things will work out, but when the time comes i know it will. I decided that if things did not go as well as planned at market we would still keep going forward and still keep plugging away. I am usually too stupid to know when to give up on making something work, it's kinda something i have going for me.

Actual Market!!

So now we are in sales at market, we began meeting alot of really great people and had a great time merchandising and setting up our booth. It looked SUPER!!! and very NYC compared to our neighbors. hahaha!!

Ignore the part where i look fat in this pic....It's not true!













Market was really slow for us, but it was invaluable for us to be able to be there. Some really great things happened while we were there!

We got to meet with two amazing stores while we were in town!

First store, V.O.D. check out their website and blog! Find the link to the side of the page.
The store is amazing and the labels they carry are phenomenal! We met with Jackie Bolin, one of the owners of the store, she was really sweet and has a super luxe sense of style!! She really had some great things to say about the line and is interested in seeing what we are coming up with for Fall and what direction we are going!! It was great meeting everyone!



The second store we met with was 4510. This is also a gem of a store! It is filled with some of the best labels around! It was funny how we came to meet with them....and listen closely kiddos because this is a perfect example how things can get started for ya!
My friend, a clothing rep in Dallas, was working a different market than where we were showing, but i wanted to get some interest in our collection from the buyers at the other market as well. So i gave my friend some leggings to wear to market and gave her our contact info. She wore them and got a really great response from some of the other reps, but no buyers asked her about them. After market that night she was going to an event at 4510, It was a trunk show featuring Christian Soriano. She wore the leggings to the event and there was an overwhelming reaction to them!! People asked her where she got them and one of the owners even inquired about them!! She conveyed our contact info and we contacted the buyer. The store was fantastic and they were very inquisitive about the leggings and our line, it was great meeting the buyer and making that connection.





In my opinion the market was a super success!! We were seen by the stores we would like to be in and now they are aware of our collection and what we have to offer! It was great to be able to make the connections with the stores.

We also found time to go to the Rich Hippie store that placed our first order! It was great seeing our things in the store and being able to meet the people that work there!

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Then started a new chapter

So....we were in our first store and things were moving steadily forward. I was contacted by a friend of mine who writes for a chinese fashion mag. He was really interested on writing a story on our collection!!! I was super excited about the opportunity, obviously. He has a friend that is a model here in New York, Shu Pei Qin.



She's gorge right!!!

He wanted to come by and grab some shots for his story with her wearing some of the pieces. So we did a lil photo shoot up on the roof!











We also gave Shu Pei some stuff to wear in between the shows she was doing in Europe. Prada, McQueen, Chanel, etc.




She looked really fantastic!!! The story was great, but unfortunately we learned a lesson here....sometimes stories are done and then, through unseen circumstances they are cut.......wah wah....

Its fine though, it happens, but now the magazine has seen our stuff and is aware of our collection and who knows maybe we will get another chance to be in their mag later down the road.

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Moving Forward

After we finished the website and it was posted, we had a way to share our collection to many people. Thats when a whole other aspect of this industry comes in....PR. We had to try and get people to see the collection and see what sort of response we could get, sort of test the waters. So we started to do research and find the email and contact info of people we wanted to target i.e. buyers at stores, etc. We got a good response from people, they were really liking it!
During all this we were also working on important issues that needed to be addressed: getting our business registered, developing lookbooks, linesheets, finalizing fabrics and prices, etc. We ended getting a call from a store in Dallas called Rich Hippie. The store owner had heard about Jaunt through a friend, this is when the website paid off. She was interested in looking at the collection and was going to be here in New York the following week. The whole week we were running around trying to get everything ready for our appointment!!! we did not even have a place to show the collection yet.....Thankfully a contact of mine had a showroom we were able to borrow for a couple hours to show the collection to the buyer. MOST IMPORTANT INFO!!!!! Networking is everything in this industry and never burn bridges!!! All you got is your reputation! The meeting was a success and we received our first order. We were ecstatic and freaked out at the same time! We immediately got to work on filling the order to have it ready for the delivery date.




We were very greatful to be able to get this order and were able to fill it, but there was still a ton of work ahead. Now that we had the order we had to start getting some press so people could hear about us.

Like I said....Networking is everything and through a very dear friend, the Style Director at D Magazine (Stephanie Quadri) came across our website. She contacted us about receiving some samples of our leggings she was going to be doing for a shoot. The timing could not be more perfect! Everyone would win...The director had something to write about and could mention the store as a go to for the product! So the store got press, we got press and the director had her story!! She also wrote a small tidbit on the D Magazine blog which was just an added surprise! Check it on the Jaunt Press tab to the right!!

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Retrospective Part 1

I call this post retrospective because i am trying to get everything caught up on this blog. My goal is to be able to add a post everyday.

So.....up until this point we have been very fortunate in starting our line. There have been many people that have helped us out and want us to succeed in this endeavor and i think we will. Starting your own business is difficult when you have no budget, starting a fashion line is even more difficult! There are tons of things that can go wrong and everything is very costly.

The most expensive part about doing a collection is the development. It costs a ton of money and mistakes are almost guaranteed to happen. We have the knowledge to be able to do most of the work ourselves like i said before, so its a huge help!

We began by creating an idea...a mood for the clothing.

When i had my job in the industry i worked for a woman who did not understand clothing and/or fashion the way i did. The first meeting i had with her she told me that art has no place in fashion!!.............i kind of chuckled because i thought she was joking......she wasn't. I mean are you kidding me?????? Fashion is inspired by so many things art, feelings, landscapes, etc. anyone can pull anything from their surroundings and create an idea.

I am from a studio art background........ i really enjoyed painting, sculpture, etc. Originally i wanted to be an art therapist, using art as a tool to deal with emotions, feelings, expression, etc. work through issues. That is what art was to me, a way to express myself. Unfortunately, the art world is not about that completely, at least in my opinion. I mean yes...there are artists who really express themselves through their art, but they are always trying to make it marketable and alot of times i feel the art is too opinionated. Art was never a way for me to try and use as a platform for my views or opinions on issues, it was purely a way to express my emotions into a composition and organize them in that way. During critiques i was always ripped on because my work was never trying to persuade people to think a certain way, they did not understand the meaning behind it. As a result, i decided that art was something i should leave as something i do for myself and not a career. I still wanted to find a creative field and i have always loved fashion and the quality of work that goes into it.

So, back on track........

We began with a mood......the idea was something that was comfortable, easy-to-wear, and sophisticated. After realizing the "characteristics" or mood of what we wanted to create we continued on by sourcing fabric. We found this really fantastic quality of jersey we could use for our collection. (BTW, fabric sourcing is a BITCH and one of the hardest things you have to encounter when first starting out) We wanted to keep everything simple as far as the colors go so we started with three colors the main colors were black, grey and an off-white, we used a beige color as sort of a complimentary color or something to add a bit of "depth" to the collection. We worked really hard to find a supplier that did not work on minimums. In this industry people want volume

We now had a focus of what we wanted to achieve with the mood....... drape, cut of fabric, etc. So we began to design, after some elimination and a couple of discussions we decided which pieces would become part of the collection.

Now we really had to start working........ugh.

We set off doing our patterns and creating muslins for our samples. We sewed the muslins out of really cheap jersey, we just wanted to see if the patterns we made were true to the design we wanted and if the fit was good. This is when my friend Courtney came in, we were able to have her put everything on and check the look and fit.

Once we corrected the mistakes for the pattern we could create the first samples, all this costs alot of money if you have to pay someone else to do it.

Paying to have patterns made is a large expense, be prepared to pay at least 200 dollars for a pattern, and sometimes the design can look perfect on paper, but once realized in fabric it could look awful.

After all the corrections were done we got the fabric we would use for our garments and sewed the final samples together!


So....now that we had the samples we had to find a way to get them photographed. NETWORK! NETWORK! NETWORK!!!! There are plenty of talented people out there trying to find their way and begin their careers. We were extremely lucky to find an amazingly gifted photographer with a fantastic eye! He was looking to add more fashion shots to his book and was happy to take on the shooting of our lookbook!! My friend Candace agreed to model for us for the shoot!!! She did an amazing job!! The shoot lasted for 10 1/2 hours and she did not complain even once!!! She looked fantastic!!

Once the photos were done we had to create a website. Much like other things in this experience, I had to figure out how to do a website...we could not afford to pay someone to do it.

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