10 Facts for a young designer starting out.

Because the recent article in BOF was just the surface.

These are the facts as I know them to be true for me, for our company Tibi. I’m an expert in how to start an independent designer brand - and stay independent. I’m the founder of what is now America’s longest standing (29 years) fully independently owned global brand. I started Tibi with $15,000 and the brand is now wildly successful - but then again, that depends on how you measure success. We’re around $70mm in sales, but that’s not our metric for success, there’s so much context here to be had. Here’s what I mean by that last statement: If you’ve been to design school or just simply always dreamt of having your own brand one day, close your eyes. What do you imagine your life looking like in five to ten years? Success for us is living by our principles, though admittedly, it takes time for that to take shape. Consistent with all things in life, I suppose. Ok, first:

Rip up the Fashion Industry’s shitty Playbook. Follow it and you’ll end up just like them. And here’s what I mean by that. Can you name one designer brand’s path that you want to emulate? I don’t mean how their stores look, or their designs, or their sales. I mean their path. Are they designing what they love, for people they deeply respect, and doing it facing challenges that some days are just tough as fuck but equally as rewarding when you sort through it. That last part is crazy important. Spending a day working with a team who is intent on solving a problem - with a mutual agreement on what success will look like -is fully different than days spent massaging numbers for investors, prepping for a meeting with a department store that is about to tell you “it’s just not working, and here’s the bill”, or being harassed by a merchandising team explaining that your pant’s are too big, your necklines too low and “the people” just want a fitted stretch jean.

So here are the facts as I see them:

Fact 1: Department Stores are Not For You.

Some of the loveliest people I’ve met in the industry were from the Department Stores (Lisa at Neimans, Trish at Nordstroms, Maria at Harrods). But they’re individuals and ultimately part of giant machine whose fundamental business practices are at odds with an independent designer. And at the end of the day, you’re selling to the giant conglomerate and not Lisa, Trish or Maria. Nothing personal, just facts. Everything you sell them is at consignment, even though you’d swear you’d made an outright sale. If you work with a department store, it has to be on your terms. I don’t mean getting up front payments - that is absolutely not going to happen - if it does you are a serious outlier and you can not plan for this as strategy. Here is an example of what our terms are and what I wish like hell they’d been from the beginning (I learned the hard way):

• You have to be in the store’s area which suits your brand. If they put you with un-aligned brands, then they are establishing your brand’s positioning. You’ll be fucked, I promise. You can not have a strategy to get your foot in the door and perform and then create your own terms. If you perform, you’ll actually give ammunition that you do belong with the brands they put you with. If you don’t, you’re out. See the delimma?

• You have to be the driver of what designs are selected. If you don’t show up as your brand, then your customer will never find you. You’ll attract different customers and eventually you’ll have no idea who you are. Imagine you have this great line up of full, or sculpted pants, but the buyer wants only the one really fitted one you designed because their customers want to look sexy. They want to buy only your more feminine tops, and that one slinky dress you put in that made sense in the bigger context but now with this carved out assortment your collection looks entirely different.

  Think of it this way: I can offer you an incredible French menu, but if you extract the meat, the brioche, and the tomato, you’ve just turned me in to a hamburger joint. The hamburger may be good, but it was not the intent of what you are creating. Do not allow someone to turn you in to fast food.

• Good news, there are some big stores that think small. The French stores are a good example of this - within Printemps 2nd floor we found our home and we have meaning for them. Same with I.T in China, That Concept Store in Dubai.

• If you do choose to work with one because they’ve agreed to your brand positioning, and you believe the exposure is worth it (maybe that’s a Bergdorf’s or a Selfridges that still have foot traffic) then ONLY SELL them what you can afford to lose. Literally, assume you won’t see a dollar back - think of it as an advertising expense. When you are calculating your losses, remember to factor in shipping, penalties for maybe a wrong hanger or label placement on a box, etc. When I was starting out, $10,000 to me was the equivalent of $300k to a mid size brand and $2mm a big brand. It’s all relative - so when seeking advice here it’s good to get it from someone who shares your lens.

Fact 2: Institutional knowledge is everything.

Do everything you can until you can’t. This allows you to make great decisions, sniff out bullshitters who are selling you what you don’t need, or charging you for what they shouldn’t. And importantly you know what you can push for - and the tradeoffs if you don’t get it - because you’ve done it yourself. You’ll become a great problem solver as a result and you’ll start to think you have an amazing gut sense for things when really you just have a solid base of knowledge from which to operate.

When I started, I designed, I worked with the patternmaker, sat at the factory, did the fittings, costed the items, priced the items, created the marketing, set up selling events, sold to the consumer, found trade shows, sold to the stores, visited the stores, received the product, shipped the product, took back the product if it sucked, defended the product when it didn’t suck but when someone else thought it did….all while simultaneously designing the next collection. It was me and my partner at the time, when she left it was me and an employee. What this DID is it allowed me to know, at least on a surface level, every area of the business. Each time I understood an area and the limitations of my knowledge and bandwidth, I could peel it off and give to someone else. Sales, for example. After 8 months I was ready to shed the responsibility. I finally understood what I needed:

• Someone with a rolodex

• Someone who knew the lingo (30 days vs. 60 days net, RTV, etc.)

• A good negotiator who would fight for our brand positioning

• Seriously strong work ethic

To find help, I went first to visit the big showrooms to have them rep my line. But, it didn’t sit right with me that they were repping lots of other lines. How would I get attention? They explained that they will get my foot in the door, they own the premiere Rolodex of relationships. But in my vision I could see one of their sales people showing a top to a store - when the store said they liked it, but prefer blue, the rep said “oh we have another designer doing blue. Follow me over here…” I could see quickly if I was here I would be just a blue top. Or worse, the black one the client didn’t want.

So I called some of the boutiques I had met, asked them for the name of a great salesperson - three stores mentioned the same woman - I called her and hired her. We worked out a salary heavily contingent on sales; we both had skin in the game. One of the best decisions I ever made.

The next best decision? Doing our own shipping. When I speak with young designers it’s one of the first things they say they’re doing but will they’re looking actively to hire a shipping company. I tell them STOP and do the math first. How much are they really shipping out? 3 orders a day? If sales double in 6 months will that be 6 a day? And in a year, if you’re now really rolling, you know how much a package costs to ship - in terms of time and money, how long returns take to process, etc. And like me, you may decide that it makes sense to just hire someone to do your shipping in a really scrappy way (that was my mom) so that you own the customer relationships, so you can ship out quickly when needed, you won’t be charged for sneezing. Hiring someone working from home, we were able to ship out $3mm in annual sales. That person getting a small space and hiring one more person, we could get to $7mm. Getting a 20,000 sqft warehouse in Georgia, hiring a manager and 6 of the most amazing team members ever, we ship out 10x that. And I know all the warehouse team’s names and they watch Love Island in the breakroom at lunch and fill us in on what’s happening between Cierra and Austin. Those are people not cities.

Fact 3: Sell only to customers that share your mindset.

You are reading this because you are small, independent and looking to be able to control your destiny. It’s important that you know your mindset, and work ONLY with those that share it. I don’t mean only those that love your interesting pants you’ve designed. I mean those who value the same things as you do. For example:

• Find customers who believe that small is good, that to be human is best. People who care about the “about” section, and want to support independent designers because all this individuality feels electric and the mega brands and sameness out there is depressing. By just being great, you’ll help them understand that COS is indeed H&M, that luxury materials are luxury because of the 80 year old Italian family business that wove them, that all good things take time and that humans make mistakes. Insist on being treated like a human but commit to doing the same for your customer. It’s a two way street.

• Explain yourself to your customers. Not only do you owe it to them, you owe it to yourself. The more you do it, you’ll sharpen what you stand for - and if you aren’t visibly clear about it, then others won’t be able to see you. Remember, facts are: you are up against giant Fast Fashion houses posing as smaller luxury brands, dupes posing as same for less. Let people know you are not a massive conglomerate that has carved out a tiny segment to appear as thoughtful while churning out the black smoke in the back. And remember, let them know it NOT by saying what I just said, but by just being human and deeply caring about your work.

Fact 4: There is no such thing as an expert - at least in Fashion.

Listening to an expert today is like assuming that Alexander Graham Bell is going to help you figure out why your iphone isn’t working.

Fact 5: Specialty stores have to make money too.

Sherri, Lance, Max, Wendi, Yasemin, Hank, Bo, Laurance - the owners of these stores are human- they have families, they’re invested in their brand just like you; they’re human. Treat them as business partners, do it well, and you’ll get the same in return. They need to be able to sell what you ship them - you have to ship on time, it has to fit consistently (as you’ve determined the fit to be - and it’s your job to be clear about that), you have to promote them. And trust me, that first line - ship on time - that’s a fucking beast right now - everything is being thrown at all of us. So if you’re going to be late, bust your ass to make sure you’re helping them sell. It’s a tough business, that’s the reality, but if you’re both working to a common cause it makes it bearable, and often really fun.

Fact 6: You have to visit the stores yourself - no dms, no emails.

Specialty stores tell me this all the time - they’re inundated with DM’s and emails from new designers. They say designers don’t even call any more, let alone walk in the store, visit, see what their store is about. You have to do this. It’s exhausting but I promise, you will learn so much, relationships matter, and you really can’t try and sell Kickpleat in Austin a satin turquiose stretch mini dress and if you visited her store you’d know why.

Fact 7: Eat only what you kill.

I started with 4 styles. Then 20. Then more. Design, make, sell, collect and then take the funds and do it again. Just a bit more. Each collection you’re learning, refining, and self funding. The businesses that succeed often did it because they had the luxury of a small purse. It forces you to actually sell what you make, figure shit out. If I’d been handed an investor check in year 2, there’s no way I’d have the company I have today: small by any standards in this industry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fact 8: Price to make money

You can not compete with fast fashion like COS and Massimo Dutti (or at least the companies who them). You can not compete on scale. And you’re not hiring Bella or Kendall to front your brand. What that means is:

• congrats, you’re authentic, and to a lot of people that means something. Own it and run with it. Explain that your fabric costs $30 a yard, the dress took 3 yards of fabric (thats $90 in fabric costs alone if you show the math), that the workmanship has French seams, wide seam allowances, etc. Prices are expensive enough based on the costs of workmanship and materials; thank goodness you’re not a brand that has to factor in a $2mm runway show and a Hadid campaign model - can you imagine how high you’d have to price your leather jacket with all that branding image spend? Being smaller and independent lets you keep the pricing tethered to the true value you are offering. That’s good.

Fact 10: It’s not fair, never was. Embrace it, this is where good things happen.

Go slow, and make sure that everything you are doing is creative and pragmatic. When you find yourself making decisions that are solely for pragmatic reasons, or creative just for the sake of creativity, STOP. Find the blend of both. Use this as your test for which direction your next step should be. Keep your head down long enough and you ‘ll look up to find you’ve landed in a place truly unique. Your own. And that may not measure up to other brands - but that’s not just ok, it’s exactly the point. Because by now you’ve created your own form of measurement. And this, this is how we’ve measured our success at Tibi. Which makes us wildly successful, according to our terms. Which since were human, at the end of the day, do anyone else’s terms really matter?

Fyi, if you’re interested, Almost Reckless details a lot of this journey with solid tips on how to ignore that algorithm and forge your own path. It’s a good read, promise.