1. Andrew Rosen
The Theory founder and CEO is also an investor in Alice & Olivia, Rag & Bone, and Helmut Lang. He invests publicly and privately in brands.
2. Marvin Traub, Marvin Traub Associates
While Traub, best known for his years at Bloomingdale’s, mostly consults for big companies, he is also a partial investor in brands like Rachel Roy and Matthew Williamson. (Sources say that at this moment, Traub is not looking to invest in more labels. But who knows what 2011 will bring.)
3. Sage LLC
This Los Angeles-based private equity firm invests in small to mid-market labels. (Since this is L.A., that means lots of denim.) These are the people you reach out to when you’ve built a successful business and want to take it a step further.
4. J Christopher Capital
This private equity firm is currently invested in Tory Burch, as well as non-fashion brands like Jawbone.
5. Ramez Toubassy, Brand Sense Partners
This firm mostly does brand consulting for big corporations, but it recently invested in a few fashion and lifestyle companies, including label Canvas and Tribe.
Another viable option for emerging designers is crowdsourcing, which has been used successfully for other endeavors, such as start-up/completion funds for books or film. The best studied internet site for the crowdsourcing phenomena is Threadless, which creates t-shirts based on submitted designs from which the creator can earn funds as well. Newer sites have evolved which strictly solicit funds from its members for various projects, such as Kickstarter.
Kickstarter doesn't cater to fashion specifically, but designers have been able to obtain funding through posting well-defined projects (“help me put together my fall collection” vs. general funds for business growth). FashionStake, which will launch in the US this fall, intends to harness crowdsourcing specifically for fashion designers, with a “monetary incentive” that includes clothing and cash — however, it remains to be seen how a crowdsourcing system could be set up to allow for the purchase of shares, which is what the big investors depend upon.
WWD had a well-written article about the nascent use of crowdsourcing in the fashion industry (not sure if this article is free or subscriber only — Lauren, if it is subscriber, perhaps you'd like to do a part II on how to get funds as a new designer?):
<http://www.wwd.com/markets-news/crowdsourcing-c...>
This place is great!
http://wethepeoplenyc.com/
I had the opportunity to meet the owner and she is extremely passionate about helping emerging designers.
Good one! I definitely will.
There is a new site called Fashinvest http://www.fashinvest.com/pages.php?page=62 that has a similar goal.
Stay tuned, and thanks, Foochy!
cool, thanks!
Adam Lippes worked for Oscar de la Renta.
Yeah, and Ralph Lauren.