Fashion Careers, The Business
« Ten Investors Who Take Chances on Smaller Fashion Labels
By Lauren Sherman Thursday, Jul 8, 2010 / 11:00 AM
6. Serge Azria
Azria backs trouser label Joie; more recently he has invested in the relaunched Equipment (shown on Carine, left), as well as Current Elliott.
7. Jeffrey Aronsson, Aronsson Group
In the past, former Donna Karan CEO Aronsson has invested in Ginny H.–Ginny Hilfiger’s collection. (She’s the sister of Tommy Hilfiger.) He also partnered with Traub to invest in Matthew Williamson and Rachel Roy.
8. Seventh Capital
This New York-based investment firm’s main focus is small and mid-sized companies. The interest is in e-commerce, so if you’re not a designer but have an idea for an online retailer, or if you sell your goods primarily on the web, it might be worth looking into.
9. Permira
This London-based private equity firm picked up the Valentino Fashion Group a few years ago, along with Proenza Schouler, but have had difficulty selling off both.
10. Bartel Family
This European family made its fortune off of a travel website, but now it’s making loftier investments. First up? Lanvin and Devi Kroell. Who’s next? Who knows….
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Caroline Brown is actually the new president of Carolina Herrera. She’s not with Chris Burch anymore.
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.