It’s been too long since our last installment of “How I’m Making It,” so we’re reviving the series with a pair of young designers on a mission. Jesse Finkelstein and Katie King design JF & SON, a line they launched just over three years ago and sell out of their LES storefront on 19 Kenmare Street. The line focuses on beautiful textiles and handwork, which they produce out of their studio in New Delhi. As globalization and cheap production overseas sadly forces many designers to produce parts or all of their collections in Asia to stay competitive and profitable (though we laud the many designers who make efforts keep as much production as possible in New York’s Garment District), the mission behind JF & SON was to find a way to produce responsibly overseas. Here’s how they’re making it work.

How did you two meet?
Jesse: We met at a factory in the garment district–it was very glamorous. Katie was working for another company at the time and my company was beginning to get itself together and then Katie and I started talking and I brought her over and it became a new thing. We started by trying to figure out how to do production overseas in a responsible way. I really had no clue what i was doing until katie came along. We learned on the job as we worked together. There was a studio in Delhi that we started almost six years ago and it was six people. When Katie came on board we reorganized the studio and now we’re at 60 people.

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