California Apparel News

Fashion companies looking for lifelines from the COVID-19 economic freeze found assistance with grants from A Common Thread CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund for COVID-19 Relief. The fund is a project of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue magazine. A fund statement said that it was meant to raise awareness of fashion’s financial crisis caused by the pandemic. The initiative was announced in April.

The first round of grants was awarded on May 28 with $2.2 million divided among 44 designers, retailers and factories. This round included California–headquartered designers Rodarte, downtown Los Angeles retailer Departamento and Off The Wall Printing, which has worked with brands such as Fear of God and Amiri. Off The Wall Printing also manufactures merchandise for music star J. Balvin, said Off The Wall Printing co-owner Brian Boles.

Since then, a couple of rounds of the campaign’s grant distribution have taken place. The most recent took place in mid-June when a second round of grants was announced. For this round, a total of $1.015 million was divided among 36 companies including Circular Systems, S.P.C., a pioneering sustainability company headquartered in Los Angeles. Circular Systems received the Global Change Award for turning food crop waste into sustainable goods from the H&M Foundation.

The second round of A Common Thread grant winners also included retailers the Hero Shop in San Francisco; The Parliament on 3rd St. in Los Angeles; Pink Lagoon in Solana Beach, Calif.; and Sunroom in Malibu, Calif. Also named was the Santa Fe Springs, Calif.–headquartered dye-works company Final Finish.

The grant from A Common Thread and the Small Business Administration Payment Protection Program loan were lifelines to Off The Wall Printing, which employs nine people and has been in business since 2007, Boles said.

“I feel blessed that they gave us the opportunity to continue business. They helped us tremendously,” Boles said of the grants and loans. “The brands that I work with are happy. They are super ecstatic that we’re still around.”

Boles and his wife, Megan Godfrey, who is Off The Wall Printing’s co-owner, applied for the grant in April. CFDA informed them that they were going to receive the grant in mid-May. Boles said that the A Common Thread grant and the SBA loan would cover 20 weeks of payroll for his company.

Off The Wall has gained more business since many other printing companies have shuttered in the past few months. Those business closings have been part of an acceleration of a trend that has been taking place in Boles’s neighborhood, an industrial section of Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights’ district, during the past five years.

Before 2015, it was the address to more than 60 fashion businesses. Now, the area is the address to only a handful of fashion-related businesses as breweries and art galleries moved into the neighborhood and fashion businesses started closing due to market turmoil and a shift away from wholesale to direct-to-consumer business.

Another business keeping Off the Wall Printing afloat is making personal protective equipment. The company has participated in projects helmed by healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente to make personal protective equipment to protect medical personnel and essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Off The Wall Printing will stay in the fashion game, Boles said. “We’re creatives. We’ll always stay in the fashion industry,” Boles said. “With our luxury clients, we get to try new things. It’s refreshing.”