California Apparel News

Though job growth in the local apparel market has been challenged as of late, the search for jobs has ironically become a growth industry in Southern California.

The changing employment profile within the fashion industry has spawned new demand for staffing agencies, headhunters, recruiters and the like, which are sprouting up to accommodate an industry adjusting to the new economy. As manufacturing continues to shift overseas, Los Angeles and other local fashion bases have become more populated with designers, importers and CAD/CAM specialists. That has created new opportunities for recruiters looking to fill niches.

Within the past 18 months, a number of recruiters have set up shop in Southern California, and these new-breed agencies aren’t like the agencies of yesteryear. They’re geared up to supply a new wave of talent that is more creative-based and more flexible than ever.

Adam Reiter, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based startup Fashion Resume, said the emergence of agencies in the Los Angeles market is partly the result of recruiters losing jobs themselves.

“This company was started out of survival, but we really wanted to be a source of information, more than you can get from the whispers on the plane home from MAGIC [International],” he said. “The fashion industry is hemorrhaging jobs right now, and this is one of the first areas where they cut back. No one is paying $30,000 executive-search fees anymore, especially when the retail industry has an attrition rate of around 96 percent.”

So why are Reiter and others launching new agencies? Opportunity, he said. Fashion Resume is providing services at flat fees of $350 to $700, undercutting traditional agencies, which charge 25 percent to 30 percent of first-year salaries. The company is also using the Internet as a tool and is narrowing its focus to the soft-goods industry, though it’s starting to expand into home furnishings. To keep its finger on the pulse of the fashion industry, Reiter and partner Suzanne Theodore have also aligned with CLAD (Coalition of Los Angeles Designers) and will be hosting industry seminars this year.

Fashion Resume staffs everybody from designers to graphic designers, pattern makers, sales reps, IT and MIS pros and store-level employees. But the jobs companies want are changing. As the fashion industry becomes more global, Reiter and Theodore are seeing stronger demand for utility players, those who can wear many hats.

“There’s a big push for retailers to get more progressive, with companies like Kohl’s coming in and Target becoming more [branded]. These retailers are looking for more creative talent.”

Reiter said that denim designers are in demand on the wholesale side and private-label specialists are coming into demand in retail.

Keva Dine, who launched her Del Mar, Calif.-based agency in November, is also tapping into the creative talent pool in a big way. The co-founder of Poot! Clothing, Dine, also known as Keva Marie, is supplying art directors, graphic designers, Web designers, copywriters, publicity agents and more to the apparel industry and others.

Dine said she realized there was a void in matching up talent for companies and brands that are Gen Y-centric and Web-savvy. Dine has been immersed in the Southern California counterculture, having worked on fanzines including Foxy and JUMP and on projects for retailers including Bebe, Wet Seal and others. She helped establish the “Girls Kick Ass” moniker for Poot!, and during the course of her work regularly matched talent for talent, which led to a position at Randstad, an international recruitment agency.

“I just loved putting people together. I realized I had this affinity for producing and matching people and projects together, so this was a natural step,” she said.

With the Keva Dine Agency, Dine hopes to establish herself as the boutique agency for employers across the state.

“I’m focusing on quality and doing one-on-one brand repositioning. There are a lot of people on the market. It’s a client’s market and they can have their pick.”

Los Angeles-based 24 Seven opened on the West Coast last summer after establishing itself on the East Coast. The company has found a niche in the freelance market providing designers, CAD/CAM artists, pattern makers, graphic designers and production workers to the apparel industry.

As fashion companies remain strapped for cash, they are trying to maximize their human assets, and companies such as 24 Seven are trying to help.

“You’re seeing staffs of 10 being reduced to three and these companies will add freelancers during crunch time,” said Tammy Chatkin, director of the agency’s West Coast office. “A lot of companies are finding they can’t afford full-time talent anymore.”

24 Seven’s concept has caught on as it has worked with an impressive client roster that includes Polo, Joie, Pacific Sunwear, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne, Ann Taylor, Gap and J.Crew. The company tries to find workers who can do multiple tasks and do them well. It has also been finding a niche in supplying tech-savvy workers who can do CAD/CAM work and other tech jobs—talent that sometimes is difficult to find.

“We pull talent from both coasts to fill our positions. The design side is a little weaker in Los Angeles, so that’s the challenging part,” said Chatkin, a former GUESS? Inc. recruiter who teaches a class at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

While these new agencies are finding challenges, so are the veterans of the industry.

Brian Thaler, of Scott-Thaler Associates in Los Angeles, said he has found it increasingly difficult to find good people.

“The area has changed with international and domestic companies and people opening their own companies, but we’ve been around for 22 years. Part of the reason is that we have the same objective as the clients and candidates,” Thaler said. “We want them to succeed, so we take the extra step to know what the clients and candidates are looking for because sometimes they don’t know exactly. We’ll sit down and sometimes spend a couple days with the companies. People that trust us know us.”