California Apparel News

For many in the local design community, small business means big opportunities, as well as big risks

Despite its fixation on the next new thing and ample manufacturing resources, Los Angeles can be a tough town for young designers.

In spite of well-received collections, two Los Angeles designers—Coco Kliks and Desanka’s Desa Fasiska—are putting their own lines on the back burner in favor of working for someone else.

Kliks launched her eponymous line of couture tops in 2000. Three years later, the Thai-born transplant debuted her pricier, artfully embellished designer collection during Los Angeles Fashion Week at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios. Her work, known for its playful, vintage-inspired shapes and quirky details, was a hit with retailers and stylists alike.

In October, Kliks announced a partnership with Los Angeles–based investment firm Quorom Funds. The injection of funds was supposed to help the company offer larger collections and more deliveries. Even so, Kliks recently announced that she is closing shop and her Fall 2006 collection will be her last.

The decision comes after a recent visit to Paris, where she lived for several years. The city and its fashion inspired her, “but it’s time to move on,” she said.

Where she’ll move and what she’ll do are still undecided. But New York and Paris are looking like possibilities.

“I think I want to work for someone else for a while,” Kliks said. Owning her own business was “incredibly challenging, but it prepared me for bigger things.”

Fasiska launched Desanka, her contemporary line of draped dresses and knits three years ago. The line, which hung alongside more established brands in such upscale boutiques as Satine and Yellow, had been struggling recently to reconcile the high costs of domestic production with the prohibitive minimums of more-affordable overseas manufacturers.

Owning her own line had proven to be such a financial burden that Fasiska recently decided to put the line on the back burner after shipping her Fall 2006 collection.

“I don’t think my line was unsuccessful,” she said. “It was in a lot of stores, and I feel like I did pretty well—especially considering this was my first time out.”

The stumbling blocks, she said, were the demands of producing a contemporary line. Expensive contemporary fabrics and labor made margins tight despite the price point.

“Every collection has to be new and different— different fabrics, different shapes, different everything,” she said. “At the end of the day, after paying the sewers and all my overhead, there was no margin basically. My sewers were buying houses, but I couldn’t afford my own clothes.”

To make ends meet, Fasiska has taken on freelance design work but will retain her studio and staff in downtown Los Angeles. “I want to design for other people and get a steady paycheck,” she said.

First up is a stint designing a private label line for an upscale Los Angeles specialty store. The designer also will host studio sales to unload Fall and Holiday merchandise.

Eventually, Fasiska hopes to re-launch a restructured version of Desanka—if she can find a partner or investor. “It’s too hard to do a line without backing,” she said.

Field of dreams

If brands fail in Los Angeles, it’s not for lack of talent, said Tracy Wilkinson, owner/designer of the contemporary line Mon Petit Oiseau. “If you’re independent, you can’t just be a designer; you have to be the business head as well.”

Money—or a lack of financial backers—is ultimately what buries some young designers.

“Banks just won’t bother with you, and you have to find a way of financing yourself before anyone will invest in your business,” Wilkinson said.

And the same creativity that is embraced by the local market can sometimes leave a designer holding the bag.

“If you produce a flop, it can ruin you,” Wilkinson said. “Larger designers can absorb the loss, but smaller designers might never recover from it.”

Even with the challenges, Los Angeles is a market where young designers and small companies hold the upper hand, according to Ken Wengrod, president and founder of factor FTC Commercial Corp.

“It’s a celebrity-driven market. L.A. customers want a quick turnaround and edgy design,” he said. “Small companies have the benefit of having agility. They can respond quickly to the market. Plus, young designers are their own demographic. They truly understand what the market wants.”

Local manufacturers also have been trained to accommodate the needs of small businesses. “It’s a short-run mentality here,” Wengrod said. “The East Coast mentality is long run.”

Fasiska said she would do things differently the next time around.

“I’d pick one fabric—like jersey or cotton— and stick with it season after season,” she said, citing the success her friend and fellow young designer, Rachel Pally, had with her collection of high-end jersey separates. “The fabric is more affordable, labor is cheaper and you can still be creative with your design,” Fasiska said.

As Kliks and Fasiska make their exits, there are plenty of other designers trying to make it in the city.

Santa Barbara, Calif.–based Kara Smith, co-owner and co-designer of contemporary brand Karanina, said Los Angeles is a stronghold for upcoming trends and offers her brand a lot of creative freedom. Still, she acknowledged, production can be a struggle even if all the resources are at hand.

“It can get expensive,” Smith said. “We don’t get as good pricing as the larger companies.”

Strict quality control and short lead times make local manufacturing the only option for Karanina. The brand produced one season overseas, but Smith said the savings weren’t worth it because she had no way of controlling quality.

“We’ll never do it again,” she said. “We want our clothes to be valuable—and producing them on the cheap is not the right way to do it.”

Todd Magill, a native New Yorker and designer of the Los Angeles–based contemporary line Wyeth, said Los Angeles is more affordable for young designers in terms of production and rent than New York.

Beyond that, Magill said the more-relaxed West Coast lifestyle is conducive to his work.

“I get to New York a lot for inspiration, but I came to L.A. to get away from the stress,” he said.

Wilkinson places high value on the creative freedom the city encourages.

“There’s more freedom to be eclectic here than in New York,” she said. “My line, for example, has an English, European, sort of French look. It’s a mix of all the places I’ve lived, but I think L.A. is the best place for it.”

And Wilkinson believes L.A. influences fashion internationally. When she goes back to England, she sees the sexy-casual Hollywood vibe.

Young designers in Los Angeles have the added benefit of a rapt audience.

“Retailers in L.A. love new brands—much more so than in New York,” Wilkinson said. “They’re willing to take a chance and try to get brands in their store first.”

But the easy attention comes at a price.

“It’s great because they can get into stores more easily, but it can be a case of in today, gone tomorrow, if they don’t get the chance to build the brand within a store,” she said.