Roundtable #2 was GREAT!
June 24, 2009 • Uncategorized • Comments
On June 4, 2009, the Atlanta Fashion Incubator hosted its Second Symposium entitled the “Business of Fashion: Issues and Answers for the Atlanta Fashion Industry Entrepreneurs.” The Atlanta Fashion Incubator, though a fairly new name in the Atlanta Industry, is headed and befriended by a knowledgeable base of “quiet” industry giants who have been in the Industry for decades.
The evening was the beginning of promising efforts to “to nurture, support, and promote the Atlanta Fashion Industry and to encourage size diversity in the Industry,” CEO Cynthia K. Johnson stated. The event was moderated by E. Vincent Martinez, a colorful and extremely elegant professor of fashion, who heads Atlanta’s only fashion program for high school students at Grady.
The panel was an impressive group of individuals who no doubt have learned the various facets of the fashion industry and are dedicated to rearing neophyte designers into the business with the intention that those designers escape some of hardships they themselves endured. The panel included Kiran Bindra, CEO of In.Style Exchange (IX); Karron English, of English Design Laboratory; Michael Hecht, of Project e; and Claire Jason of PZI Jeans.
The event touched on several issues that plagued the Fashion Industry in general and the Atlanta Fashion Industry specifically. To start, there is a lack of resources available to meet the demands of Atlanta’s rapidly growing Fashion Industry. In particular, designers expressed frustrations in finding local pattern makers and production companies. Because most production companies produce samples in dozens, it is often difficult for newcomers to find production companies willing to produce small sample lots. Many participants found outsourcing unnecessary when Atlanta hosts both empty facilities and hungry jobseekers. Panelist Claire Jason is one of few in Atlanta who has been able to keep most to all of production within her own facility in Stone Mountain, Georgia, but Ms. Jason expressed her own frustrations with advertising and public relations needs not being met within Atlanta.
The best advice offered by the panelists is for designers educate themselves on all aspects of the Fashion Business. It appeared the panelists were unanimous on this point. Kiran Bindra, says that she “gets lots of calls saying graduation is next week or I have graduated and I am ready, ” and guest Dean Dyer added, “Designers forget about the real nuts and bolts. … It takes an army of people to do this stuff.” Panelists Michael Hecht and Karron English added their own experiences. English, one of the few panelists, formerly trained in fashion design, suggested designers work “two to three years with a reputable designer, ” while Hecht followed with the benefits of such: learning, making connections, and finding answers to the myriad of unanswered questions many designers are afraid to ask or may not even know think about when consider when entering the business. Hecht also suggested that emerging designers attend trade shows and symposiums.
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