Avion, The Beginning

Peplums, Venice Film Festival

I have traveled by myself off and on since I was sixteen. I think as soon as a I knew any better, going away and seeing a new place was always my goal. Getting on an airplane always holds a strong significance to me, so much so that when it came the time to naming my brand instead of using my name (which I think I felt a bit embarrassed to do for some reason) I chose Avion. I liked how it had a faraway sound, implying being up in the air on the way to somewhere far away. I think being away from home at times is how I find my inspiration and where I feel most relaxed- there’s nothing I like more than to see a new place and having time to explore.

I wanted to write today about how I started my Avion collection after I graduated from Parsons and how I got it off the ground. This is something I was thinking about last week as I gathered my thoughts for the coming year with work.

The question I am asked often is how to start a business, and I’ll admit I feel puzzled trying to understand how I would start a business now, since it was all a blur of hard work mixed with luck and some guided help here and there when I started in 2006. I think it is interesting that usually it seems like there is a moment when things click together and I’ll describe mine.

After showing my first solo collection, I set out to fulfill my very first order of dresses for a store called Satine in Los Angeles. I don’t remember how I met the buyer Carly but she took a risk on an unknown designer like myself and bought six dresses from my collection. (yes just 6 pieces!) I was thrilled of course to get any order from a store. At the time my dresses, while quite simple looking cocktail shapes, would get very intricate with the tailoring and hand stitching so she bought just one of each, as they were quite expensive at retail.

I remember there was one particular dress that was so complicated and in the midst of production somehow the pattern was misplaced by my production, which happens a lot. It had an asymmetrical peplum which took a long time to get the draping of it just right. My 26 year old self just threw up my hands at the thought of redraping and reproducing it for them and decided to just send the sample dress to Satine since it was the correct size. * A note to young designers, please don’t ever do that, this if anything is a parable for why not to send your prototypes.

I shipped off the box of dresses and I didn’t hear a word and just went onto working on my next collection and trying to get more stores to carry my line, while working on the weekends. At the time, I was working part time- full days on the weekends answering the phone for reservations at Per se, the Thomas Keller restaurant in the Time Warner. I think I mostly liked having to adhere to a dress code there of corporate sophisticated and also just spying and taking in everything at that place it was inspiring. I love watching the Bear, it makes me remember my experiences in fine dining. I liked this schedule because Monday- Friday I just worked all day and night on my clothes and felt I could be a full time designer.

Back to my first order, two or three months passed, and then one day I got a phone call from Carly the store buyer. She let me know all my dresses had been sold to actresses at retail, and that she hoped that it might be a good thing and help my collection. I didn’t think much of it, LA felt like a really faraway place from midtown Manhattan or my studio in the West village where I worked so I just took it as a good sign that they might reorder some more dresses and carried on.

A month later, I got a text from a friend who worked at T magazine saying, “Kathy I am pretty sure Diane Kruger is wearing your navy peplum dress on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival right now!” I was shocked. Of course I loved her style, and put two and two together that perhaps she had been one of these La buyers. She at the time did not use a stylist so she had styled herself with a belt and looked fantastic.

Now let’s back up. Just the idea that an A-list actress went out and bought something to wear on a major red carpet from an unknown designer- it just doesn’t really happen anymore sadly and it seems kind of unheard of. I went to Getty images and confirmed it was my dress, my first placement on a public person I was thrilled! The next week, another friend sent me a photo from People Magazine where Diane Kruger was shown wearing my dress as Best Dressed of the Week, which quickly syndicated all over to other publications and online. For many years people would email asking for this specific dress.

It was just interesting the spiral that happened from there and that I can pinpoint in a moment that this was when my business started to take off. I honestly don’t remember the order, I know that a friend’s boss put me up for a Vogue feature prior to that I believe that ran, but all of a sudden stores like Bergdorf Goodman and department stores that passed before on appointments were just much more interested to look at my line. I secured features in T and Vogue China that year as well. It’s just interesting to me that there is a tipping point when things open up. Of course it was an incredible amount of work that came along with it and I laugh with my husband about how when we met that I was so focused on work that I had a single bed in my work studio filled with patterns and dresses and sewing machines and dress forms, definitely no room for a guy. I had overflowed to the next door apartment to use as my showroom. I really think it takes that much focus if you want to try to do it yourself, which is hard sometimes.

I’ll say that my brand has always been very small and independently financed and it was always a struggle doing wholesale. The math is difficult without an investor with the flow of small wholesale business. The balance is incredibly hard or at least it was for me without a business partner. It’s not always easy to have a shop either, but selling your product yourself inherently is much better on the designer side of things in my opinion. The decision to leave the wholesale business for the most part was related to doing the best thing for my health which I had to choose at a certain point due to some circumstances. Sometimes I think about what if that hadn’t happened, would I have just had a different opportunity or path? I think it definitely helped me start to work with stylists at that time and dress a bunch of actresses which was great at that time to build clients and stores.

I was thinking today about how happy I am that I am still focused on the dresses and pieces that I just love to design and that I have the freedom to do that. I don’t feel pressure to make stuff just because it sells. I just introduced my newest dress Nina and I still get the same rush of excitement trying on a brand new piece, and seeing it come together. I hope I can always continue in this way with my work. I’m really grateful to my clients for supporting my work over the years, I feel lucky.

My new Nina figures print dress

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Until next time xx Kathy