How do you deal with a really intense fashion calendar?
You see I am quite of torn on that topic because I am a designer and I run a Business. Obviously the volume of work we have to put out is really quite draining and also financially to find the money to produce, manufacture, deliver and showcase a collection four times a year is huge.
And I am a consumer. If I go shopping and there is nothing new I’m pissed off. I get why you need to do that. So what I try to do with House of Holland is through a lot of collaborations and partnerships is I am able to keep offering my customer new and exciting things and get other people to pay for it.
We’re fully self-funded and don’t have any investment. So there is no way that I could financially release a line with [inaudible] shoes. So, I did with [inaudible], or release a full line with denim, so I did it with Levis, just did it with Lee.
So, there are ways of releasing new product with all the pressure being on yourself and by partnering with other people. Also it’s an amazing way of learning and growing as a designer and as a business because doing a range of shoes with somebody else, you learn so much about footwear production and footwear design and the restrictions.
Denim for example, is a notoriously difficult fabrication to work in. The wash, the shirkage. All of these really boring things. But if you partner with a company like Levis and they have 55 factories around the world and they say if you want to do that effect you do that factory, where as to start from scratch by yourself at in the middle of Hackney you be like … urgh.
What is the future of House of Holland?
We are at the point now where we want to start focusing on being more direct to our consumers. The wholesale market is an evolving changing model, which people are increasingly finding more and more difficult to work in and grow a business within at a certain level. The real exciting part of the industry is more around ecommerce and online. Just because you have that direct connection with your customer and you get that direct feedback. And you are able to build a brand so much quicker on a global scale. The old concept of build a wholesale business, get a flagship retail… kind of just evaporated.
The rents, rates and thing are impossible and crippling for designers unless you have the backing of someone with a lot of money.
What is the process of choosing a footwear designer to work with on collaborations?
It’s more about being approached. We still do get approached by designers, footwear designers and there’s so many catwalk designers that buy their shoes and borrow them for the purposes of their catwalk shows because it’s such a big expense. It’s an amazing opportunity for young and aspiring footwear designers to approach designers…
How do you work out production costs, recommended retail price and how do you calculate that through?
By getting it wrong! I in the same way as we were talking about learning different fabrics and different embellishments and techniques…. I know definitely made some really big mistakes on that side.
The thing that people admit to tell you when start a fashion label is, as much as it is the best job in the world because you sit there and you make up things in your head and you put them on paper and make them into reality, that’s the best job in the world, without the money to make it into reality the whole thing doesn’t exist.
You [can’t] have one without the other, they can’t not coexist. So they’re just importantly as each other. Just as much as you are learning about how to cut a dress, you also have to learn about how to do PR, you also need to make sure someone files your tax return all those things and they are so dry.
What you need is somebody who is like a partner who is much more financially and operationally focused. And is like OK, how many pieces are we going to do this season and how are we going to deliver them, who are we going to work on production? Somebody with that brain because if you try and do it all yourself is, which is what I have pretty much done is it’s really, really difficult and one of them is always going to suffer.
If you are focused on the creative side and the product side which you need to be, then the business side is going to suffer and visa versa. And so it is really really difficult unless you have somebody.
So I say if you are going to develop something, then try and find that person as soon as you possibly can.
The thing that people admit to tell you when start a fashion label is, as much as it is the best job in the world because you sit there and you make up things in your head and you put them on paper and make them into reality, that’s the best job in the world, without the money to make it into reality the whole thing doesn’t exist.
You [can’t] have one without the other, they can’t not coexist. So they’re just importantly as each other. Just as much as you are learning about how to cut a dress, you also have to learn about how to do PR, you also need to make sure someone files your tax return all those things and they are so dry.
What you need is somebody who is like a partner who is much more financially and operationally focused. And is like OK, how many pieces are we going to do this season and how are we going to deliver them, who are we going to work on production? Somebody with that brain because if you try and do it all yourself is, which is what I have pretty much done is it’s really, really difficult and one of them is always going to suffer.
If you are focused on the creative side and the product side which you need to be, then the business side is going to suffer and visa versa. And so it is really really difficult unless you have somebody.
So I say if you are going to develop something, then try and find that person as soon as you possibly can.
