What The F&%@! Does It take To Make It As A Young Designer In Menswear!
What the F#%@! does it take to make it as a young designer in menswear? Easy, HAVE A TAKE!!
HAVE A REAL AND UNIQUE POINT OF VIEW. Don't mistake "having a take" though, with creating a watered-down "just for sales" driven product. And not having a "serious" product does not mean not having a dead serious plan for how to grow your business.
Confused?
Let's look at one of my favorite men's collections Duckie Brown
The first time I saw Duckie Brown was in Barneys a few years ago. It was a beautiful, simple jacket, until you looked at the back, which had a huge, colorful, felt house appliqued on the back. The other day at Barneys, I fell in love all over again
with a red plaid sportcoat, with all of the colors of the jacket echoed in tiny beads sewn around the hem of the jacket.
Steven and Daniel, the "Duckies" of Duckie Brown, have not played it safe. What has it gotten them? Only some of the most prestigious accounts in the world, like Barneys, Fred Segal, Harrod's and Harvey Nichols; a cast of Hollywood hunks, like Jude Law (do we really need to add anyone after him?), and pages and pages of press. I have so much respect for people that know they are doing it the hard way, do it anyway, and still succeed.
Duckie Brown is winning, not because of big pockets full money, but pure creativity, vision and a little humour. Notice that's "humour" with an extra British "u"; humour like "The Office".
Checkout their website, the photography is great.
HAVE A REAL AND UNIQUE POINT OF VIEW. Don't mistake "having a take" though, with creating a watered-down "just for sales" driven product. And not having a "serious" product does not mean not having a dead serious plan for how to grow your business.
Confused?
Let's look at one of my favorite men's collections Duckie Brown
The first time I saw Duckie Brown was in Barneys a few years ago. It was a beautiful, simple jacket, until you looked at the back, which had a huge, colorful, felt house appliqued on the back. The other day at Barneys, I fell in love all over again
with a red plaid sportcoat, with all of the colors of the jacket echoed in tiny beads sewn around the hem of the jacket. Steven and Daniel, the "Duckies" of Duckie Brown, have not played it safe. What has it gotten them? Only some of the most prestigious accounts in the world, like Barneys, Fred Segal, Harrod's and Harvey Nichols; a cast of Hollywood hunks, like Jude Law (do we really need to add anyone after him?), and pages and pages of press. I have so much respect for people that know they are doing it the hard way, do it anyway, and still succeed.
Duckie Brown is winning, not because of big pockets full money, but pure creativity, vision and a little humour. Notice that's "humour" with an extra British "u"; humour like "The Office".
Checkout their website, the photography is great.
Comments on "What The F&%@! Does It take To Make It As A Young Designer In Menswear!"
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Anonymous said ... (1:58 PM) :
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The Sartorialist said ... (2:22 PM) :
post a commentGreat stuff. I would love to hear the story of how they started, any details? I think you last statment is a little misleading, it takes alot more than creative vision to make it to those stores and get the press they have, perhaps connections? Who knows?
Honestly you can get into those stores (the fashion leaders) with just creativity. Stores like Barneys do hunt for their kind of talent. The press is always looking for something interesting to shoot.
It is the next level of stores ,like Saks that is more cautious, where connections help. Only one of them worked in fashion but I'm not aware of any highly important connections.