From Class to Couture

Harvard seniors beware: if you’re looking for job security, structure and certainty, you’d better stick to finance.

Perhaps it’s that as soon as Janet L. Kim ’04 was offered a job at the esteemed French atelier Rochas in July of 2006, the company quickly folded and closed its doors for good.

Perhaps it’s that despite a degree from Harvard (in Visual and Environmental Studies, no less), Kim hardly had the skill sets and knowledge of design necessary to make it in the industry—a problem she sought to solve at at La Chambre Syndicale, the last of the couture schools in Paris.

Or perhaps, even, it was internships at Marc Jacobs and Dior Couture notwithstanding, Kim still failed to get a job offer from Polo Ralph Lauren, one of the few fashion companies that recruits at Harvard.

The fashion industry—bold in its repose, serene in its vicissitudes—gives off the impression of largely being inexplicable. With trends changing faster than the custody of Britney Spears’ children, the largest threat to designer-alums is that nothing in fashion is ever certain. “In this industry, uncertainty is everything,” says Kim. And getting over that fact is the first cut-and-sew these designers have to make in their careers.


THE GODFATHER OF THEM ALL

In the category of Harvard alums turned fashion moguls, the conversation begins and ends with John P. Bartlett ’85.

The designer of his own eponymous menswear label, John Bartlett, he was the celebrated enfant terrible of the 90’s. The Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 1994 New Fashion Talent of the year, and 1997 Menswear designer of the year, his collections of ironic preppy androgyny were absolutely groundbreaking. Of his highly influential and landmark “Noble Savage” collection , he told The New York Times on August 3, 1993 that it was for a man “daydreaming about cashing in his Gucci loafers for a lean-to on Easter Island.”

Yet despite the intellectualism, the Rousseau references, and the mass-critical acclaim, Bartlett failed to “cash in” on the buzz (as if such things even hold monetary values). And though he did reach annual sales of $6 million—substantial for a relatively small and niche label—the revenues were hardly comparable to the one-man tour de force efforts Mr. Bartlett was routinely exhibiting.

Living meagerly out of his suitcase for four years, Bartlett decided to close his company in 2002 (citing both creative and financial reasons), before reopening in 2004 to mild reviews, and milder designs.


THE NEW GENERATION

Though very few from these cobblestone Cambridge roads could match the influence Bartlett had on the industry, it is likely that he will not remain so wholly singular in his achievements for too long.

Two recent undergraduate alumni, Elizabeth R. Whitman ’06 of Lewis Albert and Kristen D. O’Neill ’07 of Porter Grey, stand as CEOs of design labels that have risen in considerable prominence in the fashion world—a prominence so extreme that they refused comment to their alma mater’s newspaper. (Because of PR constraints and commitments to other magazines, neither would grant interviews for this article).

But there is much more to the fashion world than shows in Bryant Park tents and mentions in Condé Nast magazines—just two of the accomplishments that Lewis Albert and Porter Grey respectively are making. And in the off-7th-avenue culture of New York, Harvard alums are quietly making a few rumbles.

After graduating in 2004, Janet Kim spent a year on the production team for the design label Proenza Schouler—a door- opening opportunity for which she can only account for by her “faith in God”—and found that if she wanted to launch a career in the fashion world, she was going to have to do it right. That meant going back to school to study couture, and starting from the ground floor up. But not without a few moments of uncertainty.

“I was supposed to work at Rochas, but then that fell through,” Kim recounts. “And I found that, if I wanted to have my own line, I had to start it now. You have two choices: work for someone else, or start your own thing. And after awhile it’s like, you’re always going to be working for someone else.”

Starting one’s own business is always a humongous risk, but for Kim, it all came down to one simple phrase: “It’s now or never.”


GETTING STARTED

Trickling down the rue Saint-Honoré, down the street from her couture school, Kim found herself drawn to the famed Paris boutique Colette—and in particular, to their sophisticated collection of graphic T-shirts. Perhaps the rugged hipster appeal of an “I ;-) Paris” T-shirt (a Colette staple) didn’t necessarily cater to her interests, but it planted a seed of designs yet to come for Kim.

“I did a lot of market research, and I noticed the market is saturated with a lot of silk-print tees—so I wanted to work with embroidery. I walked around the garment district looking at different laces and thought it would be cool to put it in the T-shirt.”

And from these humble beginnings came her design label Graey. Using couture techniques to make high-end T-shirts, her designs revolve around cleverly placed cut-outs into which a soft lace embroidery of thick-gauge is sown, creating a look that is not only marketable and sophisticated in its sexiness, but also unique in the larger scope of designer tees.

And it is that exact quality of a business—to be above all else, unique—that so many design labels lack today. Yet although creativity usually does bode well for revenues, sometimes even that fails to bring home the dough.


‘I JUST SELL DRESSES’

Tiffany Chantra ’04 also appreciates the necessity of creativity.

“Fashion is a business,” says Chantra, “and at the end of the day, it’s like what Karl Lagerfeld said: ‘I just sell dresses.” While Chantra designs shoes for her label Dru instead of selling dresses, Lagerfeld’s message and sentiment remain relevant.

And if this sounds at all hasty for someone working in an industry so driven by artistry and creativity as fashion, it will come as no surprise that Chantra’s first job after college was an entry-level position at the management consulting firm Monitor.

Her design philosophy is simple: a shoe that can translate easily from the office, to a restaurant, and to cocktails later on. Stripping down her company of all the mumbo-jumbo lingo of high-end design, Chantra defies comparison to the notions of crazy and eccentric fashion personalities so prevalent in popular culture today.

“At the end of the day, it’s just a market,” Chantra assures. “All of the kind of flightiness goes out the window.”


THE FUTURE OF HARVARD AND FASHION

While admittedly a difficult field to enter, Harvard is beginning to make strides in the fashion industry. One such up-and-comer is Tracy A. Fong ’04. Fong opened her boutique, Trace, in Hong Kong two years ago, and already her company is seeing revenues in the six figures. Sarah E. Johnston ’03, formerly a jewelry designer at David Yurman, is now focused exclusively on her own jewelry line SISU, which has seen meager but successful sales for the past two years. And it doesn’t stop with alumni. Anotnio A. Pino ’10’s shirt company Di Porto has sold out of samples, and mainly due to Harvard’s business. Timothy M. Parent ’09, whose charity fashion show Project East is slated for a November 4th exhibition and banquet, was written about in The Boston Globe.

So let this be a lesson to both current and former Harvard student fashion hopefuls: the fashion industry is not as inaccessible as you think.

It just takes a bit of courage—and of course, certainty—in a world where both are as bare as a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals.