American Fashion Podcast

Abe Burmeister just wanted a better pair of pants, but the quest has taken him and Outlier co-founder Tyler Clemens on a long strange road through the depths of the fashion industry. They now release a new product every week, constantly developing new ideas and trying them out on eager fans. The company has a strong ethical fashion ethos, and a fascinating product development process, which Abe details in this interview.

Two guests with very different careers talk about image making, brand preservation, new technologies, and the fashion business.

Izaskun Zabala discusses her business and history as a New York City-based jewelry designer whose major inspiration is an idea of timelessness.

An interview with Nick Blunden, Chief Commercial Officer at fashion business news site The Business of Fashion, focused on the new Business of Fashion Professional platform, but also covering BoF's mission to "open, inform, and connect the global fashion community," and how the company thinks about its member and leadership events.

The Ensign is an e-commerce platform showcasing American luxury menswear: https://theensign.us/ Co-founders Luis Morales and Jason Wagg have backgrounds defined by work for premiere labels like Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren. In this interview they discuss the state of American menswear design and domestic garment manufacturing, and the company they are running to amplify and ride its resurgence. "We really waned to highlight and create awareness in America on the design talent that is here, but also the fact that it's resolating on a global level, and that was always our goal. We wanted to take the concept of Neo-American Luxury to the global consumer." - Luis Morales "It wasn't surprising that so many Japanese retailers were very invested, and were very interested in designers that we wanted to work with that were based here in America. What was very surprising is how little American retail support they had. We understood the first part of it, but the second part was really-- it really reaffirmed that what our idea was, and what we felt our motivations were, were in the right direction." - Luis Morales "One of the exciting things about menswear right now, is that guys don't have that uniform anymore. We don't have to wear suits and ties, and sometimes it's great to wear a suit and tie, but now it's a more special thing. Now when you wear a suit and tie you want it to look right. You want it to be for a certain occasion, and you are able to distinguish yourself in a way that you weren't able to before, because everybody was wearing a suit and tie." - Jason Wagg "Every single one of our designers is a passion project for us, because we believe in them. Our business is to take an investment in them, a lot of times emotionally, and we want to communicate that to other people, and we want them to get excited about it too." -  Jason Wagg

Jim Moore details how he directs fashion coverage and visual language at the leading men's magazine. He discusses their Best New Menswear Designers of America feature, and its new global variant in collaboration with Gap. Mr. Moore has been at GQ for nearly 40 years, was instrumental in the creation of New York Men's Fashion Week, and delivers deep insights into the here and now of men's fashion. "I think what you're finding is this new breed of designers that really... they have a mission, they have a business plan, and they want to get their clothes into Barneys or they want to do a collaboration with Uniqlo someday. They're hungry and they've got good ideas, and we have a lot of original talent coming out of America. I think that is something to celebrate, and we're really interested in that." - Jim Moore, GQ Creative Director References: * Mordechai Rubinstein * Five Four Club * Fred Segal * Reinge Clothing * Popeye Magazine * Brutus Magazine  

She is the biggest fashion designer in India. Almost every week a new store is opening in SoHo, and this week that store, at 484 Broome Street, is Anita Dongre's Grassroot. The store feature's the premiere Indian designer's vision of sustainable fashion, featuring the Grassroot line which provides employment to artisan villages in India, as well as a bridal boutique. In this interview, she discusses where the concept for the label came from, what she hopes to accomplish in New York City, and how she approaches management of the vast House of Anita Dongre fashion company.

Part 2 of a roadtrip show with the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, this roundtable discussion features three members of the current incubator class: Janell Wysock, Latasha Hall, and Sara Keel. Executive Director Elissa Bloom helps lead the discussion. Conversation centers on the launch point for new designers and new brands, touching on design, marketing, business strategies, social media, and runway shows.

Charles is in Pennsylvania at the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, speaking with PFI founder and executive director Elissa Bloom, as well as incubator alumni Nigel Richards, Milan (Milano di Rouge), Sherrill Mosee (Minkee Blue). "The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator at Macy’s, Center City, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia, Macy’s Center City, Center City District, and various educational institutions devoted to fashion design in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator is the first of its kind in Philadelphia. The city is fortunate to be home to nationally-recognized fashion design schools including Moore College of Art, Drexel University and Philadelphia University." Nigel Richards produces a menswear line, which rebranded while he was participating int he incubator. Milan produces streetwear and has a heavy media / events tie-in, and Sherill Mosee produces are handbags with modular sections. note: transportation for this episode was paid for by the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator    

As the Director of Influencer Talent in the Hearst Branded Content Studio, Brittany Hennessy connects influencers with brands for collaboration. The content they produce is featured by dozens of Hearst publications, including Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Seventeen, and Redbook. Influencer marketing is a hot business right now. Brittany shares how she cuts through some of the noise to see the players and the field.

Kevin Lavelle is CEO of Mizzen and Main, a menswear line that prioritizes function over tradition in its fabric selection.

There is fairly little true long term thinking in the fashion industry, but it's not surprising to see it come from an LVMH brand. Edun is a very special company, with a very special mission. It was started by Ali Hewson and her husband Bono, with the intention of making sustainable high end fashion in Africa. It has been a long road with a lot of learning and building, and rebuilding, as revealed in this interview with a new New Yorker, CEO Julien Labat.

Stephanie Maslansky is the costume designer behind several Netflix series based on the Marvel comic book universe: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and now Iron Fist. She was previously on American Fashion Podcast episode #94, and is now back to deep dive into her work on Iron Fist. In this interview she discusses how she created updated filmable versions of the character looks from the comic books, her appreciation of the cosplay movement, and how her team creates business suits compatible with kung fu.

Designer Nick Graham (website) refers to his menswear line's customers as the perennial millennials, and from his rapid retail expansion, he seems to be tapping into something very interesting. The recent New York Fashion Week Men's show for Nick Graham featured Buzz Aldrin, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and the planet Mars. In this interview he discusses how he built a brand now found in hundreds of retail stores in under three years, and teases the over the top concept for the next fashion week show. His insights on how to start a fashion business both confirm and confound the common wisdom. "The first three years of a business are critical. The first year you figure out exactly what you are, you take your hits. The second year it starts to gel in your mind and the market's mind of what you represent, and then you get your sourcing and your production ready. And the third year is really when you launch. The first year is not a lunch year, the third year is always a launch year, I think." - Nick Graham References: * Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction (book) * John Elliott (designer) * John Varvatos (designer) * Paul Smith (designer)

Almost ten years ago, with the 2008 financial collapse and other market forces in the fashion industry, we saw the rug pulled out from under a massive number of both new and established brands. It has been a rough decade, and now with the retail collapse accelerating things continue to look bleak for traditional fashion companies. But is this the real picture? Independent and Emerging: The State of The Business Seth, Lisa, Cathy, and Charles are live on stage together for this first live audience podcast, which circles back to the heart of where the show began: wanting to help independent and emerging designers with ecological, social, and financial sustainability. Guests for this episode are three of the most knowledgeable women in the entire industry when it comes to the wants and needs to independent and emerging designers: Nicole Giordano of StartUp FASHION, and Debera Johnson and Deborah Alden of the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (Pratt/BF+DA). The conversation starts with Seth summarizing the state of the industry ten years back, and goes into where we are now, with detail about direct and wholesale sales, the availability of sustainable materials, and how independent and emerging designers can approach functioning in the chaotic state of the industry today. This is the first of several planned American Fashion Podcast: LIVE shows, and listeners are encouraged to use the Live Show form to sign up for free tickets to similar upcoming events. https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-uUpGB10X/?taken-by=americanfashionshow https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-vyQkBJF9/?taken-by=americanfashionshow