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Fashion Forward
Radical Recruit
Talking to a downtown buyer who discovers young designers before 'Vogue' does
by Corina Zappia
January 5th, 2006 6:09 PM
By the time you read in Vogue
about a provocative young Antwerp designer named Bernhard Willhelm, it
is old news to the sales staff at Seven New York, who've been carrying
him for years. The progressive Soho boutique and similar stores abroad (Colette in Paris, The Pineal Eye in London, Apartment in Berlin) pride themselves on scouting out the fashion world's new enfants terribles
and avant-garde geniuses in their early years, when they're still
staging that first show in a funeral parlor. But how do these buyers
decide who wins the next golden space on the rack beside Raf Simons,
Jeremy Scott, or Preen? How does an upstart creative types in this
city, fresh out of Central St. Martins or F.I.T., make it into a store
like this? Happen to possess bucket loads of money? Sleep with a
fashion stylist at Visionaire?
In search of some answers to these questions, we talk with Seven New York owner and buyer Joseph Quartana, who recently reopened his store in a new location on Mercer Street.
How do you find designers? I read practically every fashion magazine out there, particularly the progressive ones. My favorites are i-D, Self Service, Purple Fashion, Crash. Common Sense
has been great lately. I go to Paris four times a year, which is
arguably the most progressive city in terms of shows. I have many
stylist and editor friends, and I always try to get their opinion on
what they like.
So press does help? Absolutely. We buyers always pay attention to that. If you can get into a publication like Self Service, it's going to trickle down into the more mainstream publications.
What about bringing in portfolios? Yeah, I get like six look
books in the mail every day, drop-offs. I swim in them, seriously. I
don't think I ever picked a lineup that sent me a look book. For me, I
want their reputation to have preceded them, rather than getting this
cold call.
What sort of criteria do you use? The entire collection has to
be brilliant, it can't just be one or two great pieces. I don't buy
collections anymore that are debut collections, I'll wait 'til the
second or the third to see how they evolve and where they're going.
Any designers recommended to you recently? Haider Ackerman. He's
from Antwerp, and he just won the Gwand prize last year, the biggest
fashion competition in Europe that you have to be invited to,
basically. Raf Simons won it the year before. I really love his work. Minimal, lots of chiffon, pretty neutral palette?grays, whites, beiges.
Are there any designers who you think have been overlooked over by the press a bit? Cosmic Wonder. They're an Osaka-based line, but they show in Paris. You would never see them in American Vogue, but they could be, they're good enough. Or another designer we've carried for five years, Markus Huemer. He has a cult following among us and he barely gets any press. He's too shy, needs to beat the pavement a little more.
Do you scope out senior year shows at Parsons, Central St. Martins?
I look at the results, and see who's getting buzz. I also do a lot of
fashion juries all over the world, judging the graduate classes. It
keeps you in touch with what's happening in the schools. The last
season, there was one really standout kid, but I think he's working for
McQueen or something like that. He was scoped out by a house.
Is there a problem with young designers, who work under a big fashion house, breaking out too early on their own?
There's that, and it's a double-edged sword. One thing, you can never
really shake your association with that house, unfortunately. There's a
designer who I really like who launched his second collection in Paris,
Nicolas Andreas Taralis,
and he worked under Hedi Slimane for Dior Homme. It's great, but I
can't shake the association he has with Dior. It looks like Dior from
two years ago.
What about trade shows? Trade shows cheapen the image of certain designers; I think it's the wrong way to go. For us, anyway.
Say I'm a young designer. How would you suggest I go about getting
into a store like yours, or at least heading in that direction? For
certain, don't show until you're ready. Really, there's a huge
investment to launching a collection properly. We used to actually
produce shows for young designers in our first two, three years of
existence, and we were really good at doing shows on shoestring
budgets. I don't know that there's too many pr houses offering that
right now, because it kind of got swallowed up by the whole luxury
phenomenon. All the luxury lines were stealing the thunder and the
attention away from the young designers. The advice I would give is to
try to find a really cool, young fledgling pr company to properly
launch you. Paper was doing those young designer tents at
Bryant Park which I don't think they do anymore, which is a shame. At
least do a presentation in a gallery.
What are some classic pitfalls? Using really expensive fabrics
early on. It's more about the cut, the silhouette, how it fits on the
body, the feel of it. A lot of our designers use jersey and sweatshirt
material. It's cheaper and makes the prices a lot more accessible.
As opposed to someone who found some unbelievable leather . . .
Or yeah, like some silk chiffon that's 50 bucks a yard and they're
doing dresses in it that cost $2,000. Again, why should a customer
spend two grand on your dress when they can spend $2,000 on a dress
from Proenza Schouler or Peter Som?
Anything else? Don't try to cash out too fast. I noticed a bunch
of designers who we've worked for, I'm not going to name names, but in
the past, they started out doing really radical work. They were barely
making any money. But they were getting a wicked amount of publicity,
due to how creative they were. They thought they could do basics to
increase their sales and it totally backfired, they crashed and burned
and now they're gone. They lost what made them unique. As a young
designer, if you're going to make basic black turtlenecks, why should
someone pay the same amount of money for your basic black turtleneck
when they can get a Calvin Klein one? You have to keep going, and the
money will follow you.
I guess it helps to have a rich dad. It's gross. But look at Zac Posen.
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