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Fashioning Empires
Catherine Curan
03/01/2007
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High above Fifth Avenue during last September’s Olympus Fashion Week, New York’s
hottest young DJ trio skulked in the corner of an airy showroom as models
paraded about in Tory Burch’s spring 2007 collection. Burch’s young sons dashed
around the room, snapping pictures of the models with their cell phone cameras,
while her friends, denizens of New York’s social circuit, smiled for the
professional paparazzi.TOP VIEW
The vanguard of socially prominent women who have established
their own fashion firms in recent years is determined to build enduring
businesses in this notoriously competitive field. But for all the advantages
their wealth and status afford them—from industry connections to ready-made
publicity—their challenges are enormous. They struggle to learn the intricacies
of this market on the job, while battling the resentment they experience as
outsiders. |
Clad in a dress she designed, Burch greeted a steady stream of
journalists, friends and fashion executives. Bloomingdale’s chairman Michael
Gould perused Burch’s collection; reporters from W, The New York Times and the
Wall Street Journal turned up for a look. Venture capitalist Chris Burch, the designer’s
ex-husband and cochairman of her company, stood outside in the garden
overlooking St. Patrick’s Cathedral, deep in conversation about how much
publicity the line was attracting.An observer walked up to Tory Burch and told her how good her
clothes looked. "Do you think so?" she asked.
Burch’s reply reflects more than just a fashion designer’s
typical new- collection nerves—because she is hardly a typical fashion designer.
Burch has no formal design or business training, and launched her career only
three years ago when she opened a Manhattan boutique after working for several
fashion firms, including in public relations for Vera Wang. Burch’s
hippie-inspired tunic tops resonated with consumers, including Oprah Winfrey. In
2005, the talk show queen dubbed her line fashion’s next big thing, giving Burch
a boost most new entrepreneurs can only dream of.
Burch is one of a vanguard of socially prominent women trying
to create viable businesses in America’s notoriously catty, competitive fashion
capital. Susan Dell, wife of the mail-order computer kingpin, launched a women’s
line called Phi in 2004 with a New York runway show; her collection currently
sells in 35 locations around the world. Cece Cord, who worked at her ex-husband
Barry Kieselstein-Cord’s jewelry company during their 23-year marriage, markets
pet accessories inspired by her miniature Yorkshire terrier, Tiger, and luxury
handbags for women. She says that she hates the word "socialite" with a "purple
passion," but admits that being photographed at parties with friends like Muffie
Potter Aston generates helpful publicity for her eponymous line of women’s
bags.
 | SUSAN DELL (left) teamed up with Julia Hansen to promote her line, Phi. Fashion design was not a dalliance of Dell;
she studied fashion at Arizona State
University. Hansen helped Dell build a team of veteran employees. |
Details of the financial performance of these ventures are
difficult to unearth. Burch and Dell run private companies, and Cord’s publicly
traded licensee does not break out results for her brand. Cord says that her
Travels with Tiger line is highly profitable, and Burch boasts that her company
was in the black in its second year. She vehemently denies reports of financial
trouble published in a tabloid gossip item last fall. While she declines to
provide sales figures, one fashion industry official estimates her 2006 gross
revenues at about $30 million. Counting on her business sense and society
connections, Burch has her sights set on a $100 million-plus global empire. "I’d
like to build a very substantial lifestyle brand," she says, "as big as it can
possibly be."
Other prominent women, including sisters Paris and Nicky Hilton
(see "Celebrities in Fashion,") and New York society favorite Tinsley
Mortimer, are also dipping their toes in this business. Last year, Mortimer lent
her name to a line of handbags to Japanese firm Samantha Thavasa. In case
potential customers were unaware of Mortimer’s social status, she named
individual styles after her prominent friends Dabney Mercer, Fabiola Beracasa
and Lauren Davis, according to a report in the fashion newspaper WWD.
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