First Person | Phillip Lim’s Four P’s: Partner, Price Point, Production and Positioning

| First Person

Phillip Lim | Source:

NEW YORK, United States — “I always believed in making clothes with affordable prices,” said Phillip Lim, one of the many young designers to have emerged in New York over the past few years. But unlike his peers, when Lim launched his label back in the autumn of 2005, he made a conscious decision not to compete in the high-end designer category. Instead, Lim’s vision was to offer his customers beautifully made, well-designed

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First Person | Anya Hindmarch Says You Have To Sweet Talk, and Sell

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Anya Hindmarch | Source: Anya Hindmarch

LONDON, United Kingdom — “I started my business when I was 18,” said luxury handbag designer Anya Hindmarch. On her gap year in Florence, Italy, she saw a bag that was all the rage among the cool Italian girls and she bought it. “I took it to London and everyone loved it,” she recalls. The reaction, it seems, helped her identify a business opportunity. “I found a factory, had a similar bag made and took it back to the UK.” Her

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First Person | Yigal Azrouël Advises, Build Slowly and Be Strategic

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Yigal Azrouël | Photo: Claiborne Swanson Frank

NEW YORK, United States — “For me it’s all about longevity,” says designer Yigal Azrouël. “You see a lot of brands out there becoming stars over night. And then they disappear. I am building it slowly, slowly. It’s much deeper. It’s much stronger.” Growing up in Israel, where he would later work occasionally as a stylist, the young Azrouël believed his prospects of becoming a fashion designer nigh on impossible. But when he came to

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First Person | Victoria Bartlett Says Take Small Steps, Not Giant Leaps

First Person | New York

Victoria Bartlett with Doutzen Kroes | Source: American Vogue Nov 2007

NEW YORK, United States — “It was almost like an experiment,” says Victoria Bartlett, of starting her much-loved underwear-as-outerwear line VPL in 2003. “I felt like a scientist going in and I really didn’t know how it was going to go.” Seven years on, with a CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund nomination (2007) under her belt and a recently opened retail presence in New York’s SoHo, we can fairly say that the experiment has been a success.

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First Person | Philip Crangi says jewellery design was his perfect business opportunity

First Person | New York

NEW YORK, United States — “I want to own this whole thing,” Philip Crangi says of his popular jewellery brand. “I’d rather own 100 percent of something small that 10 percent of something huge.” The 2008 CFDA Swarovski Award for Accessories winner — whose jewellery is both intensely popular with editors and intensely personal to those who wear it — takes as much pride in forging his business as he does each golden amulet. “It’s more

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