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Beyond Fashion Business
How To Start & Grow An Ethical Fashion Brand with APPARIS Founders
00:53:00
Start & Grow Your Fashion Brand For Free Here: https://www.skool.com/fashionanticourse/about Get Your Brand/Designs Reviewed For Free Here: https://www.skool.com/fashionanticourse/about This episode is a masterclass on the foundations that you need to understand in order to start an ethical fashion brand, or implement a more ethically conscious approach to your products. Due to the deep nature of this topic, this conversation will be divided into 2 parts. In this first part of our conversation revolved around building your first product, building your production infrastructure, your most important roles and first team hires, expanding into other categories, and an introduction on building the foundations necessary for growth and scale.
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- [00:00]
Host
Welcome to the Beyond Fashion Business podcast. In this week's episode, we sat down with Aparis founders Amelia Brique and Lauren Noucci. Apparis is a fashion brand that is redefining ethical fashion. They offer elevated alternatives to luxury animal derived products like leather and faux fur, and have multiple famous investors like supermodel Karlie Kloss. A Paris is a perfect case study for any fashion entrepreneurs or designers that aspire to build the ethical brands of the future, or at least learn how to become a more ethically conscious brand. This episode is a masterclass on the foundations that you need to understand in order to start an ethical fashion brand or implement a more ethically conscious approach to your products. Due to the deep nature of this topic, this conversation will be divided into two parts. This first part of our conversation revolved around building your first product, building your production infrastructure, your most important roles and first team hires, expanding into other categories, and an introduction on building the foundations necessary for growth and scale. If you're interested in joining our free fashion business course or our community of fashion entrepreneurs, make sure you click on the link in the description of this episode. Hope they are valuable in your fashion journey. Without further ado, let's get into this week's episode. Perfect. Lauren, Emily, thank you for being on. Welcome to the Beyond Fashion Business podcast.
- [01:32]
Amelia Brique
Thanks for having us.
- [01:34]
Host
By the way, are you both. You're both French, right?
- [01:38]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah.
- [01:38]
Host
I have to say I am very surprised with the English speaking ability. It is perfect. Of course, it's my. It's my mother tongue. Yes.
- [01:52]
Lauren Noucci
I don't speak Spanish, but I mean, we've both been in the US for quite some time, so our English got is still getting better and better every day, I guess.
- [02:02]
Host
Yeah, no, it is. It sure makes my job a lot easier, you know, which is not very common when I'm speaking with French founders. You know, they have a lot of very valuable information to share. But you know, French people, French people like their own language.
- [02:16]
Amelia Brique
We do.
- [02:17]
Lauren Noucci
It's the most beautiful language in the world.
- [02:19]
Host
Yeah, it's hard to. It's hard to argue with that for sure. Okay, let's see. Let's get everything officially started. Just give us. I know you've done a couple of interviews, podcasts and stuff like that in the past. So if people want to get really into the story and your backgrounds, there's a lot of other places to do so. But just so that they have a brief overview of who you guys are, what you guys do, what the brand is about, give us a brief bio. You know 60 or 90 seconds doesn't have to be too, too long.
- [02:46]
Lauren Noucci
Want me to go for? All right, so Amelia and I co founded a in 2018 with the initial mission to bring vegan colorful faux fur coats to the US market. So that's really where all the mission started and that's really connected to both of our backgrounds. We both come from luxury fashion houses and we were a little, let's say, fed up with our nine to five jobs. And we just wanted to create a project that we saw, you know, a need in the market. And in 2018, no one was really approaching faux fur the way we did with our plush fabric. And that's how, you know, we launched apparel. We both knew each other from Boston. That's where I went to school and Emily was working in finance there. But so that's really how Apare came about in 2018. And fast forward now, we obviously expanded our mission and I think we evolved it to be now a conscious fashion brand. And our goal is to bring high quality products that are not only sustainable, but trendy. And so that's where we are.
- [03:59]
Host
Okay, interesting. Okay. And just for the sake of dividing the conversation into sort of like stages, I like to do it that way when it comes to business conversations, maybe because, you know, brands and founders evolve and they do kind of evolve in stages. Right. There's the first stage, which you can measure either in personal progress or like in revenues, like in sales, like, I don't know, 0 to 100,000 per season or 0 to 500,000 per season. And the challenges, the process, the ch. The strategies really, really vary and change and evolve from one stage to the other. So from you guys, very, very early on, let's call it stage one for the sake of keeping it simple, the opportunity came about. How was there a, a gap in the market that you, you spotted for a very type of faux product at a very specific type of price? Was it just more expression? Right. You were passionate about this problem and you wanted to find a way to make it work. What was, what was the opportunity like at the very beginning?
- [04:51]
Amelia Brique
Yeah, I think it's, it's funny that you're, you're mentioning the different stages because here, internally and all of our team know that we're on a Parry 3.0 iteration. So it's quite something. We, you know, we all have in mind that we're in our third iteration of the brand and we all know there's going to be plenty of other iterations. So the first one was really when it was just Lauren and I, for a while we started really, really small bootstrap, completely bootstrapped. But to the, to the extreme we're, you know, when we started this business we had, you know, we shared a pop up shop in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Williamsburg. We couldn't afford a full store so we shared it with friends who had like handbag brand and that, that's really how like we, we started. We were working there days and nights, but it was, it was really a fun, fun time. Bloomingdale's give us a call a few months in and, and letting us know that they're there. It was the fashion director at the time, Arielle, who, who asked us to present them our line of faux fur coat. So that's, that's truly how we started how we got to create that collection like quite, you know, understood through an opportunity we had. Like we created that collection and they represented that collection. We didn't have a showroom, obviously. We didn't have an office. We got the keys from our friends store that they had a store in soho because buyers wouldn't go to Williamsburg. So we, we got the keys of friends store and we presented the collection to Bloomingdale's. They loved it. They bought most of most of the collection and that was our big break. Like big break. Yeah, like big moment. So we had a collection and we started presenting it. So I think Joanne and I are, you know, we're both really into do like doing sales and presented. We went to coterie, we did the trade show. So that's truly like our Parry like 1.0. Like I think the second iteration was, you know, Parry 2.0 was like, like high growth. Like we were like just doing as much as we could. Like getting as many stores as we could. At some point we had like over 300 stores. It was crazy. Like we were like we, we would do coterie and, and there was a line in front of our booth. It was really incredible. We just could not believe it and took, I think our reaction was to take all of the opportunities that became available to us and you know, let.
- [07:41]
Host
Me, let me get, let me guess. The 3.0 is going to be brand over exposure, right? Too much growth and kind of like a, a rebirth of a restructuring of the growth phase. Who are the right partners? What's going to be the right approach? What's going to be the right categories?
- [07:56]
Amelia Brique
Yeah, I mean listen, on the print, yes, but we don't, we don't really use restructure because it's not, we're not Restructuring. We're just evol thing. We're just being more mature as a brand. Also us as founders, as co founders, where we just want to be more mindful with our team as much. Like, you know, everybody works so hard to take the brand from nothing to what it is. So like we're, we're all being more mindful and more mature on how we're managing the business. And obviously, as you said, from the brand perspective, we want our brand to exist and, and we want to preserve it in, in the long run. So obviously we need to be more mindful. So that's, that's where we at. We own a Parry 3.0.
- [08:42]
Host
Of course. Yeah, yeah. No, the, the aggressive growth of, you know, how. Of the. It's, it's just because it's so exciting. Right. You've been working on something for so long because we've, we've summarized through the three stages of the brand development process, of course. But I mean, getting from stage zero to stage one is very difficult. Right? And if you get through stage one, you're so excited about going to stage two that you aggressively pursue growth, right? And then as you said, you learn the mistakes and experience and you mature the process and you find a new way to approach growth and sustainability and all those different factors. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, because of course between these three things, which we managed to summarize very well, but there's a lot of things going on, right. Takes a lot of time, there's a lot of problems, a lot of shifts, a lot of iteration. So just for the sake of trying to dive deep and learn from as much as we can from each stage, let's, let's ask a foundational question. What is. Because you are considered, do you consider yourself an ethical fashion brand? Right. So what is ethical fashion? What, what definition would you give it today?
- [09:53]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah, I think the definition we can give today was the same, you know, when we started in 2018. I think for us it's to bring high quality product that doesn't need to harm or involve animal derived materials. And it's not only being so ethical again, it's being conscious. Because a lot of time, and I know that has been authorization about real versus foe, you know, what, what is more conscious but with innovation and with the evolution. Right. Of the industry and like fabric mills and factory, you know, we've been back, we've been, sorry, partnering since the beginning. Like we've really been able again to create products that we consider ethical again from the material. But Also the packaging we use, but also the way we approach our supply chain, the way we approach our SKU count, et cetera, et cetera. So for us, again, looking back in 2018, when we were looking at other brands, we, we felt like it was just the beginning of that conversation of being ethical. And for us, the way we approach it is building a brand and within the foundation to do it right from the beginning will set us apart. And I think it did. And I think that's how we also gain recognition fast. And that's also why we're able, you know, to grow and, and to keep our first customer or, you know, initial customer and take us with us on this journey, because it's still a journey. And that's, I think, something that brand needs to be open and honest about when it comes to ethic, ethical fashion, is that you can always do more, you can always do better, but it takes time and it does take trials and errors as well.
- [11:37]
Host
Okay, interesting. And how is. Because when you say you wanted to focus on a couple of things early on, I'm guessing it was mostly about getting the production aspect. Right. Right. That was the most important thing. The product to the right quality, at the right prices, with reliability, with predictability, all of those different things.
- [11:56]
Lauren Noucci
It was the most important thing because that's really how we started the brand. So when you think of Apparel 1.0, it was built around one project. We had one skew. And it was again at the time still, I think is the best quality paper you could find. It was the perfect simple coat, perfect fit for every day in like the perfect color. So for us, you know, we build again our reputation and our business around the product. And that's something that's always going to be, you know, core of how we evolve. But talking about the three stage and you mentioned, you know, there's different challenges, I think we were able to again enter the market with such a strong project that of course, I think again, it facilitates our growth. But now we have new challenges. And the new challenges is of course, keep up with innovation. Right. But also for us, and it's a different conversation that I think we're going to approach is how we have a strong project. But we're now the goal is to build a community.
- [13:00]
Host
Right.
- [13:01]
Lauren Noucci
The project.
- [13:02]
Host
Interesting. And how now that you have a more general and better understanding of the industry as a whole, what benefits, what pros and cons, essentially in hindsight have you identified of having a, a very specific approach to product early on, like one product doing it very well, because it's not very typical from this industry. Right. Most people in this industry think that the collection is the way to go early on. And again, it has pros, it has cons. So in your area with ethical fashion, what pros and cons have you found? What pros and cons do you see at those early stages?
- [13:39]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah, I think really the pro for us from a business standpoint, I can really explain you. We started this business with our own saving and really with a bootstrap mindset. So I think having one mono product, it was very clear, not only for buyers, but from a customer perspective, it was a story to tell that was very simple yet impactful. So I think that was big profiles at the time accounts, honestly, I know it might sound a little cheesy to answer, but I don't really see any because I do feel part of being a conscious and ethical brand is to be mindful of how much product you pump out. So I feel like our product has such a strong purpose and need that I feel that's the most ethical way to approach our industry. And again, like, making a difference and. And staying true to, again, who. Who we are as a brand.
- [14:40]
Host
Understood. Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that.
- [14:43]
Amelia Brique
Like, you know, a planning perspective, financial, like, business development, kind of like strategy. I think it's not. It's not the product that's the issue. I think having this core, like really strong core product, I think it's great. I think it's just. It gives you that stability, especially as a young or, you know, you're building upon, you know, more product categories around your core product. Right. Which is great. But from a financial and business perspective, the seasonality is really challenging because our core product is such a winter, like a fall winter product. Like, how does it translate in the spring and summer months? And how do we generate revenue on a. Like, more like less seasonally and more throughout the year has been like, like, at least on, you know, like an ongoing conversation between us and also with the team. Because it's. It's important as we grow and as we're, you know, we're more mindful about, like, our business processes and so on, to have, like, continuity around the year. So that I think, I would say beyond the challenge of the core product, to have like a winter core product, I think is. Is where it's, you know, can be.
- [16:00]
Host
Of course, yeah. To have. So have. Having consistency. Because, of course, because it's such a seasonal product, you know, you need to have consistent revenue over the year, but at the same time, Revenue in the way that's congruent with the brand. Right. And I think that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that one of the biggest challenges would be the amount of energy and effort that it takes to build ethical fashion product versus a normal fashion product is immense. Right. It's, you're Talking about maybe 10 times more difficult in terms of energy, in terms of resources, in terms of challenges, etc. Etc. So now that you have to expand your product line while at the same time still be congruent with the brand, it's like you're multiplying the same problems and the same energy and the same efforts times 100. Right. So it's navigating that which is.
- [16:46]
Amelia Brique
Yeah.
- [16:47]
Lauren Noucci
And to add on to that, I think for us where it gets even more complex is what you mentioned, other than of course bringing conscious and like transit product. The fair, like the value, the price point is something that's also very key of, you know, our brand is. And, and that kind of like again, value proposition when you add that layer of like only using recycled material, bio based material working, you know, with factories that are compliant, you know, to the work environment and again, packaging only working, you know, recycled and biodegradable like labels and papers, like I think for us it's, it's definitely, it adds, it definitely adds to the challenge, like at the right price.
- [17:37]
Host
Understood. And if you could, if you could identify the biggest challenges of having an ethical fashion brand, let's say the top three biggest challenges for you guys, right? Specifically because everybody will have a different process. But what would you say would be the first off the biggest challenge number one? Second challenge, Third challenge. Would it be first product right, Getting the product right and getting the product right at skill, reliability. Secondly, financing, third team management. What would you put it, what you put under?
- [18:06]
Lauren Noucci
It's interesting because again, I think, and not to send ourselves flowers, I think we're doing a pretty good job as far as product. If anything, again for us where we've had, I think challenges is how to educate, how to communicate on that with our customer without like almost like teaching her, make her feel, you know, like a little bit too conscious. Wait, am I not like, do I only have to shop a certain way if I end up, you know, maybe buying something from another brand that's not as conscious as the Paris, like, you know, we don't want to alienate the customer. And I think that again some of our communication and how we communicate on all of our pillars, again about being bold, transient, conscious, and like attainable. It's like, what is, you know, the best way to talk about that? Because it's also very sensitive and I feel like controversial topic in the fashion industry because there is a lot of brainwashing or there's, you know, a lot of not being super transparent. So I think that from my perspective on the more marketing creative that I think has been, if anything, the, the biggest challenge.
- [19:20]
Amelia Brique
Yeah. From my perspective, number one, two and three is the cost of.
- [19:27]
Host
I like it different. I like the difference. So you can tell very, you can tell very clearly different. The responsibility.
- [19:33]
Amelia Brique
No, it's expensive. Like, it's, it's. Here's the, the, the issue here is there's. Is it obviously an extra cost at our brand level into being ethical? There's an extra cost into the production, like the product itself. We know that the, the fabrics that we're using are more expensive. We are also limited into sourcing other factories because we want, from like a social perspective that we want to be able to vet the factories that are making our garment. We want to make sure that, you know, employees are being treated fairly and so on. So, like, the, the, the number of factories that we can use is, is quite, you know, limited. And the packaging that we use, like, is. Yeah. As we're also becoming more and more focused on our ethical, I would say, journey or our road to being more and more ethical as a brand. It's, it's, you know, the packaging is, Is, you know, more expensive. So the issue here is that we're like, really committed into the value proposition of our products. So we, we cannot increase prices, retail prices, to the extent that our cost to manufacture ethical goods is increasing. Right. And I'm not even talking about inflation and all the other costs. That's years. So it's really like, we have to be like, always, like, very smart into protecting our gross margin. And that's like, that's, you know, we don't really know any other way because we're not like a brand. Like, we were one day we woke up and we're like, oh, like, let's. Let's be sustainable. Like, we created the brand because we wanted to create something ethical and sustainable and all those things. So it was, it was the initial, like the initial idea of the brand. So. But it's always been like, you know, from, from a financial perspective, it's always been like something that we watch really closely and how, you know, we're, we're not like, you know, there are brands out there that have, that are ethical and sustainable. Like, we, you know, often mentioned Stella McCartney. That's great brand. And she's has it embedded into her brand. Sustainability is like, really core to our brain. It's beautiful. But her price point is so much higher than the price point that we have. So it's obviously for us, it's like it can be, you know, it can be tricky to offer a product at this price point.
- [22:09]
Lauren Noucci
And especially when you mentioned, you know, new categories and new product, you know, it doesn't like, it has to align with, again, how ethical and conscious our outerwear propos like up, you know, offering is right now. And it's like, how can we translate that in another project that, you know, would make sense for not only the brand, but our existing customer?
- [22:33]
Host
Of course. Okay. And so just to summarize, make sure that I understood correctly from one end. It's been communicating the brand in the right way. At the end of the day, perception is reality, especially in this industry. Right. And there's a lot of. There's little control that you have as a startup brand in terms of the perception that the customers are having with the brand. You can control your product. Right. But at the end of what happens in between the product and the customer, to rely on a lot of different things. Right. What's going on on social media? What are the external parties saying? What. How can you put it. How can you put the communications in the same standard as the product? Right? So all these different things affect the ability of customers to be educated and to perceive the brand as it's supposed to be. And secondly, just again, making sure that financially everything is viable. Right? The communications, the products, and the, the evolution of those things at the same time.
- [23:24]
Lauren Noucci
Well, perfect.
- [23:27]
Host
And how did you navigate this? Because I'm guessing in a very similar way. These were the same challenges very early on. It's just they've evolved. Right, but how did you navigate. Navigate this in the early days? Like, was having one product an easier way to like it? Did it make the communication easier? And from a financial perspective, especially if you were being bootstrapped, like, what, like, how did you navigate all this complexity?
- [23:55]
Lauren Noucci
A lot of work. Yeah.
- [23:57]
Amelia Brique
I think from like, let me say, like from financial, purely financial perspective, when it did evolve and the challenges evolved, but like, the court, like, the essence of it remained the same. I think when we started, it was. It wasn't that visible because as I said, it was just Lohan and I were like eating canned soup every day. I mean, it was, you know, or like we made. We made all the Sacrifices, like, we were committed to it. Like, we knew we had to keep, like, get it off the ground. And it was. We did all the jobs, we opened all the boxes, we. We shipped. Yeah, it was, you know, but great memories of it, by the way. And I think it was really, in.
- [24:37]
Host
Hindsight, it's like high school, right? It's like everybody thinks high school was better than what it was. Truly was. Yeah. Yeah.
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Amelia Brique
Even on the moment, I think it was great. I think it was a great period because there was. Listen, we had nothing to lose. Exactly.
- [24:50]
Lauren Noucci
Everything was a win, too.
- [24:53]
Amelia Brique
And as I just said, like, we had nothing to lose. But now we're. We're a team. We have people, and we. We value them, and we want, you know, we want them to be happy in their job. And we are. Like, we're, you know, we have factory partners, we have deadlines. We have all those things. And obviously, the cost structure increased with that. And also the, you know, the quality, I would say, overall of our product, we are a lot more mindful of the details. And would you call that the trim?
- [25:25]
Lauren Noucci
And that's due to competition, too, again, when we enter the market in 2018, really, I feel our product was standing out. So fast forward about what you said. I think for us, a big challenge now is to make sure we are always, you know, I don't know if it's not above but ahead of, you know, the curve when it comes to this outerwear, transy, anything that's ethical, vegan, you know, alternative fabrics. So that's also something. I feel like it is a new challenge because we. We want to be. And we've been. We still want to be the leader and. And the one that comes with the novelty first, you know, and that gets, you know, trickier when the bigger brands. Right. Kind of, you know, so what we've been doing, and, you know, sometimes they can move faster because of the resource that we have. They have that we don't have. But I think it's a good challenge, too. And I think, like, I'm really talking about the team. We're a small team, but we're. We're so all passionate about the mission and what we do and the. The challenges that I think, if anything, I feel like we look at them as just, like, not really challenges, but opportunities.
- [26:39]
Host
Okay, understood. Yeah. So essentially keeping costs low. Right. Business costs and personal costs, mainly. And secondly would be finding ways to get the product to the standard where you want to get it, because from what I understand, at the initial stages of the brand it was about building the right infrastructure. Right. Financially speaking, from a process perspective, from a product perspective. And when you got all that right, the product essentially, as you said, started carrying the entire brand forward. Right. Because it was getting so much demand. So it shifted from, okay, how do we build an infrastructure that allows us to build a product that people want and build it in a way where we can consistently pursue that. Right. Without going bankrupt or whatever. And then, then when we get the demand is how do we start channeling that demand in a productive way?
- [27:39]
Amelia Brique
So it's actually, that's, I think the, the way you would think it would happen. For us, it happened a little bit differently. We're, we were together Paris 1.0. We did those. We presented our, our first collection and we. Within a few weeks we had literally landed orders from hundreds and hundreds of stores. We didn't even have, just to give you an idea, an iPad. We had paper, carbon copy paper of orders. So we had this stack of orders, like physical stack of orders. And we looked at each other and we're like, well, what now? Like, we need, we need to, we need to manufacture, we need to deliver those orders. We need those, these people who like, trusted us to place an order to. We need to deliver it to them and we want them to become clients for the future. So that really happened in that way when we had this like, huge demand upfront and then we had to build in a. Within a few weeks, literally an infrastructure that could support not only the demand that we like had at the moment, but also demand, like long term building. Long term. So because you don't build operations for every year.
- [29:00]
Lauren Noucci
And so.
- [29:04]
Amelia Brique
That was a challenge, but that's something I think we managed to do quite efficiently. We build operations that are still supporting us to this day and are probably going to support us, like processes that will support us in the, in the future.
- [29:22]
Host
Yeah. So, yeah, it's almost like it's stage one. The biggest responsibility of the founders is to figure stuff out until they get that level of demand. Secondly is to build the infrastructure and the operations that could sustain that level of demand. And the third one is all just essentially, how do we do that better?
- [29:41]
Amelia Brique
Yeah, so we're in the better phase right now.
- [29:45]
Host
Sounds like a good stage to be in finally. Right? Yeah, superficially. Right. The reality is always different. Right. If anybody can learn anything about this industry, everything looks, everything looks a lot better than it actually is in reality. Interesting. Okay, and take me about, about building that infrastructure. Like, did you start raising, investing at that fund? Like when you got that demand. You raced, you raced, you had around and you used the, the, the, the finances to start building an a basic team around that or was it, was it still bootstrap just using the profits.
- [30:24]
Amelia Brique
So we like. I made a couple of phone calls. I like my, A few of my yeah industry connection from my past corporate life were, became really not only useful but like allowed us to, to build this business. So I think my first call was to Josh at Hilden there to this day at work factoring company. And the call was literally hey Josh, we got a bunch of orders from great stores. We don't have any money. Will you, will you back us? And so he came, he actually made the trip to Williamsburg. We were in Williamsburg at the time, looked at one of our codes and he said yes, we'll, we'll back you. We'll. We'll finance your first production basically. And so that was, that was that, that was, I think that was, that was really important and really we knew we could go ahead like move ahead. So obviously we needed people but we didn't have money. Even if they were financing our permit, we still didn't have any money for, for people. We didn't have an office also. So we hired anyone who would be willing to work as a low paid intern. Right like so but they're like listen, most of them became employees after we made it right to them. But they're like, they really trusted us. So interns. And we started, we printed all the vendor guides from all the department stores because at the time we had orders from Bloomingdale's, Sacks and all, you know, shop up and all with majors. Yeah majors and no idea how to ship those. So we started reading their guides and, and I think the next step operationally was to find a 3PL provider. And at the time we went to the 3PL that, that actually fulfill for most up and coming brands. So we're just Bergen Logistics. And so that was, that was the second call and they said okay, but you're small. You're very small. I don't know if you'll exist next year. Like so we had to ask a favor that was like a real favor. Please take us in. We like we need you. And so they accepted. And then, and then we got going with the operation. We got a software that was very entry level software. And yeah, I think that our first year was just like this is how we started. We worked really, really hard. First three years we, we didn't know what. We didn't know which is, which is Hard because when you like, you know, what you don't know, it's, you know, it's already the first step. But like, there's a bunch of things we just didn't know and like we didn't know to ask or anything.
- [33:29]
Lauren Noucci
So.
- [33:30]
Amelia Brique
But that's truly like the first year how we, we managed to create some operation.
- [33:36]
Lauren Noucci
Okay, just add on from my side what I think, if it's an advice or something that I think really help is really finding the right factory and partner. We also, you know, I made this Franco, Chinese man, met him in Paris and it was kind of the same when Amelie, you know, went to Ildan and say, hey, we have a bunch of order. Can you back us on my end, it's going to Paris and like, hey, his name is Christian. We have a tons of order. Like, can you. You're gonna need to help me because I'm not a design background person. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a creative and I'm a strong product person. But they also really like having that trust and that relationship with the factory, which I visited the first year, went to China, spent couple weeks there and I, I also think it was really like, you know, a game changer. And it, it really helped for sure. The first, like the first seasons and with production and like you said, like importing goods from China to the US for us and booking, you know, freight, like they were really good partners and, and I do think it, it allow us to, you know, be confident and, and like keep going and, and growing.
- [34:54]
Host
Right. Okay. And would it be correct to say that? And you know, the first stage, which is so kind of like validation stage, because I found in my own experience at every single stage, the kind of like the most important piece of advice that I would give myself is almost people related. Right. Find a better, Find a better vendor, find a better supply chain or logistical partner, find a better agency or distributor, find a better team member. So that's different stages, different people, but it's always find somebody else. Right? Find the right partner, find the right person. So at the first stage in validation, since everything and validating a brand is so product specific, it's more focused on finding the right supply chain and production partners and how that looks like, right, the right factories at the right prices, the right speed, the right moqs, the right. All those different things. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Sorry, sorry.
- [35:52]
Lauren Noucci
I'm gonna just try to the point, I think for us and where maybe we are, we did things a little different ways. That we had found the right partner, you know, that could make the right project. And then we then moved to the phase of selling the project and then the last phase. Right. Okay. Now we need to actually build an infrastructure. So for us, I thought we really streamlined and I think that's why we entered the market in such a strong ways because we had figured that out before even, you know, when we, you.
- [36:26]
Amelia Brique
Know, like Bloomingdale's the collection, we were confident that we could deliver on the product. On the production side, we like, we knew, like, we were confident about it. We're not confident about how, but we knew the factory like, we knew they would like be good partners.
- [36:42]
Lauren Noucci
Pricing work. Again, the MOQ you mentioned, it's a triggering word for my team. Like we had that like on lockdown, you know, so it was just. Yeah. Then selling it and how. How to then ship it. Okay.
- [36:59]
Host
And then the stage two kind of like growth phase. How did, how did that problem evolve? Was it we were developing new products and therefore we had to repeat the exact process but with five different products and therefore a lot of other different external partners or how did that problem evolve?
- [37:16]
Lauren Noucci
As far as project, I would say it was never a problem. I think again, 18 being such a strong reception price point where people love the material. If anything, I remember like our collection for tonight in 2019 was huge and looking back, it was way too much. So again, it was partnering the same factory, co designing with them and their team, you know, in, in the show in Paris, delivering in time. Yeah, it was just so exciting. Like buyers, they had a great sell through. It was just like so like 2018 really did so well that I think 2019 again for us and we, we stayed, we didn't really expand categories at the time. We were still just like, we just blow up what we did in, in 2018. So I don't remember any like challenges.
- [38:11]
Amelia Brique
Well, no, I think it was like the infrastructure that we built initially worked for like two years and then we upgraded. But upgrading wasn't as hard as like starting from scratch. Like we upgrade, we upgraded three pl, we upgraded software like ERP system. We, we're like a lot of the things that we were doing, we were more confident about processes and, and all of that. So I think it wasn't, you know, it was, it was. Yeah. We keep like improving our operation, but we had a good foundation.
- [38:49]
Host
Okay.
- [38:50]
Amelia Brique
Yeah. Which is. And we're still improving. We'll keep improving. Yeah. Forever. I think that was, that worked. That worked for the way we build operation was for like to. It was to allow scaling. Yeah. We knew we had like we have room for scaling with our 3 PL, with our financing partners, factories, we had room to scale.
- [39:14]
Host
Okay. And how did this operation look like from a team perspective? It was you two. What specific partners, what specific enders of vendors or what specific insurance under what specific areas of fo. I don't want to say roles. Right. Because the very early on there's no roles. It's just areas of focus. So how would you describe the operations when we started? Yeah, yeah. Like the foundational. The foundations of. Of. Of the brand from an operational perspective. So we can now we can, we can transition to like the newer challenges and how that looks like from an operation perspective.
- [39:49]
Amelia Brique
So there was like a, a challenge because we're when we, when we launched we wanted, we really wanted to build operation and build a business that was both DTC. So with our.com and wholesale. And we wanted like I think we were very clear even if at the time people were telling us we were crazy that we wanted to do both and we wanted to build both. So we had to build operations for both DTC and for wholesale. So we had to hire people like you know, hire like either very junior or intern people to manage our dot com. Our first dot com person who actually was an intern from France and she did a great job starting it and really like really starting operations for customer service. For apparent. Com we had someone building like logistics and supply chain for wholesale. So these were like operationally they were the two key people that really started things. I was obviously very involved. I'm still quite involved on that topic because my mindset is that if we can't ship correctly and on time then yeah, it's not.
- [41:07]
Host
Yeah, but support. Support in order for you to prioritize your energy productively. Right. Because sometimes you're. It's not productive or you spend five hours on the phone fighting with the carrier of about what happened with a specific order. Right, I understand.
- [41:21]
Amelia Brique
Yeah.
- [41:21]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah. Another creative I think for the first hire of course to support apparel.com and Social was a graphic designer. We had a part time graphic designer for a while and then later on we brought in a very junior designer.
- [41:38]
Host
Okay.
- [41:40]
Amelia Brique
Connections.
- [41:41]
Host
Perfect. And by the way, how long do I have you for? Do we have a hard stop? Because I can talk about these topics forever. So I don't. I know. I. So I'm mindful of time. Yeah.
- [41:51]
Amelia Brique
Like this.
- [41:52]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah, yeah, we're okay.
- [41:54]
Host
And 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes. What would be better for you Guys. Perfect. That's fine. Okay. And then evolving into, you know, the second later stage. And maybe we can do a part two sometime to just conclude this episode a little bit better. But. But this is a very long topic, right? Like, doing this properly could take, you know, you could do it successfully in 60 minutes, but really you need five hours to do so, so no rush. Okay. And what were the new. The new challenges and the new operations evolving when you went from, you know, brand 1.0 to brand 2.0.
- [42:31]
Amelia Brique
So like that, that scaling those challenging into scaling. I think it came from the fact that we had a free pass on our first season with our partners, especially with the. Our wholesale partners. So they understood that it was our first time shipping, that we didn't put that label here or we forgot something on the box or, you know, we're. We had like, they were very lenient and they, they wanted the product. And so on our second season, though, they were waiting for us and they're like, they were not as lenient. So we had to. We had to be a lot more. How do I say?
- [43:10]
Lauren Noucci
Rigorous.
- [43:11]
Amelia Brique
Rigorous into how we're, you know, delivering when we're delivering, how we're communicating with them. And so on this piece of operation, I think it was. It was a bit of a shift from the first to the second season. As. And the other seasons later on, we had to hire, you know, at that point. This is the point where we had to hire our first account exec that would handle those conversations directly with buyers. And there were a lot of conversations, you know, beyond just taking an order. And then from. From a logistics perspective, I think we also, like, we needed to be. To be working with a partner that would, that would dedicate time. Because it's, you know, shipping a wholesale order for a retailer, it demands a lot of. It can be very different from one retailer to the other. Sometimes they want to hanger on their, like, coats, sometimes they ask for their own. Like, we do, like, we do things for them. Like we do put their label on our product very often. So there's. There's a lot involved. So we, we basically, our partners became more demanding and. But we also became more demanding with our partners and also with our employees because we were hiring people who were more experts and more senior into this, our operation. So.
- [44:38]
Host
Right, okay. And. But I'm guessing you had raised capital at this point. Right? You used. You raise capital with. With the person that you mentioned early on to fulfill the production and to actually produce, but then to hire better time. How did that no.
- [44:50]
Amelia Brique
So our factoring partner is truly for. So they do factoring. I explained briefly. They, they handle our accounts receivable and, and they give us basically some type of protection of insurance when we ship a client with term. So the act as like almost like an insurance for the tower factoring for our shipping. But they also do like short term financing. So they finance production. So this is not, this is not capital raised. They're not just that. This is short term, very specific short term debt, like what's called pure financing. And so no, what will happen is that we, we had people calling us, they say, well we saw your brand and we want to talk. So we had a number of people coming to visit us and said do you need money?
- [45:46]
Host
And we are independent, independent investors or like private equity firms.
- [45:49]
Amelia Brique
And yeah, they were. So the like the first ones were, were VCS independent investors. The first one in particular was, became our lead investor later on. But she came to see us and she said we saw, I saw your collection online. I bought your coat. I love it. I love what you guys do. We're. I want to, you know, she wanted to support female founders. She, we really hit it off with her. And so after, after a while, you know, obviously we're a little bit, we.
- [46:24]
Lauren Noucci
Play hard to get investors. We did wait and then when we.
- [46:32]
Host
Were like, yeah, this is, this is where the luxury, this is where the luxury fashion experience came into play.
- [46:38]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah.
- [46:38]
Amelia Brique
But no, we truly, truly were wondering if it was the right path, right like, and the right partners like truly. It took us a while to get to that point where we're like, okay, well we want to do that. We want to scale this business. We want, we need capital to, to scale it. So it took us a few months to get to that, you know, conclusion. And so we, we raised around the seed round with her as a lead and we had a couple of, you know, it was a mix of VCs, institutional investors and a couple of celebrities. And it went really, you know, we were very lucky that he went really smoothly and we have, have like a great, you know, great investors on our, on our cap table. And that, that was enough to like really get us to hire, you know, our first team and get our first office, you know, expansion, product expansion, PR communication, all those things that we needed in order to, to establish the brand. Because until then it was a product like, until like then it was time to establish the brand.
- [47:49]
Host
It was a hero product driven brand. Right. It was a hero product dressed as a brand. Now it's a Brand with hero products.
- [47:57]
Lauren Noucci
That's what the evolution.
- [48:00]
Host
Yeah, yeah, Amazing. And anything to add from a creative and communications perspective or it's kind of similar.
- [48:10]
Lauren Noucci
As far as the evolution.
- [48:12]
Host
Yeah, the challenges in that evolution.
- [48:14]
Lauren Noucci
I mean again, I feel like from the beginning I would put a lot of effort on the esthetic of not only the project, but our campaigns. Like we've always really pushed the playfulness, the boldness and I think that's something that really resonated with people. You know, when we talk about the brand, you know, at random places, the word of mouth, it's always like, oh yeah, it is just so fun and bold and I think giving that feel good, you know, feeling to customer, it really makes sense because at the end of the day we do believe that being ethical, right. And ethical brand, it's about doing something better and we want to make, you know, the customer feel good. So I think the, the only thing I can maybe briefly speak on is we did do a rebrand last year and I think it's. We started as a project, then we actually got to a customer and also with our online dtc, right. We get access to more data and we better understand who she is. So we just really evolved the brand from being basically like really bold and playful. And you mentioned ethical vegan. For us, the natural growth is to always, you know, keep the boldness and the playfulness. But we wanted to tap more into our French heritage and background, so trying to be a bit more elevated and chic and because that was a feedback that we got a lot from again doing pop ups and talking, oh, you guys are French. You know, there's, I think the US market has a sweet spot for Perry and, and France. So that's something we wanted, you know, to incorporate more. And when it comes to, and it's maybe that's a, it really like closed the, the circle. It's about being ethical and vegan. Something that we realized for us is that that's something that of course we started but we want to evolve more on a conscious message and we felt that that's the best way to, to connect to our customer without maybe again alienating any customer. Like our goal is to not just, you know, make fashion for the vegan community, but it's actually to make fashion that is conscious and that's going to make any customer feel good about their purchase.
- [50:31]
Host
Understood, Understood. So at the very beginning it was from a creative and communications perspective, was focused on a really good unethical product at great prices that was very playful and that when transitioning into a brand and because you had the data, the DTC data to, you know, to rationalize and make these decisions, it was okay. Now this is the playfulness, the, the, the ethical driven fashion. Still good, great quality, still relative good prices relative to quality. But at the same time the, the sophistication, the history, the heritage that's required to transition from a product to a brand, from a good product, from a great playful, ethical product to a great playful, ethical brand. Yep, interesting. Okay, and just to wrap up the conversation and we'll give a brief stop, hopefully we'll, we'll do a part 2 sometimes in the future as a teaser for the audience and as a teaser for you guys as well because maybe, maybe you still want to share a little bit more information. But yeah, how would you summarize the conversation so far? What, what would be. Because here's going to be my summary and then if you feel like there's any, anything else left to add or a different way to phrase it, please let me know. But I think it's again, starting a product because you want to start it right? Fashion is product driven. So you have to make for, make sure that you focus your energy on the actual product, not on how it's going to be communicated early on. So put all energy into that how you can build a product with great quality, great prices and focus on that until you get crazy demand. Essentially when you get market validation and once you get market validation, you start focusing on how you transition from, from a production perspective, of course, how could we create this and how can we create this reliably and maybe how can we introduce new products alongside this and creative perspective? How can we go from just a product and hero product driven brand to an actual brand with different products, with different categories, with a different story to tell, etc. Etc.
- [52:26]
Lauren Noucci
Yeah, I think that summarizes it very well and I think that's where we are so interesting.
- [52:33]
Host
Okay, amazing guys, that kind of concludes the episode and I want to thank you for the time, of course. I think that this is going to be very, very valuable information for the audience. As I always say, fashion seems very glamorous, but it's not until you have these conversations where you truly realize everything that happens. Right. It's not just you being in a studio and posting cool stuff in social media and celebrities wear it and everything solves itself. So thanks guys.
- [52:57]
Amelia Brique
Thank you, thank you.