In this episode, Kristi Soomer, founder and CEO of ethical clothing brand Encircled, shares her insights on entrepreneurship in the fashion industry.
Summary
Kristi Soomer emphasizes the importance of understanding your customer and differentiating your brand. She discusses the evolution of Encircled from a travel clothing brand to a versatile athleisure brand. She also shares her motivation for starting her own business and the initial hurdles she faced. Kristi highlights the value of finding support and mentoring, as well as the need to adapt to industry trends. She offers advice for aspiring fashion entrepreneurs and gives a sneak peek into upcoming projects for Encircled.
About Kristi Soomer
Kristi Soomer is a visionary entrepreneur and sustainability advocate known for her work as a founder and CEO of the slow fashion brand Encircled. With a background in management consulting, retail and supply chain management, Kristi brings a wealth of expertise to the sustainable fashion space. Holding both an MBA and bachelor’s degree in business administration prepared her for the challenges of disrupting the traditional fashion industry.
Encircled, under Kristi’s leadership has become a beacon for ethical production, eco-friendly materials, and versatile garment design. As a certified B Corporation, Encircled exemplifies Kristi’s commitment to making a positive impact on the environment, her team, and her customers.
A sought after speaker and thought leader, Kristi shares her insights on sustainable fashion at conferences, events, and podcasts, inspiring others to embrace conscious consumption. Kristi Soomer’s dedication to her community, philanthropic efforts and passion for ethical practices are demonstrated through her coaching and online education business at KristiSoomer.com, where she helps up and coming entrepreneurs learn how to scale their businesses through coaching, her eCommerce Maven podcast, Facebook community and mentoring.
Creating a Clear Point of View and Focusing on Customer Needs
Kristi Soomer emphasizes the importance of having a clear point of view and focusing on customer needs in order to stand out in the overcrowded fashion industry. Encircled’s commitment to sustainability, versatility, and comfort has resonated with customers looking for more than just fashion–they seek clothing that aligns with their values and lifestyle. By staying true to its core values and continuously listening to customer feedback, Encircled has been able to grow and evolve while maintaining its unique position in the market.
Adapting to Industry Trends and Staying Resilient
Adaptability and resilience has allowed Encircled to navigate business challenges and thrive. The pandemic experience underscored the need for effective risk management to plan for uncertainties and prepare for various scenarios.
Support and Mentoring to Navigate Entrepreneurship
Having mentors and a supportive network can provide guidance, encouragement, and practical advice, making the journey less isolating and more manageable. Resources such as Marie Forleo’s B-School and the Time Genius program helped Kristi Soomer refine her marketing strategy and connect with other entrepreneurs facing similar challenges.
The Role of Content in Marketing
Much of Encircled’s success is credited to its content-driven marketing strategy, inspired by Marie Forleo’s B-School. By providing educational content and helpful tips, Encircled has built a strong connection with its customers, offering value beyond just selling products.
Commitment to Sustainability and Transparency
By being transparent about their progress and areas for improvement, Encircled builds trust with consumers who value sustainability. Kristi Soomer explains that the brand focuses on creating durable, timeless designs to reduce overconsumption and openly acknowledges the challenges and limitations they face in achieving full sustainability.
Chapters
00:00 Understanding Your Customer and Brand Differentiation
06:16 Starting Encircled as a Travel Clothing Brand
09:57 Creating a New Category: Wander Leisure
11:50 Motivation to Take the Leap into Entrepreneurship
16:34 Initial Hurdles and Overcoming Challenges
25:38 Transitioning to Full-Time Entrepreneurship
30:11 Navigating Changes and Adapting to Industry Trends
36:41 Lessons Learned from the Pandemic
39:26 Advice for Aspiring Fashion Entrepreneurs
43:59 Exciting Projects and Future Plans
45:48 Contact Information
Transcript
Kristi Soomer
It’s very hard to break through in the fashion industry unless you have like a very clear point of view. And that’s where I think it’s really important to work or any product based business to really work on understanding who your customer is, because there are a lot of brands out there selling a lot of similar things and stuff comes around. So like there’s not a lot of new stuff out there. It may be a new positioning, which is a different thing. That’s what as an entrepreneur you bring to the table, you know, your own point of view on it, your own take, your own way you bring it to market. So I encourage people to think more about that and how they’re going to go to market and what their brand looks like and their values as much as possible. Because I think that is what becomes a differentiator at the end of the day. Anybody can make a t-shirt. It’s super easy. But can you tell a story with that t-shirt? Can you emotionally connect with that t-shirt? What values does that t-shirt bring to the world and to your customer’s closet? That’s more challenging.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I’m your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I’m also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
My guest today is Kristi Soomer, a visionary entrepreneur and sustainability advocate known for her work as a founder and CEO of the slow fashion brand Encircled. With a background in management consulting, retail and supply chain management, Kristi brings a wealth of expertise to the sustainable fashion space. Holding both an MBA and bachelor’s degree in business administration prepared her for the challenges of disrupting the traditional fashion industry.
Encircled, under Kristi’s leadership has become a beacon for ethical production, eco-friendly materials, and versatile garment design. As a certified B Corporation, Encircled exemplifies Kristi’s commitment to making a positive impact on the environment, her team, and her customers. A sought after speaker and thought leader, Kristi shares her insights on sustainable fashion at conferences, events, and podcasts, inspiring others to embrace conscious consumption.
Kristi Soomer’s dedication to her community, philanthropic efforts and passion for ethical practices are demonstrated through her coaching and online education business at KristiSoomer.com, where she helps up and coming entrepreneurs learn how to scale their business through coaching, a podcast, Facebook community and mentoring.
Welcome, Kristi. It’s so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Kristi Soomer
Thanks for having me, Glynis.
Glynis Tao
This feels like a dream come true, because I’ve been hoping to talk to you for a while. I’ve been following your work and I’m a huge fan of your brand, Encircled. As a matter of fact, I’m wearing one of your tops today.
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, I was like, that kind of looks familiar.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I love it. I love the color. You’re an entrepreneur, podcast host, business coach, mentor, not to mention dog mama, to sweet little doodle named Harlow, who by the way has more Instagram followers than I do. How do you find the time to do it all?
Kristi Soomer
Well, I don’t have kids. So that’s part one, I’m just a dog mom, but I do keep up with her post. I think I’m actually more regular on my dog’s Instagram than on my own. Like, I find it easier to post content on there for whatever reason. And I think that’s kind of the case for a lot of people because social media is where people tend to overthink what they need to post and stuff like that. Especially I find within the space that we operate. So dog Instagram is just a much easier place.
But how do I find the time? Well, I mean, most of my time is spent in Encircled. The majority of my time goes into operating and running the business. But I do have like the other things on the go, like my podcast and Facebook group and stuff like that and do some coaching and mentoring.
Um, but that’s a very small portion of my schedule and I’m just, like I’ve, I’ve become pretty good at like time blocking and really being focused with how I use my time. I’m a huge advocate of Marie Forleo’s Time Genius program, which I’ve been through and I also coach in as well. Um, and it’s really about changing your mindset on time and not, um, trying to be the most productive person ever, but instead being like really focused on your efforts and doing like less almost to get further ahead with what you’re working on.
So it’s a balancing act for sure. And every week is different. And some of them, especially around key holidays like Black Friday and Christmas and stuff like that can be kind of messy. But I’ve tried intensely over the last few years to cut back my hours. And I think I’ve been pretty successful at it.
Glynis Tao
What I admire you most for is that you’re an innovator, leader, disruptor, and champion of small business. Not only have you built a successful business, you are dedicated to helping other business owners achieve success as well. You’re also very open and transparent about sharing strategies you use at Encircled. I know the story of Encircled and how you got started, which involves solving a pain point that you had, but I want to talk to you about your most recent business announcement.
You decided to make some changes recently and create a new category of clothing. Do you want to talk about that and what led you to your decision to return to your roots?
Kristi Soomer
Very up to date question. I love it. Since this announcement was just made last week. That’s great. Yeah. So originally Encircled started as a travel clothing brand. Essentially I was in my most recent previous career, I was a management consultant. So prior to the pandemic times, management consultants pretty much traveled on site to clients and most of my clients were not in Toronto. So I was living out of a suitcase, flying, you know, back and forth to New York, sometimes Calgary for like years, not just like weeks.
And so I started to really challenge myself on the notion of traveling light and being stylish because you can’t check a bag. Everybody will make fun of you and the consulting world. And you don’t want to do that because you don’t want to spend extra time at the airport. So I started, that’s my original inspiration behind designing the Chrysalis Cardi, which was like our hero piece that I launched with back way, way, way back when, which is an eight in one garment that can be transformed and it’s made out of the same lovely fabric of the Evolve top that you’re wearing.
Um, and then over the years, you know, we’ve still always had that travel ethos, I would say at the heart of everything we do, but we’ve definitely shifted, I think a lot in the last, like, probably since around like 2017, we really focused more on talking about minimalist wardrobes and capsule wardrobes and, you know, kind of doing more with less.
And while I think that resonated with our customer, it’s a hard concept for people to wrap their heads around a little bit. And I think sustainability in itself is a very complex topic in any industry, but for some reason, I guess maybe I’m a bit biased. I feel like fashion, it’s incredibly complex because there’s so many nuances to the sustainability continuum. And I think over the years, I’ve changed my opinion a little bit on sustainability from just purely looking at like the fabrics you’re using to not only that, but the longevity and the utility of the design being as like, as important, if not more than the fabrications. Because one of the biggest things I know in the industry, and I’m sure you’re a well aware as well, is that like, it doesn’t matter if you make 8 billion tops out of a sustainable fabric through one of the fast fashion brands, like if they’re not needed, and it’s over, it’s fueling like over consumption, and then they’re going to fall apart in a year anyways, you can’t wear them. We’re no farther ahead.
So I think our move to creating a new category, which we’re calling Wander Leisure, is really a push to come back home, not only to our roots, but also to where our customers are today. And I would say that’s kind of our niche has always been like this like elegant athleisure. So like not your everyday kind of yoga pants kind of stuff, but a step up from that and stuff that people can wear not only to work, but on the weekend or to trip to your city or Paris and not look like a tourist and be comfortable.
So I don’t think we’re really changing as dramatically maybe as it seems, although we are being more focused, I think, with our designs and actually slowing down our product development cycle quite a bit. But it’s more so that we’re changing how we articulate it to our customer, because that’s what we want. Like I want the designs I’m most proud of are the ones that, like your Evolve Top, I designed in 2013, 2014 maybe. It’s like almost 10 years old and it’s still timeless and many customers still wear them. So to me, that’s a marker of sustainability is creating clothing that’s timeless, elegant, wearable, comfortable, and that’s sustainable. So it’s really just another take on it. We’re not giving away any of our core values at all, but we’re just really changing kind of our focus a little bit.
Glynis Tao
That totally makes sense. I’m looking at your website, and you know, it’s the message is really clear in terms of like, this new, or not new message, but it’s saying travel inspired, elegant athleisure that takes you places. We make wander leisure travel inspired, elegant athleisure that takes you places. That’s like, you know, it gives you really clear ideas to like, okay, what is it that you do? And you know, what is the idea purpose behind your your company? And I love this, like, this word that you invented. Chic comfy, compact and clever styles consciously crafted to never compromise on fit, function or quality. I mean, it speaks to me. And that’s why I still love these designs. Oh, and I see the Evolve Top is on the website homepage on the front homepage too.
And like, you know, I subscribe to your e-letters and I read every single one of them. And I just love, you know, the little tips that you give to people. Styling tips are how to create a capsule wardrobe or how to pack, you know, better for trips. So it’s, it’s really neat. Like I really like what you do. And it just, to me, seems like you really know who your customer is.
Let’s talk about a little bit how before founding Encircled, right? So you were working as a strategy consultant. Can you share a memorable moment or experience that motivated you to take that leap into entrepreneurship and launch your brand?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, I think for me,
Like it started with the idea originally. So just like I came up with that word, wander leisure, I think just like a moment when I was packing for, ironically, my first yoga retreat I’d ever been on, I was on the bench, they call it, or on the beach in consulting when you’re not assigned to a client. So I asked my manager, can I go on vacation? Cause the cancellation just opened up in this yoga retreat my friend’s going to.
And now that seems like very normal, but I guess back like 10 years ago, or even that would have been more, that would have been more like 13 years ago, yoga retreats were not like super well known. So I’d never been on one, but I did yoga. So I was like, let’s go last minute book trip going like two days later, packing for my trip, overpacking because you know, I’ve never been on a yoga retreat. What do you bring? I don’t know. So I started just like shoving all this stuff in this huge suitcase that I had and it broke.
And I was packing the night before and it broke and I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? All I have is a carry on. This is a crisis. I can’t call my friend because it’s like four in the morning and I’m packing. So I’m like, I just got it. Okay. What, what do I not need to bring? And then I’m like, why am I bringing like all this stuff? Like I need a cardigan for the plane, but what else? I wouldn’t really use it there. Like, so that was like a pivotal moment where I was like, okay, I need to like think more compact with how I’m packing and why do I have so much like single use items that are not multifunctional that could be. So that was like one moment.
And then I think the real pivotal moment, at least in my career, I would say was, and I’d already kind of started Encircled at this point and had it kind of running as like a side hustle to my full-time job, but it was the Rana Plaza factory collapse. And that was in 2013. Um, and I was still actively in consulting and my vertical was retail. So, and I was going to Montreal and I was on the ferry. Uh, that’s how old I am to the Island airport in Toronto, which is now a tunnel. Um, and I overheard somebody from one of the brands talking about how their brand was involved in this. And I wasn’t supposed to hear this conversation clearly, but I did need to hear it. And the way they were speaking about it was so disrespectful to the people that were involved in that. And it just made me really question.
They didn’t work for me or anything like that or work with me, but they’re in the industry. And it just hearing that made me like sick to my stomach. Cause I’m like, these are people’s lives who are lost making clothing that weren’t even being properly paid in the first place. They were literally locked in to this building and could not leave. And it just made me think like, who am I helping with the work that I’m doing right now. And the answers weren’t what I wanted, you know?
And I think that’s tough and that’s definitely a very privileged position to sit in because I was in what I believed was my like dream career, but I didn’t want to help more big businesses do bad things ultimately. So I realized that if I wanted to create change in a positive direction, it wasn’t going to be through this role and it wasn’t going to be in this industry even. And I think that’s very true. Cause now if you look even like we’re like 10 years later there’s not much change that’s happened in the mass fashion or fashion vertical in terms of sustainability. Like it’s moved very slowly. The biggest change has come from the creation of all these other brands kind of starting up and bringing new ways of working and new designs, new materials.
Um, so I really wanted to be at the forefront of that. And that was like pretty pivotal in thinking like, you know, at the end of my life, do I want to be known for restructuring brands and firing people and cutting 50 cents out of a manufacturing cost? Or do I want to be like a champion of creating better lives and the workers who make our clothing and educating consumers on, you know, where things are made and the value of quality and cost per wear and utilization of clothing in the industry.
So that was a pretty pivotal moment in making the decision, I think, for me to go forward and actually quit my job and go into the business full time.
Glynis Tao
Wow, that’s an interesting story. I didn’t know that part.
Entrepreneurship comes with challenges. What were some of the initial hurdles you faced when starting your clothing brand and how did you overcome them?
Kristi Soomer
The first one would be not knowing anything about manufacturing a garment for sure. And back when I started, you know, it’s not like it is today where, you know, there’s Upwork and a lot of resources online and, you know, myself included creating courses for digital marketing. Like it wasn’t as big and accessible as it is now the information kind of gig economy. So that was a big hurdle, I think was figuring out actually how the fashion manufacturing process worked, how to get a garment made, which fabrics to even used, you know, that’s very still much a black hole. I think when you’re trying to make a garment, even for us today, because there’s like, you think as a consumer, you’re like, Oh yeah, there’s, there’s modal, but there’s modal jersey, there’s modal scuba, there’s modal rib, there’s tubular rib, like there’s so many variations on one thing, there’s fleece, there’s French terry, like what are the differences, like where it’s certified, like just figuring out even that was so difficult. So that would have been like a big one.
The second one would be, I think, believing in myself as a challenge because I came from a very non-entrepreneurial family. My parents believe in like working at a corporation forever. So I didn’t have a lot of family support. I didn’t have a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs. It’s not like it is now. Now entrepreneurs are like, you know, superheroes and everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. It was not like that. It was like, don’t quit your day job, girl. So that was really hard because I didn’t know what I didn’t even know. And there wasn’t a lot of communities to help support you at that time. So that I think that was a big one because I just didn’t really I don’t know, I had a great idea, but I didn’t realize it, I think.
And then, yeah, just figuring out the technicalities of selling online. This is like early days Shopify, my original site was not built on Shopify, it was built on Magento. And just understanding even how to run a web store and figure out shipping and all that kind of stuff. Wow, that whole logistics side cannot be underestimated.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, absolutely. So many moving parts to running a clothing business.
So, I mean, going back to, you know, when you sort of like, well, sort of coming from a family where, you know, wasn’t really entrepreneurship wasn’t really supportive, like, okay, stick with the corporate job, you know, like, how did you stay motivated during those times? Like, you know, did you have anybody that you worked with, or coach or mentor or something to help you like, get through those more of the challenging times?
Kristi Soomer
Mostly I didn’t tell people what I was doing. I hid it. I hid it from a lot of people. Not that I lied, but I hid it because I didn’t want people that I didn’t want my family to know. I didn’t want my work to know because I didn’t want them to think I wasn’t serious about my job or like somehow maybe stealing time from them. And then my friends, I would periodically like have them try stuff on or whatever. But I don’t think anybody really thought I was being serious about it.
But I did, you know, one of the communities I early on got into was I took a program called B-School by Marie Forleo and she had a large community of entrepreneurs and it’s global. So we had like a little Facebook group for all the e-commerce retailers. And that was like my first kind of connector network, I would say, of people kind of experiencing the same thing. So like, how do you do this on Shopify? How do you upload that? Like, how can you make this graphic? Like how did they do this? Like and that was just like incredibly supportive in terms of getting me forward.
I was hoping that I would have more resources but I found that the local community wasn’t as supportive of my initiatives and that’s not meaning to slight anybody but I think I didn’t come from a traditional fashion background and my business was really commercial. Like I’m not a like couture designer and I think a lot of the agencies in Toronto and organizations kind of cycle around those like higher end designers. So there wasn’t really a space for me to be supported there.
Although I will say, I found one of my technical designers through like a resume database at one of those incubators. And she was invaluable to like the first few years of my business. So you kind of have to pull from resources where you can get it and where you feel like most supported.
And definitely I found like online was the place. And now it’s so great because there’s so many great online communities and mentors and coaches and stuff like that. It’s really such an up level, even for me at this stage in my business to find somebody who’s, you know, a few years farther ahead that can see what you can’t see.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. So you mentioned Marie Forleo’s B-School. I also was in that program. I took it when probably around maybe 2011, 2012. Yeah, it was only when the program was around for a couple years then, and I still had my own clothing brand. But I was struggling with like, a lot of the same things that you mentioned. And like, but I came from a fashion background, in manufacturing background. So I had product development and garment manufacturing experience, but I didn’t have the business experience. And so that’s what why I turned to B-School.
And I thought, was very early on like one of the maybe first you know kind of online programs that were available but it had that community feel to it and that you also get the support which is great and um yeah you’re currently mentoring um for them as well right?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah I mentor in both programs B-School and Time Genius I’ve actually been doing mentoring in B-School for almost eight years, maybe, it’s been a while. So, so yeah, and Maria is amazing. As you know, like she’s really committed to constantly like revisiting the content and expanding it. And now she has a whole mentor team, you know, in there helping in the comments, and it’s a variety of people like it’s me and there’s a couple there’s another e-commerce entrepreneur, there’s, you know, life coaches, there’s website designer mentors, like there’s a real rich perspective in there.
Sometimes I want to go in and ask questions. I can probably just DM them. But like, she’s really done a great job of staying current with what’s happening in digital marketing, because I think that changes quite a bit. And I will say, like, to her credit, like I took, I mean, I have an MBA, I went to business school, and I have an MBA. And when I took her program, I was like, whoa, I’ve been thinking about this all wrong.
Um, and it’s because like my tactics and my background were all corporate marketing, which does not work when you have no money. It just does not work. So what I was trying to do was adapt corporate marketing tactics to a small business. And like, it was not working. And I took it in 2013. And the only reason I know that is because it was soon after I launched my business and I had hired a PR agency because that’s what corporate people do. And they had kind of run out of steam after three months, because I only have one product. And they were like, I don’t think we can promote you anymore. We’ve been there, done that. You got lots of placements. And I did get lots of placements. But then all of a sudden, I had no marketing plan. Like as soon as they left, I did $138 in March 2013 in sales. And I thought to myself, you are never going to be full time in this business. That is crazy bad. That is so bad. And it was my friend who bought it bought a cardi, like it wasn’t even somebody I didn’t know.
And I laugh about it now, but like, some of the early tactics that I started to use were from B-School because they were content driven. And actually you still see that as you mentioned, to this day in my business, we do a lot of content creation in the business, not just like outfits, but like actual educational content and packing lists and all this kind of stuff. And a lot of that was inspired through that program.
And it’s so value added and it creates just such a nice connection with your customer because you’re truly giving them something other than just trying to sell them something, but you’re giving them a lot of value as well.
Glynis Tao
So it sounds like in your early days, I guess when you sort of started Encircle, like you still were working at your job, right? Like you hadn’t quit your job yet at that time, like when you had, when you do, you were doing in Encircled at the same time. And because you were like am I ever going to be able to like do this full time?
I had the same experience too. I was working as a product manager at Reebok and doing the business on the side until I was kind of forced out of my job. And I was like, well, I guess this is the opportunity for me to do this full time and never look back. But the learning curve was just huge.
Obviously, you know, now we know you’ve managed to be successful over the years and have been able to scale the business. Did your previous experience as a consultant, like, help you in being able to, you know, plan and establish your business? You did talk about it a little bit, but yeah, did you draw from a lot of that experience from your work into your business?
Kristi Soomer
Consulting is that like the reason people hire consultants and probably the reason people hire coaches and mentors is because it’s like an objective view on the business. So when you’re a business owner, you’re not as objective, no matter if you have a consulting background. So from that sense, no, but I would say my whole career was helpful in structuring the business and even my school, like I think my MBA program, I went to Queens University in Canada and that was really transformative from a framework perspective. So that’s why I think I’m such a strong operator is because I do have a strong framework for operating the business and the business is, as you know, fashion businesses are really finance driven. You really have to understand the numbers and be really good at forecasting and inventory and manufacturing and stuff like that.
Of course you have to be good at design, but the fundamentals that underpin it need to be really strong. So I think my education and career set me up really well for that. So I worked for some amazing consulting firms, but I also like a lot of shaping of my career happened when I worked at Colgate-Palmolive, which is a consumer packaged goods company that’s run like, you know, the tightest ship you’ll ever run. And like that taught me so much about like profit and loss statements and marketing spend and all these things, you know, that are really important for a business. So I’d say that’s like been really helpful. And I don’t think I, you know, I quit my job in 2014 and I had been in my career for almost 11 years, which is like very stupid, probably to a lot of people who are thinking, why would you do that?
But it’s not like what happens today. People graduate university and they’ve already got a business on the side or something. They don’t even bother or sometimes they don’t even bother going to school or college and they just start their business. That just wasn’t really as much of a thing back then. And I’m grateful for every lesson. And I always say this to people who are doing a side hustle. There’s always something to learn from your business and having that side business you know, although it was hard because I wasn’t home a lot. So I would literally like pack orders on the weekend. And I dropped them on the way to the airport in, you know, Canada Post mailboxes, and I’d have the driver pull over and like stuff some in there. And then I go to the next one, I stuff a bunch in there. That’s kind of how I worked. And so that was hard.
But I, there was also I didn’t have to worry about money as much, you know, that whole financial stress point was relieved from having a career. Like I wasn’t like constantly stressing about that. And so that kind of was, I think, a big game changer. So I always encourage people if they can kind of do both, or at least keep some sort of consistent income while they are starting their business. I think it is it does reduce that like anxiety that comes from being an entrepreneur that we all know comes with it either way at every level, it reduces it for a little bit and allows you to focus on, you know, what matters most and to hire out stuff as well.
Glynis Tao
Sort of like what would you say was the tipping point for you? Like, what was the thing that you did that, you know, got to really like, boost you, your business?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, I would say like every year, especially early on, you know, the business was like kind of doubling every year. And I think it hit its point where it was becoming unmanageable by me, uh, part-time for sure. And I was starting to realize like, if I want this PR opportunity, if I want this, I want to do another product. Like everything was moving so slowly because I could really only do it on like Saturdays and Sundays. Um, and I’d have to take vacation to work on the business. So it’s becoming like prohibitive, I think. So I had to decide.
Um, and I don’t remember the specific revenue, but I think it was around, I would guess like $150,000 or something like that. Like I was doing a decent amount of revenue through the business a year. And I was like, okay, I’ve got something people are like interested in what I’m selling. So like, what if I actually put my full-time effort in and what will happen?
Um, so yeah, I would say like over the years, it just started to kind of grow. Obviously as you get bigger, it doesn’t double every year. And then during the pandemic, we had quite a bit of growth, like a lot of brands did for sure, just with people shifting to online shopping and being kind of in this space where we literally make sweatpants you can wear to work. So we were in the right spot at the right time kind of thing. So yeah, but it does get harder as it gets, your business gets bigger to grow and the tactics always change.
Back in the day, like, especially when I first started, like working with bloggers was such a big and influencers, they weren’t even called that back then, was such a big unlock for our business. Like we could do a blogger partnership, you know, and we would make like $20,000 in like 24 hours. Like it was crazy. Now it’s like so much more fragmented. So you kind of have to, as a business owner, as you know, like adapt your skillset all the time to kind of the changing channels and the tactics and the strategies and, you know, Facebook ads are always shifting and all that kind of stuff. So you really have to become a Jack or Jill of all trades when you’re an entrepreneur, which is, it’s tough, but I think it’s really fun too, cause you get to learn about a lot of stuff and continuously challenge yourself.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, absolutely. And you share a lot of that knowledge on your podcast, especially exactly what you’ve been doing, what’s worked and what hasn’t worked for your business. And I love that. I really, I’ve listened to almost all, if not all your podcasts, because you offer such valuable advice. It’s just valuable. It’s, you know, practical. It’s stuff that you can do. It’s, you know, it’s not anything crazy. It’s like stuff that’s actually doable. And knowing that, you know, you’ve tested it out for your own business, knowing that it works. It’s like, wow. I think that’s great.
I know in the past three, four years, you know, there’s been a big shift in terms of consumer behavior and, you know, the way industry trends are going. How have you adapted to all those changes? Like, have you obviously had to adapt your business model? Like, how did you navigate through all of these changes?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, so…It’s been a little tough because like somewhat ironically, I’m sure this happened to many brands. You know, in 2020, we were going to expand into physical pop-ups. Like we had booked a bunch of like collaborative pop-ups with another brand in person and we had booked all these shows and events. And then, you know, all of a sudden you can’t do any of these. And so that was tough.
Um, but you, and we used to do a lot of in-person events and retail in our studio even. And then all of a sudden we’re like, can we even open our studio? Can we even ship from our studio? So we had to like really adapt quite a bit. And because of where we’re located, like some of our manufacturing shut down, like there was a lot of like, um, uncertainty, especially during the first like six months. Um, so we, we adapted pretty quickly to you know, selling masks. We were one of the first brands in Canada to move to that because we had a manufacturer who was like ready to make them and already had like everything set up for that. And those really carried us through the first few months of the pandemic for sure. And, you know, it was crazy. You would like go on the website and we get a sale like every second when we restock them, like it was, it was insane.
But that led to a lot of discovery of us as a brand, which was nice as well. So once we had manufacturing back open, we were able to like get back into production and kind of business as normal, but not really for a few years. So you just kind of have to roll with the punches. It’s, you know, it was an incredibly difficult time. I think any entrepreneur will tell you that. And, you know, even from everything, from getting materials to, you know price increases, to getting people to work for you, and like all the things. Like there was just so many things that like, I hope we just have the next decade and it’s just like cool and calm. That’d be nice. Cause I think a lot of us like really went through it, but you know, all you can do is just do the best that you can and adapt and be gentle and kind to yourself through the process because you know that like other people are going through the same thing as well.
And that’s where I think community is really helpful also is to make sure you’re supporting yourself with like, you know, different communities, because oftentimes what you’re thinking, you’re probably not the only one experiencing it. So it’s good to have that community so that you don’t feel so alone.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Just exactly what you said. I mean, during the pandemic, we were all in it. So it’s not like you felt like you were the only one going through it. You know, the entire world was.
So in that way, I felt like it’s never been a time like something like this in history and like within the past hundred years, that was like global, that everybody was in the same situation at the same time and all having to adapt to this.
But like, would you say now, you know, did the pandemic help you in your business in terms of identifying certain things? Doing things differently? Has it changed the way you did business? Do you think you came out stronger?
Kristi Soomer
That’s a great question. Would I do it again? No. No. If I’m honest and transparent like I am, no, I would not wish that on anybody. But I’m definitely more resilient. And I think, you know, all the business owners that I know are in some way, because it showed a lot of us that, you know, we can adapt to whatever is thrown at our way. And some businesses were just dealt a crappy hand. Like it was just like chance, right? Like if you’re in the right category, like thank God we weren’t selling like luggage or something during the pandemic, that would have been a lot harder to like deal with, right? So I think in some ways, some brands got really lucky. Some of them did not. Like restaurants, I think struggled a lot.
And we lost a lot of great restaurants, I know in Toronto. So it’s like, it’s like neither good or bad. It’s just like, it happened and we deal with it and we move on. But the things I learned for sure were like, you know, nothing is certain. And I think too, I think a lot of us got that reality check that like, you know, as an entrepreneur, like stuff is always out of our control, but there’s usually like stability somewhere.
And I think the thing with the pandemic was that it was like really out of control and there was no stability in your external environment and then internally. And it’s just like, whoa, okay, that can happen. And for a lot of us, like we had never experienced anything that unstable in our lives. So I think from that perspective, it was eye-opening to not only build resilience, but also to build awareness that like we have to plan for some of these things.
Those things that people talk about in risk management that we laugh at, because we’re like, oh, that’s stupid, that’ll never happen. They can happen. Like nothing’s out of the field. So I think about that a lot when we’re planning production, when we’re how we structure our business, where people are located, who serve the business. We’re definitely much more hybrid model with a huge portion of like remote freelancers now just because of the way things have shifted. So I do think we took whatever positives we could out of it, but yeah, it was a very challenging time for sure.
Glynis Tao
For aspiring entrepreneurs in the fashion industry, what advice would you give them based on your own experience and lessons learned?
Kristi Soomer
I would say it’s very hard to break through in the fashion industry unless you have a very clear point of view.
And that’s where I think it’s really important to work or any product based business to really work on understanding who your customer is, who you’re serving and how you’re either solving some sort of problem for them or creating some sort of joy for them. Because there are a lot of brands out there selling a lot of similar things and know, we see it all the time that fashion is very recycled in terms of silhouettes and you know, now 90s fashion is back again, much to our horror, you know, stuff comes around. So like, there’s not a lot of new stuff out there. It may be a new positioning, which is a different thing of old things. And that’s, that’s what as an entrepreneur, you bring to the table, you know, your own point of view on it, your own take your own way you bring it to market.
So, I encourage people to think more about that and how they’re going to go to market and what their brand looks like and their values, um, as much as possible. Cause I think that is what becomes a differentiator at the end of the day. Anybody can make a t-shirt. It’s super easy. Um, but can you tell a story with that t-shirt? Can you emotionally connect with that t-shirt? You know, what, what values does that t-shirt bring to the world and share your customer’s closet? That’s more challenging.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And, um, I mean, you have very strong values as a brand and seem like it was something that you had, you know, from the beginning had your set core values. And that’s carried you through all these years. And the more or less I guess the values have remained the same in these past 11 years?
Kristi Soomer
Pretty much. Yeah, I think I mean, they haven’t really changed that much. I would say maybe the way we articulate them has sometimes changed. But like, we’ve always been really comfortable. Versatility has always been at the core of what we do. The thoughtfulness of our design is always integral. And then obviously, our ethics have always been there.
We’ve always been made in Canada and always strive to do the most sustainable thing with our fabrics as possible. So yeah, they’ve always been the way they are. And I think that’s a testament. I do believe that our customers see that we live our values and we’re really authentic about them and we’re transparent when we can’t achieve something. Some things are just not realistic for small brands and some things are just not far along enough to deliver on product quality and stuff like that yet. Removing spandex out of every product would be amazing, but there’s benefits to spandex that people don’t understand in terms of longevity and rebound and fabric and fit.
So like there’s things that we can’t solve for yet, but it doesn’t mean we’re not thinking about them. So we’re always very transparent with our customers to let them know, you know, where we’re doing well and where we’re maybe, you know, still a work in progress.
Glynis Tao
I love that. Um, what’s your look for 2024?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, so I think it’s really positive. We’re coming out with a lot of new styles coming up, really inspired by our customer where they are today. As you mentioned, when I started Encircled in 2012, even I’ve grown up with the business, this is like 10, 12 years later, and I’m even in a different phase in my life. So we’re really designing for the woman who is living her midlife journey.
And we really want to be a part of that. So that’s something we take really seriously into how we design. So I’m very excited to kind of roll that out a little bit more in terms of how we’re executing on even pants or like tops and dresses and stuff like that. Like we have some really great designs that are functional, yet comfortable, yet elegant and dressy that we’re launching over the next like six months that are planned out. And I’m really excited about them all.
So I’m really happy to see our customers reactions because I feel pretty confident in them and the new directions. So, so yeah, it’s looking good.
Glynis Tao
Oh, amazing. Can you provide any sneak peek into any exciting projects or plans a brand has for the future?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah, so we are coming out with, for years people have asked us for dressy sweatpants, which is one of our best selling products. Without pleats and without ruching like less of a sweat pant kind of looking sweatpant. So one of our new products that’s coming out in February is called the Wanderer Pant. And it is basically like your go to like, kind of like tapered leg work to weekend pant made out of dressy sweatpant material. So it feels like pajamas it’s so comfortable, really elegant. Um, our designer’s done an amazing job at making jersey not look like jersey, which is really difficult to do. Um, so it has, it looks actually structured, but it’s not, um, it’s soft. So I’m really excited for that pant. I think our customer is going to love it. Um, it’s really modern and fresh and it’s like one of those pants you can wear anywhere. Um, and everywhere. And that’s the beauty of our dressy sweatpants and other designs that’s been around forever.
So this is, I think, one of those designs that will be in people’s closets for a really long time. So we’re really proud to bring that to market next month.
Glynis Tao
Oh, I’m excited for that as well. I have a pair of the dressy sweatpants. I’d like to see the next evolution of it. Yeah. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Kristi Soomer
Yeah. So you can check us out at Encircled.ca. That’s E-N-C-I-R-C-L-E D.ca.
We’re at @Encircled_ on Instagram and you can find me at @KristiSoomer on Instagram or TikTok.
Glynis Tao
Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your valuable insights into entrepreneurship, the fashion industry and business scaling with us.
In this episode you will discover the journey of Canadian fashion designer, Linda Lundström.
Linda shares her insights on embracing change, the impact of technology in manufacturing and why challenges should be seen as gifts. Join us for an inspiring conversation with this true fashion innovator.
About Linda Lundström
Linda Lundström is an award-winning fashion designer, lean manufacturing practitioner, inspirational speaker, Indigenous ally, and creative director of online outerwear brand Therma Kōta.
Linda’s career spans over five decades in the fashion industry. She’s well known for designing and building the Linda Lundström brand and a state-of-the-art Canadian lean manufacturing facility. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including three honorary PhDs. She was named to the Order of Ontario in 1995 and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013. She is recognized as a champion of First Nations awareness, ethical manufacturing practices, and a proud supporter of the Made in Canada label. Linda’s entrepreneurial journey is marked by synchronicity guided by mantras from her parents and a deep commitment to social responsibility.
Summary
Linda Lundström, a renowned Canadian fashion designer, shares her journey of resilience, innovation, and spirituality in the fashion industry. With over five decades of experience, she emphasizes the significance of seeing every life event as a gift, even setbacks like her company’s bankruptcy in 2008. Lundström highlights the importance of paying attention to the universe’s signs and believing in one’s path. Her career is marked by her dedication to Canadian manufacturing, ethical practices, and empowering Indigenous communities through the Sewing Circle Project. She also discusses the transition from running a multimillion-dollar business to founding Therma Kōta with her daughters, focusing on sustainable, made-to-order outerwear.
Takeaways
View Challenges as Gifts
Lundström’s philosophy revolves around perceiving every life event, including setbacks and failures, as gifts that lead to growth and new opportunities.
Lean Manufacturing and Innovation
Lundström’s adoption of lean manufacturing and computerized systems in the ’80s showcases her forward-thinking approach, focusing on efficiency, waste reduction, and empowering workers.
Sourcing and Sustainability
Her commitment to Canadian manufacturing and sustainable practices highlights the importance of ethical considerations in fashion. She designed products based on the available materials, promoting a waste-not-want-not philosophy.
Cultural Identity and Design
Drawing inspiration from her father’s Swedish indigenous background and Canadian heritage, Lundström underlines the significance of integrating personal and cultural identity into design, making it unique and authentic.
Adaptation and Online Business Model
Transitioning to an online business model with Therma Kōta, she illustrates the importance of adapting to changing market dynamics and leveraging technology to reach customers directly, offering customized, made-to-order products.
Importance of Physical Fitness
She emphasizes the physical demands of the fashion industry, advising aspiring designers to maintain physical fitness to handle the workload effectively.
Chapters
00:00 Believing in the Gifts of Life
03:15 Introduction to Linda Lundström
06:30 Early Passion for Sewing
13:35 Starting the Linda Lundström Brand
18:22 Inspiration from a Trip to Japan
23:07 Creating Laparka
30:49 Commitment to Made in Canada
36:52 Transition to Lean Manufacturing
43:08 Supporting Indigenous Communities
56:09 Starting and Building a Multi-Million Dollar Company
57:26 Facing Financial Crisis and Selling the Company
59:18 Creating a Plan B and Transitioning to a New Chapter
01:01:08 Finding Joy and Success in a Smaller Studio
01:03:08 Working Remotely and Embracing Lean Manufacturing
01:05:01 Embracing Online Retail and Minimizing Waste
01:07:52 Supporting Indigenous Communities through the Sewing Circle Project
01:10:53 Advice for Aspiring Fashion Designers and Entrepreneurs
01:15:18 Viewing Challenges as Gifts and Finding Happiness
If you pay attention to the signs and signals that the universe sends you on your path that are meant to direct you in a certain way, believe, have faith that if you follow that path, it will take you somewhere good. And even going bankrupt, having my company fail in 2008, even that was a gift.
And the second thing besides, you know, being physically strong that I want to share with people as a piece of advice is that I’ve gone through life believing that everything is a gift. Everything is a gift. Growing up in the bush turned out to be a gift. Losing my company in 2008 became a gift because now I live on a lake surrounded by cedar trees and I’m working in my studio and I’m still doing what I love.
So losing my company was a gift because I would have been in worse shape if I clung onto it and not listened to what the universe was telling me. So everything in life in business is a gift. If you have that belief, then you will find that no matter what happens, you can survive it, you can thrive and be happy.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I’m your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I’m also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Glynis Tao
Hey everyone, I’m so thrilled to have you join us today as we delve into the incredible journey of Canadian fashion designer, Linda Lundström. Linda Lundström is an award-winning fashion designer, lean manufacturing practitioner, inspirational speaker, Indigenous ally, and creative director of online outerwear brand Therma Kōta.
Linda’s career spans over five decades in the fashion industry. She’s well known for designing and building the Linda Lundström brand and a state-of-the-art Canadian lean manufacturing facility. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including three honorary PhDs. She was named to the Order of Ontario in 1995 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013. She is recognized as a champion of First Nations awareness and ethical manufacturing practices, a proud supporter of the Made in Canada label. Linda’s entrepreneurial journey is marked by synchronicity guided by mantras from her parents and a deep commitment to social responsibility.
Today, Linda shares her insights on embracing change, the impact of technology in manufacturing and why challenges should be seen as gifts. Join us for inspiring conversation with a true fashion innovator, Linda Lundström.
Hi, Linda, it’s so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Linda Lundström
Thank you, Glynis. It’s so good to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Glynis Tao
You are a Canadian fashion industry icon, and I’m so honored to have you here sharing your story and expertise with us today. My pleasure. So can you tell our listeners a bit about yourself and how you first got started in the fashion industry?
Linda Lundström
Wow, how much time do we have? Well, the short story is that I started sewing when I was three. So, you know, the fact that I did what I did with my career kind of makes sense when you know that. We grew up in a little tiny community in northwestern Ontario. It was a mining community, gold mining community, where there was a lot of little towns, each one with a gold mine. And so the town that we were in when I was actually a hamlet had about 11 houses.
And my mom ordered a Singer featherweight sewing machine from Eaton’s catalog. It was electric, which was state of the art back then because a lot of the sewing machines were treadle sewing machines, you know, you pump them with your feet. So my mom had this little sewing machine which was her pride and joy. And she took the needle out and let me play with it. Can you believe it? So at the age of three, I was feeding fabric through the machine, but there was no needle in it.
And then she thought, oh, this kid seems to be pretty competent in that. So she put a thread in it and a needle and gave me fabric. And so by the time I was in grade one, I was making my own clothes to go to school.
Glynis Tao
Wow.
Linda Lundström
Yeah. And my mom, so my mom was really instrumental and encouraging. I mean, can you imagine we’re in the middle of nowhere in the bush. Our only contact with the outside world is Eaton’s catalog and or one of our only contacts wasn’t the only one. There was a highway out of the area which is basically it’s called the Red Lake District but it was made up of these little towns and we lived in several of them but the one I was born in was very small and so for her to supply me with fabric. Sometimes it was just the bags that flour came in. Flour used to come in cloth bags, by the way, so did sugar. So my mom saved those bags and she’d let me experiment with them. So when I got to grade one, I was wearing my own clothes and I wasn’t wearing like little girls things. I was wearing like pencil skirts with a slit up the back.
Glynis Tao
But you were already a fashionista.
Linda Lundström
I was making adult clothes, but in miniature sizes. And so that was how my career began. And then I just, you know, school was something that I had to contend with when all I really wanted to do was go home and sew. And so consequently, my scholastic records were not great.
I did graduate from high school, but I graduated with a 53% average. So I had some subjects that I was pretty good in, like English and anything creative, but not so good in math and those kinds of subjects. And so my options were limited, but we sent a submission to Sheridan College with photographs of all the things that I had made from the time I was that high to my 17 or 18 year old self, we sent the photographs to Sheridan College and I was accepted and that’s where I met my tribe. I met other people like me who were making things and who had shown this ability. And so I was, died and gone to heaven. I mean, that’s where I really thrived and I was getting A pluses on my projects and high marks and it was the first time I’d ever experienced that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, that sounds very similar to my story as well. Like, I was not very interested in things in high school except for home economics and sewing classes, the sewing classes that I took.
Linda Lundström
Yes, yeah, home economics was a good one.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Yeah, and then it wasn’t until I went to fashion school too that, you know, I felt like I came alive.
Linda Lundström
Which school did you go to?
Glynis Tao
I went to Kwantlen in BC and then I moved out to Toronto and went to Ryerson University.
Linda Lundström
Okay, okay. So and did you study fashion design or fashion merchandising?
Glynis Tao
Fashion design.
Linda Lundström
Okay, oh cool. That’s really interesting.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so then after Sheridan, then did you decide to start your own fashion brand then or?
Linda Lundström
No, no, I knew that I got a certain amount of knowledge from my time at Sheridan College, but I knew that it was more of an academic approach and that to really understand manufacturing and the business, the industry, I needed some practical experience. So I said, okay, I think I was, I think I was 20 when I graduated from Sheridan College and I thought, okay, I need to get some experience in the industry.
So I thought, okay, when I’m 27, I’m going to start. So I’m going to take the next, you know, six, six or so years and I’m just going to learn more. So I, um, I worked for, um, a couturier in Toronto. Then I worked on Spadina Avenue as a pattern maker. And that was really wonderful. It was a company, um, that had been in business for a long time and they took me under their wing and they really enjoyed, you know teaching me how it actually worked in the industry, you know, like going to New York and getting patterns because they had a tie-up in New York.
So they didn’t actually create a lot of their own styles, which is something I didn’t realize that the Canadian industry was basically based on copying or having a tie-up with a company in New York that was creating the styles and the patterns and then reproducing them here.
I also worked, I also worked for a company in London, England, called Frank Usher because I was awarded a Canadian government scholarship to study abroad for a year. And so I went to London and I was accepted with Frank Usher as an intern. And I worked with them for eight months. And then I went to the south of France and I worked for a company called Chacok.
So you can imagine my learning curve was just, you know, it was going, it was going way up. Yeah. And I came back just full of enthusiasm and thinking, okay, I need another couple of years on Spadina Avenue learning more. And I could not get a job, couldn’t get a job. And so that’s when I decided to accelerate my plans by a couple of years and, uh, and start my own company.
So call my mom and dad. Said, Mom, Dad, remember when you promised me that when I was ready to start my company, that you’d loan me some money to start it? Well, I’m ready now. And so they did, they kept their promise because my dad was in the mining business, but after being an underground miner for many years, he started his own company in the mining contracting business. And my mom had her own company in our basement where she sold fabric and rented sewing machines.
So that’s another part of my story is that when I was about 10 years old or 11 years old, my mom opened this fabric store in her basement, in our basement, and she bought fabric from Eaton’s catalog and then she sold it for the same price she paid for it. And she made cake and coffee for everyone that came to her fabric store. And so my dad said, Olive you’re losing money. So that’s when my mom started. My mom started traveling to Winnipeg, which is like an eight hour, well, it was like a one and a half hour plane ride, but it was an eight hour drive. My mom started going to Winnipeg and buying fabric at wholesale so that she could afford to, you know, mark it up a bit and cover her costs.
So I would come home every day and go downstairs and there would be a fabric store in our basement, right? And so my job was to, my mom also rented out sewing machines because she didn’t think that not having a sewing machine was an excuse for not buying fabric. So she started renting sewing machines out to people for a month at a time. And when they came back from the person, they usually, the thread was jammed or something, they needed cleaning, they needed oiling. And that was my job. I became like almost like a sewing machine mechanic. So simple repairs to sewing machines was something that I developed and I love doing that. I love machinery.
And so where was I? So when I was yeah, so I studied in Europe for a year and came back, started my own company in a two-bedroom apartment with a loan from my mom and dad. And that was in 1974.
Glynis Tao
And that was the start of the Linda Lundström brand. Yes. It started out of your parents’ home.
Linda Lundström
No, I was in Toronto at this time. My mom and dad were, yeah, I stayed in Toronto because I knew I had to either be in Toronto or Montreal.
And I was sort of a flip of the coin, but I was in Toronto one day, picking up my things that had been in storage out of friends and I ran into one person that I knew. And I thought, okay, I’ll stay in Toronto. I know one person here. I didn’t know anybody in Montreal.
Glynis Tao
Right, okay.
Linda Lundström
So I rented an apartment, a two bedroom apartment. I had sewing machines in one bedroom. Not many, like two sewing machines, industrial sewing machines. In fact, I still have one of the machines. I don’t know if you can see this machine right here.
Glynis Tao
Uh-huh.
Linda Lundström
This machine is an industrial singer sewing machine. And when I bought it in 1974, it was old already. And that machine has not missed a stitch in all those years. It’s my favorite machine. It’s a beauty.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Yes. And you’re still using it.
Linda Lundström
Still using it had the motor replaced once, you know, maintain it as much as I can, because I know about machine maintenance, right? So that’s why it’s lasted so long. And so I had sewing machines in one room. I had rolling racks in the second bedroom with garments on them and patterns and stuff. My living room was my showroom and it also had a couch in it that was a hide-a-bed. That was where I slept, but in the daytime it was a showroom.
And the dining room was where I built a table, a cutting table. The apartment was one of these old apartments with, the dining room was like the largest room in the apartment. And the way I built the table was if I gained weight, I couldn’t get out from behind the table because of the, it fit exactly into that space.
And I started showing my, I made a small collection and I started showing it to people. One thing led to another. It grew very, very slowly. I remember my first year, my sales were $14,000. My second year, they were $30,000. And my third year, I think my sales were over $100,000. And I just kept, you know, I just kept going.
Glynis Tao
Wow. So what was the vision that you had for the brand in the beginning?
Linda Lundström
You know, the mouse that’s in a maze and it just goes, it goes where the cheese is.
Glynis Tao
Yeah.
Linda Lundström
You know, that, that whole analogy. The maze? Well, um, the maze and they go for where the cheese is. And so I made my first collection, I made dresses, I made tops, I made sportswear, coordinated sportswear, tops and bottoms, skirts and pants, jackets and blouses. I made coats. I made a lot of different categories. And back then, the industry tended to be in categories. You were either a blouse house, or you were a pant house, or you were a coat house, or you know what I mean?
The industry wasn’t set up to be like a concept, a wardrobe concept industry. And I learned pretty quickly that buyers, and I was selling to retail stores, I was trying to sell to retail stores, buyers were used to categorizing. They went to one place for their blouses, they went to another company for their dresses, another company for their coats. So when I put out this collection that had everything in it, coats and everything, I kind of confused the buyers, I think.
And what sold the best was the dresses. Who knew? The dresses sold way better than anything else. So I guess that was a sign that maybe there was a void in the dress end of the industry that for some reason I stumbled upon it. And so what happened with the next collection, I made more dresses. And then the next one, I made even more dresses. I dropped the coats, I, you know, and started going to where the cheese was. And at a certain point, I was I became sort of known as a dress house, which was okay, as I was building my business, but I felt very limited in that category.
But I kept going and my sales kept you know, my sales kept going up. And then an amazing thing happened in 1980. At the age of 30 a very good friend of mine invited me to join her on a trip to Japan. She was in the fabric. She had gone to Sheridan College, but she ended up going into the fabric design end of the business. And at that time, Japan was the main supplier of fabulous fabrics. Today it’s China and Korea, but back then it was Japan. And so to be invited to go with her to Japan was an amazing opportunity. And her name is Glynis, by the way.
Glynis Tao
Your friend’s name?
Linda Lundström
Yeah, my friend’s name was Glynis. Yeah, she changed my life. And so I really didn’t have a pot to piss in. Like, I mean, I did, my company was growing, but when you’re running a growing company, you’re almost always cash poor because you have to finance that growth, right?
And you have to buy more fabric to fill more orders and everything. And so we were running a pretty tight ship and I thought, well, I can’t afford to go to Japan. But Glynis said, well, you stay with me in my hotel. You know, well my expenses are all paid. You’re just tagging along. So I did. And I took her up on it and I went to Japan and I was mesmerized by the aesthetic.
In Japan, you know, I thought it was going to be a cesspool of humanity with people pushing you and crowding you, not at all. People really respect personal space over there. There were lots of areas that were very spacious and the inside of buildings. It was, it just blew my mind. And the fashion back then was being recognized around the world from Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo. It was pulsating with creative energy. And I landed right then in Japan and I got to absorb all that. And what I observed was that the Japanese fashion that was really being recognized around the world, like in Europe and everything, was when you looked at it, it was all geometric shapes that were based on the kimono. They were kind of kimono-esque, but then they had taken that that those geometric shapes and they had morphed them and twisted them and made them into these really unusual things.
And they started to rediscover some of the traditional fabrics of Japan that were being used in modern day, but were actually old ancient textile techniques. And so I thought, wow, it’s Japan at that point was really leaning into their natural cultural heritage.
I came back from that trip and I looked at my collection and I went, no wonder I’m working so hard. I’m trying to figure out what’s happening in New York, what’s happening in Milan, what’s happening in Paris. I’m reading Women’s Wear Daily, trying to figure out how to stay up with everything. And I felt a little bit like this. I went to Japan and I went, stop. I canceled my subscription to Women’s Wear Daily.
I stopped traveling to all the different shows and everything. And I said, okay, what can I make that is to Canada, what the kimono is to Japan? What can I draw upon having grown up in the North in a little tiny town? What was it about that life experience that I can bring into my work now? What is it about? What is, is there a garment? Like, is there a garment that’s typically Canadian?
And then my father is from north of the Arctic Circle, was born north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. And his family was partly Sami, which is the indigenous people of Northern Sweden. And they were called Laplanders. And I, so I’m asking myself, what can I make that is a reflection of my Lapland, Sami heritage, my Canadian experience living in the North. And at that point I was visited with a vision that kept recurring. It’s almost like a dream that you have over and over and over and over and over again. And the vision, it was of a figure walking across a frozen horizon. There was no trees. The sky met the ground, which was covered with snow, and there was a very faint line where they met. And the sky was shades of pink, soft pink, soft yellow. And it was, and walking across was this figure with a pointed hood and fur around, walking in profile, and the color of the coat that this person was wearing was the same color as the color of the sky.
So you can, can you see it? Can you, am I painting a good picture?
Glynis Tao
You are, absolutely. I can visualize all of what you’re saying.
Linda Lundström
Was very mystical. It just seemed like that vision is so clear in your mind, like. It’s almost as though, Glynis, it came from somewhere in, it’s almost like I felt like I was channeling. Because it kept coming back and it always came back in the morning when I was waking up but I wasn’t fully awake yet. This vision would appear of this woman walking across this horizon. And it was all very dreamy, very dreamy. So I went, oh, well, that’s a beautiful parka which I grew up wearing parkas, like we all were parkas, there are little jackets with the fur around here.
Glynis Tao
Yeah.
Linda Lundström
And I’ve got photographs of me when I’m like two, wearing a parka that my mom had made and, um, cause it was a good, a good design for the North. And then I thought that my father’s heritage was from Lapland and they dressed in a, a system of layers also. So the outside layer would be brightly decorated and then inside they would either have wool or they would have reindeer hide inside. So there’d be layers, the outside one being decorated with bright ribbons and everything like that.
So I went, wow, it’s almost like a combination of my lap background and a parka. Maybe I should call it Laparka.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, yeah. And that’s how La Parka was born.
Linda Lundström
Yes. What started with this vision turned out to be a product that I ended up manifesting. So I had to get spent. I wasn’t a coat house. Remember, I had eliminated the coats.
Glynis Tao
Yeah
Linda Lundström
I have this I have this obsession based on this vision to make what I see in my vision. And I told two people what I had in mind. One person was my sales agent in Western Canada that I knew that would be a market for this. And that person laughed at me because their idea of a parka was what you see in Eaton’s basement, you know, with rickrack around it. And it wasn’t considered to be an iconic garment. He laughed at me. So I fired him because I knew that this was had to happen. I thought he was going to be all enthusiastic and he wasn’t. I said, okay, fine. I don’t need your energy.
Glynis Tao
You’re not on board with this.
Linda Lundström
Yeah. Get lost.
Glynis Tao
Go away.
Linda Lundström
And then I told the second person who was my sort of the person that was helping me run the company, who was a Ryerson graduate. It’s now called Metropolitan University, but she went to Ryerson and started with me as an intern and ended up never leaving. And I said, Donna, I’ve got this idea and I explained to her my vision. And she said, Linda, I can’t see it, but if you can see it, I believe you can make it happen. So I support you. Well, three months later, she was killed in a car accident.
Glynis Tao
Oh my gosh.
Linda Lundström
Yeah, but so I had to postpone everything for a year because she was pivotal to my business and everything had to be put on hold for a year. Meanwhile, her passing triggered a lot of things to happen. I ended up getting married, getting pregnant. And by the time I was working on Laparka again, I was pregnant and I had opened up my first Lundström brand store.
And I started accelerating my plans because I thought life is short. Life is short. I was at the age of 30, I had lost somebody really close to me. And that was a reminder that, you know, if you’ve got plans, just get them done. So I have this vision, right? I have this vision.
And in case you’re noticing my hands, my hands, I have two brains. One brain is in here and one brain is in my hands. My hands do things almost on their own. And that’s how I built the Laparka. I ended up getting fabric from a supplier that I had never bought from before. It was the wool duffel, getting a machine that I didn’t know if it was gonna work or not due to the blanket stitching. I went to a show in Paris for fabrics because I wanted to get the fur for around the hood. And I didn’t think of using real fur because I didn’t know, I hadn’t learned how to handle real fur, you know. You need cold storage. I wasn’t knowledgeable in real fur, so I thought I’m gonna get a fur fabric.
And I went to a fabric show in Paris with hundreds of exhibitors. Like literally, I’m talking four football fields full of booths selling fabric. And I went down the first aisle of the first hall. I was about halfway down that aisle, and I turned and there’s a company selling the most beautiful fur, man-made fur. In all the colors that I was thinking of doing, like royal blue, red, ivory, all the colors matched exactly. I’d only been at the show for 15 minutes and I went, oh wow. So I took their card and I said, okay guys, there’s gotta be more. If we found these guys this easily, there’s gotta be more companies that we can go and compare prices and everything. We went, we spent the next two days going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down all the halls. And that was the only company that had fur.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Sounds as if it was meant to be.
Linda Lundström
Yeah. I mean, you know, if something falls into your lap, what I’ve learned if something falls into your lap, it’s kind of divine intervention and pay attention because when you’re making something that came to you in a vision, then you have to be prepared for magic to happen along the journey, you know? And so when that happened, I went, poof. This is amazing.
Glynis Tao
That just confirmed it to you.
Linda Lundström
That said, totally, totally, it totally confirmed. And I ended up doing business with that company for the next 25 years.
Glynis Tao
Wow.
Linda Lundström
Right So I come back from, I’ve ordered all this fabric, I’ve ordered the fur, hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve ordered a machine, I don’t know if it’s gonna work, a blanket stitch machine, not this machine, another machine, a blanket stitch machine that I don’t know if it’s gonna work. I’m up to my maximum at my bank in terms of my line of credit, I can’t tell my bank that I’ve gone out and I’ve gone out and spent all this money on this vision.
Like, what am I going to do? Go to the bank and say, yeah, I’m a little over my line of credit because I had a vision. And they don’t want to hear that.
Glynis Tao
They want to hear that you’re actually doing making sales.
Linda Lundström
They want to see cash flow projections. Yes. A balance sheet. You know, they want to see all that stuff, which was like, so on one morning, one morning when I was on my way to work. We were waiting for everything to arrive. And I…I was coming down the Don Valley Parkway, I’ll never forget it, and there’s an overpass right around Richmond, where you can go off onto Richmond, there’s an overpass right there. And I all of a sudden was filled with doubt. I went, you know, my inner voice was saying, what the hell have you done? You know, does that ever happen to you, Glynis? When you feel like you’re taking a risk and then you get filled with doubt?
Glynis Tao
Yeah, it just comes out of nowhere and sinks you down
Linda Lundström
It comes out of nowhere and it kind of sinks like a hot lead stone in there right? Oh, God, what have I done? And so as I was coming up on from the Don Valley Parkway way up onto the Gardiner Expressway. Those of you who are in Toronto, you know exactly what I mean.
Out of nowhere in front of me comes this truck. And on the back of the truck is written the words Laparkan, la L-A-P-A-R-K-A. So Laparka with an N at the end.
Glynis Tao
Wow, talk about a sign.
Linda Lundström
At the very moment when I’m being filled with such doubt. Yes. Oh my God. And again, I didn’t just take it for face value and say, Oh, it’s a sign I’m on the right track. No, I went, damn it. Somebody stole my name and they’ve got a truckload on the road delivering it.
Glynis Tao
And so did that just, you know, increase the doubt?
Linda Lundström
It increased the doubt, right? And underneath the big laparcan, it said for all your shipping needs. Oh my God. It was a white truck, I’ll never forget it. And so I got into work, we were on WellinGlynis Taoon Street back then, and I’m going through the phone, back then we had phone books, okay? I’m going through the phone book and I see Laparkan. I dial the number, someone answers the phone, Laparkan. I said, what kind of company is this? And she said, we ship boxes and barrels to the Caribbean. Oh do you make coats? No, but we’ll ship them to the Caribbean for you. So that was my sign, Laparkan. Isn’t that amazing?
Glynis Tao
Wow, that is an amazing story.
Linda Lundström
And you know what? I’ve got the, where’s the?
Glynis Tao
You know, I’m all into this stuff, this like synchronicities and you know, signs.
Linda Lundström
Oh yeah, are you? Okay, I’m just looking around. I’ve got the photograph. Oh, I should have been prepared with the button. Okay, so years later, when we’re doing like $10 million of sales of Laparka, and we’ve moved a couple of times to bigger premises because we’re, you know, our sales are going up, the bank is inviting me out for lunch, for God’s sakes, putting me in their annual, I’m a success story in terms of the bank, who I never told I was doing this.
And we’re selling Laparkas like crazy and I went, you know what, I tell the story of the truck. I need, I need some evidence. So I call up Laparkan and they are still in business. I said, I had a friend who was Jamaican. I said, I want to ship a barrel to your family in Jamaica. So I called the Laparkan and I said, um, I, I want to, I want to, I want to pick up, got a barrel here, uh, going to, um, Jamaica. So my friend was thrilled because her family, you know, we put all kinds of fabric in there and we put all kinds of food in there and everything like that.
So the truck arrives and it’s not white, it’s brown. I said, oh, okay, well, stand on the bumper. I wanna take a picture of you. And so I took a picture of myself with this truck with the Laparkan. I said, what happened to the white truck? They said, oh, that broke down years ago.
I said, oh. I said, how many trucks did you have on the road? He said, oh, we’ve only ever had one.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, and that was the one that you saw in front of you that day when you were all filled with doubt and ready to give up.
Linda Lundström
Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that’s my appeared, the sign appeared. Yeah.
Glynis Tao
That is an amazing story. But so you’ve been…
Linda Lundström
My journey has been a series of magical, synchronistic, divine things that have happened on my path that have directed me, you know in the way, the path that I’m supposed to take.
So after 34 years in business and being taken to lunch by my bank and receiving a lot of the awards, which you mentioned, I’ve received some, they’re up here on my window sill here now.
I’ve got some wonderful awards where I was recognized for our business practices, for innovation. Because we weren’t just innovating our product, but we were innovating the way we did business, the way our factory was set up, our employee relationships. For example, we didn’t have sick we didn’t have sick days, we had wellness days, and everybody got wellness days. So if you just didn’t feel like coming to work, and you knew that you were not going to feel like coming to your, maybe your child had a dentist appointment or you had a doctor’s, whatever you need to do to be well, you could use those days for that and not feel guilty that you called in, pretended to be sick.
How many people have called in, pretended to be sick when they weren’t really sick, they just needed a day off. So in our company, I didn’t want anybody to do that, have to do that. I said, you’ve got wellness days, you use them however you want, you don’t have to be sick.
Glynis Tao
That’s unheard of in the fashion industry. Linda. Well, that’s something, yeah.
Linda Lundström
Well, that’s something that I just.
Glynis Tao
It’s usually more cut throat than that. People just expect you to work.
Linda Lundström
Yeah, no, because my dad had his own business and my mom had her own business. And my dad’s business in particular in the mining business, he always would say to me, Linda, you gotta be good to your men because it was all men that worked in the mines. And his way of showing that was to, there was a remote mining site where they were working. He would make sure they had steak and roast beef and had a cook that could bake fresh bread. And the food becomes really important if you’re in the bush working long hours in a mine in the cold, food becomes very important. And he knew that. And so I had, my mom and my dad were my role models really.
And also in my mom’s fabric store in the basement, indigenous women would come from the reserves all around. If you look on a map of where Red Lake is, there’s Pikangikum, there’s Sandy Lake, there’s Deer Lake, there’s Great Bear Lake, Bear Skin Lake. All these indigenous communities would fly into Red Lake and the women would fly in, then they would take a taxi to my mom’s store in Cochenar, which is another little town that’s 20 miles from Red Lake. And they would come to my mom’s store, and the town that we lived in then was 250 people. So we were moving up from the first town I told you about. And they would spend hours, and I would be down there, and they didn’t speak English.
And we didn’t speak Anishinaabegway, but we would spend hours together just feeling fabric and looking at fabric and laughing. And one of the things my mom did was she really honored the beautiful work that the women were doing with home-tent moose hide deer hide, moccasins, mukluks, gloves, gauntlets because we wore mukluks all winter long. We didn’t wear boots up there because when it snowed, it didn’t melt. It just snowed and then it snowed some more and more and more and more. And so it was clean. The winter was clean. And so you could walk around in your mukluks and it was the warmest type of footwear and curling sweaters. We also curled in these curling sweaters with the different reindeer and everything and all. And that was another thing that I incorporated into my collection.
And these women would come to the fabric center and they would have available really good fabrics to line their mukluks because what they were doing is they were making beautiful mukluks and moccasins, but then they didn’t have lining so they would take an old shirt or something and they’d line this beautiful moccasin with it. My mom said, no, here’s the fabric you need to line them. So it elevated the perceived value of them.
And I can remember going downstairs and the smell of that home tanned moose hide. Have you ever smelled hometanned hide?
Glynis Tao
No.
Linda Lundström
Oh, it has a most, it has this smoky smell that’s instantly recognizable. And these were all home tanned, which is really a dying process up north because, well, we won’t get into that. But anyway, this wonderful fragrance of the smoke would come up the stairs. And so mom was taking orders for moccasins and mukluks by a person would draw their foot out on a piece of paper. My mom would give that piece of paper to one of the indigenous women. They would make the product, you know, there was a whole like, and they would trade it for, they would often, they would often get money for it or they were happy to get traded for fabric so that they could, you know, and it, it was just a really wonderful symbiotic relationship.
And in the process, I got to feel I got to love these women and really admire and respect them. And it was the beginning of my of a sense of purpose that I had in my life to be an ally to indigenous people.
Glynis Tao
I wanted to talk to you about the sewing circle project a little bit. But before I get to that. Maybe you can go back. But yeah, I’m just so amazed by the story that you told me about the La Parka and how it came to be. And so you’ve always produced your product in Canada.
Linda Lundström
Yes
Glynis Tao
That’s something that you believed in, that you never wanted to go overseas and do any overseas production. You kept it all in Canada. And you also had your own factory and one point in Toronto that you.
Linda Lundström
I do have to say though, Glynis, that there was a period of two years when I was making this whole, I was making a whole concept wardrobe. So by then I had educated the buyers to the idea that you could have a Laparka with a matching sweater with a matching boot, with a matching turtleneck, with a matching, you know what I mean?
Like, so if there was a Laparka in a color called Opal Ice, there was a whole family of products that went with it. And one of those products was sweaters. And at the time it was very difficult to find sweater manufacturers in Canada. I had one that was in Kitchener who did a very good job but I wanted to do these curling sweaters that had all these designs and everything on them. And so somebody said, well, you’ve got to go to China, got to go to Hong Kong. So for two years I did. I was manufacturing my sweaters in Hong Kong.
And I ran into what a lot of companies now and back then were running into, which is in that business, there’s minimums required. You can’t just go and order 23 of that sweater. You have to order 123 of that sweater. You have to pay upfront with a letter of credit before you’ve even seen the product. There were all kinds of contributing factors that led to me feeling a sense of loss of control. And I would say 75% of the shipments arrived exactly as I thought they would. Great quality exactly as I had designed them, but more quantity than I actually had sales for, for example. So I’m left with inventory, which I had to clear. And the 25% that didn’t arrive as I wanted it to, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I just said, no, I can’t do this. This is too, if I’m going to screw up, I want to be the person that screws up here in Canada. I don’t want my reputation affected when somebody makes an error halfway around the world.
And by that time, I’ve got a young family. I’m, you know, I have small children. I didn’t want to be traveling because a lot of people that do manufacture offshore, you know, they’re traveling there all the time. So that’s when I recommitted to made in Canada. And I said, okay, everybody’s going offshore everybody’s swimming downstream. And I was like the little fish that was swimming upstream saying, if we can’t make it in Canada, then maybe we shouldn’t be making it. And so my entire company was based on designing things that could be made in Canada, rather than designing things that had to be made somewhere else.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And so is that when you decide to open your own lean manufacturing facility?
Linda Lundström
No. Well, I didn’t actually open a lean manufacturing facility. What happened was, at the beginning of my company, I was using contractors for the production of my things. And they were contractors in Toronto. And what started happening was the same thing 75% would be perfect. And 25% would not and we’d have to either recut or correct or whatever. And I just went no I’ve got to be more in control of my own. I’ve got to be able to walk over to something that’s being made and identify if it’s being made properly and if it’s not, then to stop and fix it before it’s all finished. So I had my own sewing machine operators. And when my contractors started not being able to fulfill the quality that I wanted, I began to buy machines, but not all at once, buy sewing machines, hire sewing machine operators, and gradually I brought my production in-house, but I was still using a batch bundle system of manufacturing, which means that, you know, you cut all the size eights and you bundle all the size eights and then you cut all the size tens and you bundle all the size tens and then you move the bundles to the first operation and they do all of the surging on the whatever and then they bundle it back up and move it over to the, that’s batch manufacturing. And I was using that method.
In 1999, I think it was, 1999, we hired a consultant to help us to be better at delivering product to the customer when they wanted it and decrease our turnaround time. Because using the bundle method, there’s a lot of time when those garments are sitting in a bundle waiting waiting for the next operation.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, there’s a lot of work in progress.
Linda Lundström
Exactly. How do we eliminate? Yes. How do we eliminate that wait time? How do we eliminate waste? Basically. And so for a period of about three months, we worked with this consultant and learned about lean manufacturing. And we converted the existing batch manufacturing factory into a lean manufacturing. And it was met with a fair amount of resistance by the employees, not so much the employees who were sewing machine operators, but by the middle management, because what it did was lean manufacturing empowers the person who’s doing the work. So the actual sewing machine operator was empowered to make decisions that would improve the turnaround time, the flow. And it took away the sort of power, I guess, of the middle managers.
And so what happened was the sewing machine operators began to take ownership for improving our turnaround time. And it became like a really exciting and fun atmosphere because it involved, I don’t need to get into detail about what lean manufacturing is, but it goes from bundling and batching to single unit production.
So instead of cutting all the size eights that we need for all the customers in all of North America at one time, we would only cut the size eights for the customers that wanted that style and that color early. So instead of cutting something once, we might cut it 10 times. But that was okay because we had computerized cutting machines, their capacity, we hadn’t even reached the maximum capacity that they were capable of, but we had a constraint in our sewing. So by slowing down the cutting, we went from batch manufacturing to single unit production. So one garment would start being made and we put the machines in the order in which the operations had to be made so that garment would be finished in seven minutes. So it went from a cut garment to being shippable in seven minutes as opposed to having 100 garments, 20% made, that weren’t gonna be shippable for another three weeks. So it was so exciting, honestly.
Glynis Tao
Wow.
Linda Lundström
It was so exciting because we started seeing real improvements in the way our customers were, because we had merchandise, we had a whole merchandise concept, some customers only wanted to do two colors of Laparka and all the things that went with it, it didn’t matter to them that somebody in Oklahoma wanted these other two colors. But they didn’t want theirs until later. So what it meant was let’s make these guys first, get them out, and then we’ll go and focus on this order over here. And so our customers were happier, our employees were happier, we reduced our management staff and increased our sewing staff.
Glynis Tao
Wow, so improved the overall efficiency of everything.
Linda Lundström
We don’t use the word efficiency because efficiency applies to batch manufacturing. So it’s very efficient to take a bundle of 100 garments and surge everything.
Glynis Tao
Yeah.
Linda Lundström
And then bundle it. That’s efficiency, right? If you take it in isolation. In lean Yes, versus efficiency because you can be efficient but not productive. You know what I mean? It’s like when you go to Costco and you buy enough kiwi fruit to last you for a month, that’s very efficient. But it’s not very productive when you have to throw half of it out because it goes bad in your fridge.
Glynis Tao
Wow. Yeah, because I think, you know, this lean manufacturing is being more adopted into production. Now I’m seeing it more, but the still the bundling system is still the most common way that they do production, especially if it’s overseas, their majority is the bundling system. But very rarely do people go into the lean manufacturing. So you are just really like ahead of your time in all of this.
Linda Lundström
Absolutely. And we’ve always been ahead of our time. I’ve always been ahead of my time in terms of embracing technology. When we were back when we were only doing like a million dollars in sales, I brought in Electra, Electra being the company from France that produces the best CAD CAM systems. I brought in Electra pattern making pattern grading. So back in the 80s, I had computerized pattern making. And I was I think I was the first company in Toronto that had that. Even though we were a relatively small company, I didn’t see, like people think, oh, you know, computerized, you have to be a big company. No, you don’t. In our case, it enabled us to become a big company.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, that is really ahead of the time because I don’t know that many people, even when I started in the industry in the 90s, who were using computerized pattern making, it was still very manual.
I worked at Club Monaco actually, which was my first job. They were over on King and Spadina. That’s where the head office was based and they did their manufacturing on King Street when they still did their production locally in Canada. But a lot of the pattern making was still done like manually. And this was like late 90s. But you doing this in the 80s, seriously, this is amazing. So would you say a lot of this foresight from hearing your story now of you having the vision of Laparka, seeing the truck after you felt so much doubt and that make you of, okay, this is the sign to move ahead. And then, you know, being ahead of staying ahead of technology and implementing the lean manufacturing and all the technology and stuff like, would you say like all of this contributed to your overall success and your longevity in the industry?
Linda Lundström
Well, yeah, but there’s another part to this story, Glynis.
Glynis Tao
Oh.
Linda Lundström
There’s another part to this story. It gets even better. So where am I now? Well, guess what? I’m gonna pick up the phone. I’m making paper patterns in my studio. I do not have computerized pattern making equipment. I’ve gone back to the way I was working in 1974 in that two bedroom apartment. And my life has come full circle.
I started in a two-bedroom apartment and I’m now in a two-bedroom house with a studio in the upstairs. But I built a multi-million dollar company at one point. We were doing over 13 million dollars in sales. I realized, I set out, when I was at Sheridan College, I envisioned having, someday having a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. I didn’t know about lean back then, but I created everything together with a community of people that came, found me, and helped me. I had a wonderful team of people that joined me on that journey, including my husband Joel, who was a chartered accountant, and he came in right at the point where the numbers were starting to get bigger, I needed somebody I could trust managing the money.
Right around to 2008, when for the first time, in 2007 for the first time, I had a decline in sales. And in 2008, the bank called my loan and gave us 30 days to pay back $3 million.
Glynis Tao
Oh.
Linda Lundström
Yeah.
Glynis Tao
So what did you do?
Linda Lundström
I don’t know if you remember what happened in 2008.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Well, that was the time of the recession, right?
Linda Lundström
There was a world financial crisis.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, the economy tanked, the world financial crisis, New York.
Linda Lundström
World financial crisis. And you know, a lot of Canadian banks were involved in the whole fiasco happening south of the border with subprime mortgages and all that sort of stuff. Somebody in a suit in an office on Bay Street at my bank decided that we were off margin with our loan and we were often off margin with our loan because we had a cyclical business, we were a seasonal business. So there were times when we were over our credit limit and times when the bank owed us money, you know, so it was, it was, and the bank rock and rolled with us through those highs and lows.
Well, somebody decided, okay, we’re being put under pressure here, we better call in any loans that are off margin. So the bank called our loan. I’m now, my girls are teenagers, I’m now in my 50s. I’ve been working hard my whole life. I didn’t have a plan B. I never had a plan B. I never had a plan that, well, if this company in this two bedroom apartment doesn’t work, I’ll do this. If this company in this state of the art, I never had a plan B. So for the first time in my whole career, I started thinking about what my plan B would be, if I had one.
And I just, my husband and I looked at one another and we said, I don’t think we can do this anymore. I don’t think we wanna borrow more money to pay off the bank, owe somebody else money, put everything we have on the line and risk it all again. And you know what, it was a good decision because in January of 2008 when the bank called our loan was the beginning of the financial crisis, it got worse. And so it became a bloodbath. And so we ended up paying back the bank in 30 days, believe it or not.
We just put our heads down and we said, okay, everything’s for sale. We’re gonna liquidate. We’re gonna, anything that’s not nailed down, we’re gonna sell it. And we ended up paying back the bank, which gave us a little bit of breathing room and enough time to find a buyer. And we found a buyer and sold the company in 2008. And in 2010, we left Toronto and moved to our cottage, and that’s where I’m speaking to you from today.
Glynis Tao
Wow, what a story. Oh my god.
Linda Lundström
Yeah. So one of my speeches, I’m a speaker, and one of my topics is the F word. And the F word is how to how to ride that wild bronco that’s failure.
Glynis Tao
Yeah.
Linda Lundström
And now, you know, I live on a lake surrounded by beautiful cedar trees. My husband and I are together. My girls are good. And I have this little studio that’s about the same size as that. No, it’s smaller than the two-bedroom apartment that I had in 1974. And I have paper patterns and I’m having a ball.
My joy, my joy still comes from making things. And so in this little studio, we use lean manufacturing. We don’t have digital patterns, but we do have single unit production.
Glynis Tao
And is this where you make all your Therma Kōta products?
Linda Lundström
Yes.
Glynis Tao
And so now you’re in the studio kind of made full circle, kind of sort of where you started with your first industrial sewing machine still there working away.
Linda Lundström
Yes, I have other machines too.
Glynis Tao
Other machines and you’re doing paper patterns. And you are working with your daughters you co-founded this new company with.
Linda Lundström
Yes.
Glynis Tao
My daughter and my daughter, my one daughter lives in Los Angeles and my other daughter lives in Ireland. And when we began Therma Kōta in 2016, we were working remotely with each other. So when COVID hit, it was no big deal. We were just, it was the same, same way we’d been working for four years.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, yeah.
Linda Lundström
I’m here in my studio and we have FaceTime and we have you know, we talk every day and they’re responsible for the front end, which is, you know, the photo, photography, the website, the image of the brand. Sophie is also a wonderful model. And Mosha is more director of marketing, which is, you know, positioning the brand as a, you know, premium brand of mostly shearling.
So if you go to thermakota.com, you’ll see the shearling styles that we make. And shearling by its very nature has to be cut one at a time. And so one of the one of the unique aspects of Therma Kōta is that we offer our customers at no extra charge a custom-made garment. So they give us their measurements and I often have to call the customer just to verify the measurement because I’m thinking, you know, somebody five foot eight could not have a sleeve that short. So I called them and said, I think maybe we needed a better sleeve measurement. And so it gives us a chance to really interact with the customer.
And then we go ahead and make about 75% of our orders, I would say maybe 80 are custom. And we’ve only had two instances where we had returns and they were both from men. We do make a man’s product as well. And the men made a little error in their measurements. And so I had to, but we’ve only had two returns and we’ve made hundreds of shearling jackets.
Glynis Tao
You are strictly online with this business, right?
Linda Lundström
Strictly online and I said to my daughter when she said, mom, I think we should get into the outerwear business. And I said, well, she said, we could sell at Barney’s, we could sell at Lord and Taylor, we could sell. I said, no, I was in the retail, I was in the wholesale business selling to boutiques for 34 years. I don’t wanna do that. I don’t wanna do it again, I’ve done that. So we decided to focus on online and people place their orders, they pay for their orders, we ship their orders.
Glynis Tao
A very clean order, no extra inventory, no excess production.
Linda Lundström
Exactly.
Glynis Tao
And I know that you have a philosophy. Going back to your mother. You have a motto is waste not want not.
Linda Lundström
Yeah
Glynis Tao
I saw that. And, you know, do you want to speak a little bit about that and how that applies in your business, Therma Kōta now and how you guys approach the sustainability?
Linda Lundström
It’s a philosophy of life, Glynis. It’s the way I look at life. I don’t want to waste anything. Even this morning, I knew I was going to be speaking with you and I decided to sleep in. I decided to just let myself have a nice long sleep because I didn’t want to waste that precious time where I could do that, where I didn’t have something that had to be done. So I was taking advantage of that. But it wastes not want not. I mean, when we lived up in the mining communities up north, I don’t remember us ever having garbage. All the food waste went into the garden.
I designed everything according to the material that I’m using. And a lot of times, when I was teaching at George Brown College, my students tended to do it the other way around. They’d be sketching all these designs and then they’d go out and try and find fabric that would suit the designs. And it was quite often a miss because the design might have been good, the fabric might have been great, but they didn’t go together. So I feel it’s really important to let the material you’re using speak to you about what to make out of it.
Glynis Tao
Um, so just before we wrap up, well, I had a couple questions left, first of all, about you’d spoke about you finding a sense of purpose, which was becoming an ally of First Nations. And that’s the reason why. Is that reason why you started the sewing circle project?
Linda Lundström
Yes, yes. Yeah, no, the sewing circle, the sewing circle is really an intention that I have to support Indigenous communities to be able to make, to be more clothing independent and be able to make things in their community, by their community members, and for the appreciation of people visiting their communities or, you know, for example, right now I’m working with a group in Georgian Bay, the First Nation on Christian Island, and we’re gonna be starting a sewing circle there.
Sometimes the sewing circle is just me sourcing fabric or supplies for a community and arranging for shipment to that community because they may not know who to go to for a particular fabric or whatever. And because I have a network of suppliers from my business, so I can connect, you know, the supplier with the community. And quite often I’m an intermediary for sourcing supplies.
So for example, I’ve had fabric shipped to Pond Inlet, which is a northern point of Baffin Island. I’ve sourced machinery, in that case, machinery and fabric. I’ve sent fabric to Deer Lake, which is one of the communities north of Red Lake, Maskwacis in Alberta. So, Peawanuck, Moose Factory. Sometimes all I’m providing is supplies. I’m an intermediary, I source things. And I don’t charge a markup for that, it’s just something that I love to do.
And the work that I’m doing with the Georgian Bay community is they want to have a store and a workshop where they actually can make things to sell to tourists that are indigenous to that area and to those people of that first nation. And so I’m gonna help them understand how to make patterns, how to do lean manufacturing and make sure it set them up with the proper connections to suppliers.
Glynis Tao
Sounds like a wonderful initiative.
Linda Lundström
Yeah, it started out as one thing and then it kind of took on a life of its own and it’s become sort of a variety of different services, but it’s all intended to support the talent that lies within Indigenous communities that just needs to have access to the right materials at the right prices, you know?
Glynis Tao
Amazing. So last question. For aspiring fashion designers and entrepreneurs listening to this podcast, what piece of advice would you like to share based on your experiences in the industry?
Linda Lundström Um. Start lifting weights, make sure you’re physically fit. People don’t think of fashion designers as being, you know, having to be physically fit, but it’s really important because it’s a very physically demanding job. It’s not just sketching, it’s lifting rolls of fabric, and quite often they’re full rolls of fabric, which is pretty bloody heavy.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. So in the beginning, like in most cases, just like yourself, you know, you had to do everything, right?
Linda Lundström
That’s right.
Glynis Tao
And that included lifting, heavy lifting, carrying bolts of fabric, right?
Linda Lundström
That’s right. And you look around and you go, well, there’s no man, there’s no muscular man standing there. People underestimate how physically fit you need to be to be in this business. You don’t know what’s gonna come at you, even lifting finished garments for a fashion show and carrying them, you know.
Glynis Tao
Oh, no kidding.
Linda Lundström
Schlepping garments around, schlepping garments around in garment bags. That’s my one piece of advice. My other piece of advice is to find, find a purpose and a path that is unique to you, that you can offer to the world. And that might not come to you right away, but always be looking for what that could be for you.
For me, it really started when I said, what can I make that says Canadian, as a kimono is Japanese. And that’s when I started to really develop my identity as a designer. So who you are, where you come from, what your family is all about, what culture did you grow up in? What is your perception of fashion and how does it fit into what you wanna do? I see, it’s one of the questions I have about, when I see a designer who’s clearly not a sample size and is sending models down the runway that are, you know, size two. And yet when that designer walks out on the runway, they’re not size two or anywhere close to size two. And I’m thinking, wow, it’d be so great if you were designing for people your size, you know? There’s some kind of a disconnect there for me. It’s so much easier if you could just so as a result, I’m not a small person myself. I’m 5’9″, and I’m a good size 14, 12-14, and my fit became popular within the population that was my size, because they knew that my things would fit them. And when, and people would come to me and say, oh, your things, I’m so tiny, I’m so tiny.
And I go, yeah, well, there are tiny designers that would make things that would be perfect for you. You know, and it doesn’t mean to say that, like I have lots of customers that are five foot one, five foot two, it doesn’t mean that I’ve excluded anybody. It just means that I’m starting from a point of familiarity for me.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, very good point. And I think that’s what contributed to your longevity and probably still what keeps you going is that you are designing in terms of it from a point of place of alignment. That’s what I see.
Linda Lundström
Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.
Glynis Tao
That’s kind of the I feel this theme that’s carrying, carrying through out this conversation that I’m having is that I’m seeing from what I’m hearing you say, you know
Linda Lundström
Yeah, and you have to be you have to be aware of the signs and signals that the universe has sent. This sounds like me, sound like a wing nut, but I really, I’m proof that if you pay attention to the signs and signals that the universe is sending you, that you will, if you pay attention to the signs and signals that the universe sends you on your path, that are meant to direct you in a certain way, believe, have faith that if you follow that path, it will take you somewhere good.
Glynis Tao
Oh, I love that. Thank you so much, Linda.
Linda Lundström
And even going bankrupt, having my company fail in 2008, even that was a gift. And the second thing besides being physically strong that I wanna share with people as a piece of advice is that I’ve gone through life believing that everything is a gift. Everything is a gift. Growing up in the bush turned out to be a gift. Losing my company in 2008 became a gift because now I live on a lake surrounded by cedar trees and I’m working in my studio and I’m still doing what I love. So losing my company was a gift because I would have been in worse shape if I’d clung onto it and not listened to what the universe was telling me.
So everything in life in business is a gift. And if you have that belief, if you have that belief, then you will find that no matter what happens, you can survive it, you can thrive and be happy.
Glynis Tao
Amazing. I mean, from someone who’s been through it all.
Linda Lundström
And that’s right.
Glynis Tao
You know, been through the ups and downs. Where can people find you if they wanna get in touch with you? You’re on TikTok.
Linda Lundström
I’m on TikTok. I’m on Instagram. Follow me on TikTok at @lifehackslinda.
Glynis Tao
Yeah.
Linda Lundström
They can follow me on Instagram. On Instagram, I think I’m @lundstromlinda, and those are my two main platforms. And I don’t participate that much on Facebook, although I do have somebody that is posting for me on Facebook from time to time.
Glynis Tao
Perfect.
Linda Lundström
And then if you go to thermakota.com, it’s possible to get a message to me through that.
Glynis Tao
Okay, amazing. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your insight and knowledge about the fashion industry with us.
In this episode, retail growth strategist Cristin Zaccareo shares insights on wholesale expansion for clothing brands. She emphasizes the importance of considering factors such as scale, profitability, and growth potential before pursuing wholesale distribution.
Cristin also discusses the challenges brands face in wholesale expansion and provides advice on overcoming them. She highlights the significance of brand positioning, differentiation, and consistent storytelling in standing out in the competitive wholesale market. Additionally, Cristin offers tips on pricing, negotiating, and maintaining brand identity across different retail channels. She concludes with advice for brands looking to expand into wholesale and recommends software and tools for successful wholesale expansion.
About Cristin Zaccareo
Cristin is a strategic leader with 15 years of experience working with leading luxury retail companies as well as mid- and mass-market retailers such as Estée Lauder Companies, Shiseido Company, Lord & Taylor, and Ross Stores. Cristin has a strong history of constantly finding new methods to unlock value, drive sales, and evolve business models in an ever-changing retail landscape.
Her company CGZ Consulting strives to empower digitally native retailers to unlock their full potential through the implementation of wholesale expansion strategies.
Takeaways
Key Factors for Wholesale Distribution
Clothing brands should assess their current profitability, operational efficiency, and growth potential before considering wholesale distribution. This includes ensuring that backend operations are streamlined and ready for scaling.
Importance of Inventory Management and Systems
As brands expand into wholesale, managing inventory on a larger scale becomes crucial. Implementing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and WMS (Warehouse Management Systems) can automate and optimize business processes, essential for managing increased inventory and operations.
Understanding Retail Buyer Cycles and Compliance
Brands must adapt to different buying cycles of retailers, which can range from three to twelve months. Also, being EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) compliant is critical for seamless transactions with large retailers, as it allows for electronic order transmission.
Negotiating Terms and Pricing Strategies
Brands entering wholesale must navigate negotiation challenges, including setting favorable pricing, payment terms, and promotional strategies with retailers. Ensuring profitability and consistency in pricing across various sales channels is key.
Brand Positioning and Differentiation
Successful wholesale expansion requires strong brand positioning and the ability to differentiate in the competitive market. Brands should leverage marketing materials and storytelling to highlight their unique value proposition to both retailers and customers.
Chapters
00:00 Factors to Consider Before Pursuing Wholesale Distribution
04:08 Challenges in Wholesale Expansion and How to Overcome Them
06:55 Key Factors to Consider Before Pursuing Wholesale Distribution
11:04 Scaling from Boutiques to Department Stores
17:25 Brand Positioning and Differentiation in Wholesale Expansion
18:25 Marketing Strategies for Wholesale Expansion
20:16 Creating Exclusive Products for Big Box Stores
23:05 Handling Returns and Cancellations in Wholesale
25:55 Negotiating Pricing and Margins in Wholesale
27:22 The Challenge of Pricing for Sustainable Brands
29:15 Advice for Brands Considering Wholesale Expansion
35:51 Brand Consistency and Storytelling in Wholesale Expansion
41:07 Software and Tools for Wholesale Expansion
43:58 Final Advice and Tips for Wholesale Expansion
My guest today is retail growth strategist, Cristin Zaccareo. Cristin is a strategic leader with 15 years of experience working with leading luxury retail companies, as well as mid and mass market retailers, such as Estee Lauder companies, Shiseido Company, Lord & Taylor, and Ross stores. Cristin has a strong history of constantly finding new methods to unlock value, drive sales and evolve business models in an ever-changing retail landscape. Her company, CGZ Consulting, strives to empower digitally native retailers to unlock their full potential through the implementation of wholesale expansion strategies. Welcome, Cristin. It’s so nice to have you here. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Cristin Zaccareo
I’m excited to be here.
Glynis Tao
Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background as a retail growth strategist.
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, so you covered a lot of it, but I’ve held various positions, mostly on the merchandising side. So whether it’s financial planning and analysis, merchandising, buying in beauty and apparel with mid to mass market. So I’ve dealt with everything from really teeny brands to really big political brands.
And about a year ago, I started a consulting practice, um, helping direct to consumer companies implement strategies for wholesale growth. After having my second child, I took a little bit of a pause and realized that, you know, I was lucky enough to need a little bit of flexibility and able to, to have that. Um, so, you know, I started out. Okay, I want to be a retail consultant. Here’s my entire background. And that was entirely too broad for people. So I started to speak to some founders and VCs and private equity companies and found out that there was definitely a need after this massive DTC boom that we’ve had over the last 10 years. And especially during the pandemic, because now, you know, marketing costs are sky high and there’s not as much funding as there was.
And the customer is extremely picky where before it was so easy to make, it was like free money everywhere. Um, and now, you know, we have to be a lot more thoughtful with how we’re spending money and a lot of that means that there needs to be an omni-channel growth strategy. It can’t just be, um, direct to consumer.
So I’m helping companies understand the key differences between brick and mortar and digital. Um, some of them might wanna just do a wholesale in the digital model, and that’s okay. And then others might wanna say, hey, I need to understand stores. So I’m here to kind of help, you know, guide the way and figure out what are the key differences and, you know, how can we approach retailers showing that your brand fills white space and coming across as really enticing.
Glynis Tao
Excellent. What are some common challenges that clothing brands face when it comes to wholesale expansion? How do you typically advise them to overcome those hurdles?
Cristin Zaccareo
So I think that the biggest one as any company is experiencing growth is planning and managing inventory on a larger scale may require some changes to your operations. So you might need to implement ERP or WMS systems.
If anyone is not familiar, ERP is an enterprise resource planning system. And so it’s designed to automate processes across your entire business. So it includes anything from marketing and sales, human resources, and then inventory and financial planning. And then WMS is warehouse management. So it’s truly used to optimize warehouse operations. And that’s really when you get to be a little bit bigger. ERP is the best place to start. So just understanding that those are things that you’re gonna need.
Other key differences is the buying cycle is different. So a direct to consumer company might be able to place an order, you know, 60 to 90 days ahead of when they need it and they’re gonna get their inventory. That’s not how retailers buy, depending on if it’s off price or more full line, like a department store. They might buy three to 12 months out. So if it’s a beauty brand, it could be 12, nine to 12 months out. And part of that is because they need to change their in-store setup. They might need to change their staffing models, in apparel, same thing. So they’re going to need to change their floor setup, depending on its seasonality, what does staffing look like? What does marketing look like? So aligning your buying cycle with that of a retailer can be really helpful. That also gives you more scale with your manufacturers, which should allow you to negotiate better pricing.
And then something that is really an older school thing that some of these bigger box retailers are gonna want is are you EDI compliant? So can you transmit orders electronically? And that, you know, at first is gonna look like a little bit of a manual process for you.
But over time, if you’re a denim brand, it’s extremely easy where the retailer sells one week, let’s say 50 units of your size 27 jean. And then the next week, they’re just going to send you an order of, hey, the system automatically will generate, we sold this, we need this, we’re going to forecast that we’re going to need this much more. So it’s really, it’s not, no longer becomes a manual process. So just understanding those components and talking that language is really helpful when you’re starting to look into doing wholesale business.
Glynis Tao
Okay, great advice. In your experience, what are the key factors that clothing brands should consider before deciding to pursue wholesale distribution?
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, I think you need to look at, you know, what is the scale that you want? How profitable are you right now? And can you scale growth? And do you need it to make, to become more profitable. So if that’s something that, you know, your growth plan of your company is looking for, then that’s, you should definitely look into wholesale, but you should make sure that, you know, your backend is tight and running smoothly.
Glynis Tao
I had interviewed Misty-Dawn Paulson, who is a fashion wholesale agent recently about a similar topic. There’s a previous podcast episode that I did. And she was talking about how some brands may not necessarily be ready because either their pricing or their margins are not quite, you know, they can achieve the right margins to be profitable. And also with their production in order to be able to, you know, scale up and produce the products in a timely manner that could also be an issue.
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, I mean, that’s definitely true. As far as the scale, you’re not gonna get paid until you deliver the goods to them. So you need to be able to fund this on your own. And there’s always a chance that you get stuck with inventory. So you should really be at a place where this is not a huge, it’s always a risk but it shouldn’t be a make or break financial burden for you. And then as far as margins go, this is a typical model.
But retailers are going to want to sell your product about 50 basis points higher than, so like they call it keystone. So it would be a 50% profit margin. And in an ideal world, you are also getting that 50%. So, you know, minus marketing costs and all of those other things, or without marketing costs and all those other things. So If your cost is $25 on a sweater, you’re gonna sell it to a retailer for 50 and then they’re gonna sell it for 100. So that’s an ideal world.
Now, if your cost is $30, is it still something that you can achieve? You need to look at that financial planning. If your cost is $35, is this still something that you wanna do? Yeah, maybe it does make sense because maybe then you go to your manufacturer and you say, hey, if I start to bring you, you know, let’s say 50,000 units a year, what does my cost go down to? And then it goes down to that $25. So is it a risk that you take in the short term, but you know, you’re still making a decent profit margin. You need to look into, you need to think about all those things. You don’t have as high of a marketing cost when you’re going into, you know, a brick and mortar or an online wholesale, you still might have the marketing costs.
Um, so, you know, you need to weigh, weigh all the pros and cons and, and look at the financials of it all before just signing up and saying, Hey, this is something that I want to do. Smart growth.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. A question that just came to my mind as you were talking just now is I was to ask you because say a brand want to get to retail and say, you know, they can say they’re selling to boutiques right now, right? Independent retailers and boutiques, that sort of thing. But then they have their eye on department stores or like big box stores. Like it’s a whole different scale, right?
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah.
Glynis Tao
So how would they handle that?
Cristin Zaccareo
So I think boutiques are a really great place to start, especially if you’re lucky enough to get a chain where they might have 20 stores or 10 or 15, even if it’s five stores, because it’s not just one location. So you’re able to potentially get a different client base in each store and you can get feedback and still be really close to where the product is if you’re lucky enough.
For the bigger box people, the business model is going to be similar. You’re gonna want the pricing to be very similar because it’s a small chance, but you don’t want a big box store to go into a boutique and see their item, that item at 40% off, and then they’re gonna want it to be 40% off and they might charge you for that 40% off. So the underlines of what it takes to make it are very similar. It’s this production scale that you need to make sure you can handle as you go into the bigger box stores.
And in some of the bigger box stores, your payment terms might be different. So a boutique might pay you in, I don’t know, I’m not as familiar with the boutique model, but maybe they pay you in 15 days. And the big box store might wanna pay you in 20 to 45 days. And then it depends on when it hits their warehouse because a bigger box store is gonna have a much bigger warehouse than just delivering it to a little boutique. So maybe then if it hits their warehouse towards the end of the month, you might not actually get into that billing cycle and it might be 60 days. So you need to make sure that all of that is palatable to you.
I would negotiate marketing costs so that you’re not paying for any promotions that the big box store runs ahead of time. And maybe your product can be coupon excluded or only run in certain sales throughout the year.
You don’t want your product to not be enticing to that store, but you don’t want it to be on sale all the time. And you don’t wanna pay back that markdown. So all of those things should be talked about upfront as you’re going into those stores. And they might say, well, everyone else pays for markdowns. Why aren’t you? And you can say, maybe you have a really great social following. I’m gonna, you know, have this social following that is gonna potentially bring customers into your store or, you know, what white space are you filling to the brand? Maybe you can also say, I’m gonna do events in store. So certain other things that you can offer to make yourself enticing as you’re approaching them.
Glynis Tao
Okay. As you were speaking, I just thought of a whole bunch of other questions to ask you about this. Let’s go back to pricing later because I have a question that addresses pricing and margins and that sort of thing. You have something called a route to market roadmap. Can you explain what that is to our listeners and maybe walk them through it?
Cristin Zaccareo
Sure. So maybe we can share it at the end of the podcast so everyone can get a peek of what that looks like. Basically, it’s a way to identify, plan, negotiate, and grow your business. And it’s a super simple, well, it can be a very simple way to figure out where should I look to be in wholesale and what are some things that I should think about. And this is something that I always help my clients plan out so that we can be extremely planful because you know, as you’re starting out, you should really ask yourself, where do I wanna see my product? What white space do I fill for that retailer? Because you can’t be everywhere and you can’t be everything to everyone. And your initial, if you’re starting out and you’ve been in no stores, you shouldn’t say to yourself, I wanna be in Target, because that’s just not really realistic
Down the line, that might be your goal, but why? And is there something smaller that you can start out with to test and make sure? Because as you were talking about boutiques versus brick and mortar versus big box, if you get burned by a boutique, it’s a much smaller financial burden than if you get burned by a big box because you don’t have your operations set. So first really look to identify where to play and what is needed for success at each retailer.
And then you can do this by initiating key introductions with priority targets. You could do this through a broker, a consultant, or as simple as reaching out to a buyer via LinkedIn. They might not always respond. And then the second step in the route to market is to plan your engagement with the retailer. So as I meant, talked a lot about operations. You should ensure you have your inventory logistics, your pricing, your marketing and then your new buying cycle in place to make sure that your buying cycle aligns with that of a retailer.
The third step is to negotiate. So what is your pricing going to look like? Are you offering the retailer better pricing than online? If so, what are they gonna do for you? Is it better floor space? Is it in-store support? Is it signage? And then what do your payment terms look like? This should be a profitable relationship for both of you. And if your white space is really valid, then you should be able to negotiate better payment terms.
And then the final step is what does growth really look like? So you can go to a retailer and say that, hey, here’s what I have to offer you now, but they’re always gonna wanna remain fresh and innovative. So what does business innovation look like for your company in the future and make sure you offer?
Glynis Tao
What your company is projecting and offering for growth when you’re pitching retailers. What role does brand positioning and differentiation play when it comes to wholesale expansion? How can a clothing brand stand out in a competitive wholesale market?
Cristin Zaccareo
So in my experience, especially right now, the market’s really tough. Consumers are extremely tricky. They’re very picky right now. So I keep talking about white space, but you really need to highlight your value add to customers. And I wouldn’t just talk about what, when you’re pitching a retailer, I would talk about the customers because any good retailer is going to talk about putting their customers first. Um, so what can you bring to their customers and how can you cross pollinate together to increase basket size and foot traffic?
Glynis Tao
And so marketing, how does that come into play? Like, can you partner up with the retailer and to put together some kind of a marketing, you know, promotional strategies, like how does it work? Does it, is it different for different retailers or how can they approach that?
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, so your marketing strategy is gonna look a little bit different depending on who, what retailer you’re approaching. So if you’re approaching a promotional big box retailer, then, and let’s say you have your sweater brand, or I think if you’re in a promotional big box retailer, you better have some promotional product.
So you’re gonna want it to be an exclusive product so that if you do have a boutique or an online business, not going to look like you’re cannibalizing that. So it doesn’t need to be an extremely different product, but let’s say your best seller is a black dress with a bow on the back. You’re going to want to change it up a little bit, but still ensure that the retailer is getting one of your best sellers. And then that product you’re going to want to, let’s say add to their promotional calendar. So maybe in October for the Columbus Day sale, you’re going to go down 25% and then for Black Friday, you might go down 30%.
And then when they want the product to be gone around Christmas time, you might be at 40%. But you should build in that cost that maybe at that 30% mark, you’re still getting that 50% margin. They’re still getting that 50% margin. So a big box retailer would call it owning at the low. So they own the product to be able to do the business at the 30% margin and still be happily profitable. Does that make sense?
Glynis Tao
Yeah, it does. And so would you advise that in this case to have a different collection or create a special makeup for this? big box retailer that’s different from what you currently offer, maybe say to your smaller boutiques retailers, so that if they’re doing the promo, you know, with the big discounts and stuff that it doesn’t kind of cannibalize, I guess the, the stuff that you have on your website and stuff. So it’s like, different enough, right?
Cristin Zaccareo
I would have it be just different enough. So so slightly different that you can call it exclusive.
because in an ideal world, you’re still getting the production costs for both of those as one. So you don’t have to change, you know, your tech packs are gonna change slightly, but not dramatically. So, you know, you can still go to your manufacturer and say, this is basically the same item. I wanna look at it as one so that you’re not, you can still use the volume that you get from that big box retailer to help your brand overall.
Glynis Tao
Okay, that’s a great strategy to use because then you have the benefit of the large volume numbers to hit your production as well as being able to create something that’s separate, a little bit different from what you offer. Yeah, but it still would fall within the order, like minimum orders like in order to hit your target price.
Cristin Zaccareo
And if you get lucky enough at some point to be in multiple big box retailers, then you might have to get a little bit more creative. But at first, I think that that’s a really good strategy. And depending on how picky they are, you might still be able to just be slightly different for each one.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And from your experience, have you found like with department stores and big box stores, are they looking like do they usually buy off the line or are they looking for like something little different or they ask for you to make something different just for them?
Cristin Zaccareo
It depends on exactly what’s working right now and how great your costing is. Let’s say you know one of their best friends is going out of business or has just raised their costs they might take the to come up with an item besides like a sweater. They may take the woven shirt that was one of their best sellers. And now that their costs are much higher, they might give it to you and say, Hey, what’s your costing on this? This was a best seller for us. Where can you be?
And I think overall, it really depends on if they’re going to buy off the line or if they’re going to want to develop something that’s much more exclusive.
Glynis Tao
Okay. So another question I just thought of was returns. Yeah, how do brands handle that? And, you know, can department stores return something that’s like, that was made just for them, right? It’s just a style that was produced for them. Because I’ve heard stories of stores canceling last minute, and you’re stuck with the order and having to pay for this now.
So is that a potential risk that brands should be aware of and how can they kind of navigate through that?
Cristin Zaccareo
It’s definitely a risk. It’s something that I would talk about with the brand from the beginning so that you have an idea on where they stand. So you’re not, there can always be surprises but you can at least say, hey, you know I’m not taking this back. If this doesn’t work, I’m making this specifically for you.
If that doesn’t go and go over well with them and you feel like this is still an item I really stand by, you know, is there padding that you can do on the back end for you where let’s say you have to take it back from them, do they pay for the shipping costs for it to come back to you? And then you have an exit strategy with an off price retailer.
So there’s certain things that you can be a little bit planned for ahead of time, but I would say I overall try to talk to the retailer saying like, I can’t take this back, this is exclusively for you. Otherwise we can’t do exclusives
If you’re much newer and you don’t have the ability to do that, I would try to talk about, try to figure out, you know, can you charge them a little bit more for this? If I do need to take this back, I can take back X percent and you need to pay for shipping costs. So I would definitely try to negotiate.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. And is that something you do to help your client? Do you help your clients with that and the negotiation process?
Cristin Zaccareo
Yes. So the negotiating and talking like a retailer is something that I definitely help my clients doing. My background is really on the retailer side, not the brand side. Although I have had fantastic partnerships with so many brands, I think the thing that has always made me really successful when I was sitting on the retailer side is being flexible and trying to understand both perspectives. And I think I really bring that to my customers as they’re working through what their journey should look like.
Glynis Tao
So is there always room for negotiation? Like when you enter into a contract?
Cristin Zaccareo
You hope so. I think sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t. I had…not a client, but someone that I was speaking with that Wholefoods approached her. Um, and this is a food, food brand. So not apparel, but you know, there was really no negotiation. It was like, can you fit your price into this? Um, she had, she had a little bit, but not much. And she was like, you know, I really can’t fit into this price point. You know, I have a 15% profit margin. This just doesn’t make sense for me right now. Um, and there was really no negotiation, even though her product was different than that price point that they were comparing her against, she offered more value, they still weren’t willing to change it.
So there’s certain times where the answer on your side might be no, this doesn’t make sense for me right now. I can’t, they’re not willing to negotiate and this doesn’t make sense for my brand. And that’s okay, because there will be a time where you are gonna get the growth that you need and want, but you shouldn’t push it if it doesn’t make financial sense. And I think that’s why so many of these direct to consumer brands are struggling right now, is that it was like a growth at all costs attitude for so long and it really doesn’t make sense to grow unless you’re profitable. It just becomes a bigger pain the bigger you get.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. So speaking of pricing. I mean, just want to circle back to the question about like, how do you advise clothing brands to approach pricing and margins when entering the wholesale market? And what are some of the best practices in this area?
Cristin Zaccareo
So yeah, I think using that like 50%, 50% is a good starting point. I think that there’s always room on your side, if 40% works for you, there are plenty of brands that do 40%. There are plenty of brands that do 30%, especially if you have no marketing costs or the marketing costs are extremely minimal with the retailer. It still might make sense for you to do that number. It might make sense for you to do 25%. So you just need to make sure that it works within your financial matrix.
And you need to make sure that your pricing is similar on your different platforms. So you don’t want your retailer pricing to be a lot lower than what you’re offering on your site. If you offer a 10% coupon on your site for new customers, like that’s something that you should talk about with the retailer and say, you know, I’m paying for shipping costs. This is a way for me to grow my business. This is a cost that I’m absorbing. Like if this is something that you wanna do as well, that’s fine, but I’m not absorbing that cost.
So there’s gonna be some negotiation as far as, especially on your own site, if you’re offering signup, you know, I’m gonna offer this as far as what’s palatable.
Okay. So what do you, as people that you’re interviewing with or speaking with, even in your own business, what do you think is the major challenge that some of these brands are having as they’re trying to go into wholesale?
Glynis Tao
I think the biggest challenge that I see that the clients that I work with is the pricing. Many of them are, you know, smaller, independent brands, focusing on sustainability. So the products are most likely locally made. The costs tend to be a lot higher, right? And so they’re not able to price their products in order to be profitable. Like they might not even be making even the 25% that you mentioned. And I’ve come across brands who are like, well, let’s just, you know, we’ll take a hit on our margin, maybe even take a loss, get into wholesale and hopefully eventually we’ll get our numbers up. Is that a good strategy to use?
Cristin Zaccareo
I don’t think so. I don’t think you should ever be taking a loss. You have scale, you can lower your costs, but I mean, look at everything. Look what you pay for groceries now. Like costs just keep going up and up. So yeah, if you wanna start and say like 10 or 15%, fine. But I think the loss is so hard for me to make sense of it all. And I think that that’s the problem is it was this growth that is everybody was doing, not everybody, a lot of people were doing this and making it kind of okay.
I mean, I held a wholesale workshop in July and someone asked me the question of, should I go into the retailer and buy my product so that it looks like it’s turning? And you’re not giving yourself a real shot. I mean, you wanna make sure that this makes sense.
I don’t know if you have any of your money tied up in this, but you certainly have other people’s money tied up in this. And you don’t wanna create false pretenses, of can your brand actually be successful? You might need to change your business model if it’s not. And for some of these sustainable local brands, the answer probably is not big box for them because I think they could do it on a really small scale.
I mean, they’re certainly never gonna be like a Walmart or somebody like that. Could they get into like a Nordstrom and only be in a couple stores? Yeah, maybe. And maybe they focus on the stores that are in their regions, so they can go there and touch and feel the product and do, because it’s a higher price point, they can do education sessions with the sales associates on the floor. But they should be profitable.
Glynis Tao
Oh, I agree with you. And I said, I say the same thing as well. I would never, you know, go in taking a loss from the beginning, I would always have price my products to be profitable from the beginning. If it has to be higher costs in your retail, maybe a little higher, but you have to be profitable. Like, okay, so yeah, I think we’re on the same page with that.
Cristin Zaccareo
I’m curious because it’s interesting when you speak with different people about what the biggest hurdles are. So I love asking that question to any client that I work with. And I think just coming from a place of curiosity as a brand owner and as a consultant is extremely knowledgeable.
Glynis Tao
Mm hmm. Yeah, because I imagine that every brand is sort of different. Right? Depends what their product is, so needs to be handled differently. And maybe not all the, you know, certain retailers might not be the right fit for them.
Cristin Zaccareo
Definitely.
Glynis Tao
Right? Because I know brands who strive to be in Sacks or big department stores, they’re like, yeah, I want to do that. That’s my goal right off the bat. But I mean, as a newer brand say, what would be your advice to them? If they wanted to just start off with doing wholesale right off the bat.
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, I would say like boutiques in your area are such a great test market. And I think that the store associate is really overlooked these days. They’re overworked, they’re stretched, they’re probably underpaid. So I think if you get into a boutique in your area, you should go in there, bring the store associate some coffee. This is something people used to do all the time and it’s super prevalent in the beauty area.
Um, so it’s really, these people are in charge of selling your products. So get them excited about your product. Um, if you’re able to at certain times of the year, you can run contests in stores. So let’s say you have a higher price point brands, your items are two, $300 each. Sell $2,000 of my product. Here’s a hundred dollar gift card. Um, like what kind of things can you do to get the associates a little bit more excited about your brand?
Those are things that can be done in bigger box stores as well. They’re sometimes a little bit harder to execute but all of those things get the associates but the education component of a higher price brand is so important because depending on the market it’s hard for a customer just to pick something up that’s three to $500 and sell it to themselves. Sometimes it’s super easy, but the store associate definitely can add on to that sale maybe, or make it a lot easier.
Glynis Tao
How important is brand consistency and storytelling in the context of wholesale expansion? What strategies do you recommend for maintaining a brand’s identity across different retail channels?
Cristin Zaccareo
So I think strong marketing materials are very helpful. So you should have a one pager. You might have something that’s four or five pages with your brand story. It should be really enticing to both the customer plus the retailer. And that can kind of tell the story, if you know something as easy as hang tags that maybe say something, if you’re sustainable, that should definitely be marketed on your product. If you’re made in Canada, made in the US, made in Peru using organic materials. Like that should be on the product. That should be loud on your marketing materials that you’re distributing to people as well. Um, so I think that making sure that you have consistent messaging on your marketing materials, um, if you’re lucky enough to be put in advertising for free with retailers you can ask them for approval. You shouldn’t be super picky. It’s not gonna look like you’re marketing, but it should be somewhat consistent.
If you’re a brand that has a $500 jacket, you shouldn’t probably be with a $20 pair of jeans. And then I would say about like running promotions, just be consistent there as well. So my brand is part of promotions, my brand is not part of promotions. And then from a margin perspective, which we talked about a little bit before, you should agree not to pay for any markdowns that the store is the promotions that the store is running those markdowns, they should be a cost that the store has to incur.
Glynis Tao
Okay. And I mean, I used to work as a product manager for a brand and we used to make a lot of catalogs, collateral, that type of thing, but physical copies of catalogs. Do stores still look for that? Like they want the physical or copies or is digital okay?
Cristin Zaccareo
I think that you should not spend a ton of money on paper, but you should, like the buyer should have some paper. They should have digital too. If you’re in a couple of boutiques, give them paper because the store associates behind the register, do you need to spend a ton of money on this? No. Do you need to use like super thick card stock? No. But it should look presentable. It shouldn’t be printed out and stapled probably because the store manager might have the email to your marketing material, but the associates on the floor might not have your materials. So I do think that paper is still in. So I think having both right now is important.
I think you should also ask the store, you know, how do you guys distribute marketing materials? How would you like my brand education? Because they’re going to have a better insight into how they operate than me or you.
Glynis Tao
And like, would you have the opportunity as a brand to be able to present, you know, do some product knowledge training with to the associates or is that something those stores just completely take on themselves?
Cristin Zaccareo
No, I would promote that you can do that and that you’re able to do that because I think that that’s a value add. You know your brand like nobody else. And if you have enough money to, let’s say you get into 10 Nordstrom or Saks stores and you’re on the West coast and you’re able to contract out, education people that they wouldn’t just work for your brand, they’re gonna work for multiple brands, but they can do that as well. In Southern California, if you’re located in Northern California or you’re located in Vancouver. So I think the education component and you saying that you’re gonna take that on is a total value add to the stores. Hey, amazing.
Glynis Tao
As we look ahead, what advice do you have for clothing brands that are considering wholesale expansion as part of their long-term growth strategy?
Cristin Zaccareo
So I think walk before you run, which we’ve talked about. So test yourself, I think in local markets first. If you get an opportunity, let’s say you’re West Coast, you get an opportunity in New York, take it. But I think start out small and then go for growth.
Make sure that you have your operations and your inventory in check first. And that is just gonna make, if you’re pitching a retailer, making sure that you have the foundation set is gonna make you a lot more attractive and much more credible.
Glynis Tao
Hey, we talked a little bit about software. So, just wanted to kind of circle back about that. Can you share any resources or tools that you’d recommend clothing brands to dive deeper into for wholesale expansion? You mentioned a few different things before, but can you, are there any, is there software that you recommend for brands who want to get started?
Cristin Zaccareo
Yeah, so some of the software that This, so SIN 7 is one, but it’s expensive and that’s gonna be an ERP and WMS, I believe system. I think starting out, you know, to do inventory planning you probably use Shopify if you’re direct to consumer.
So I think creating a model in Excel for stores that is similar to how you’re managing your inventory in Shopify will be helpful for projecting. You can hire, if you don’t have an inventory planning team, you can hire contractors out quite quickly. It’s something that I can help with as well. But then for the bigger systems, I’ll send you a list of an article. I can’t remember exactly where I saw it, but it basically describes different systems. I think it was Forbes, but describes different systems and what they can do. I mean, there’s smaller ones, like I think ShipBob’s pretty cheap.
There’s some much cheaper systems and then there’s some like Sin7 and NetSuite that are thousands of dollars a month. So it depends on what you can afford. But there are some that are really affordable that you can start out with. And then as you grow and scale, you get a bigger one that can do a lot more things and make your life a lot easier.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, if you have that list you can I can put a link to it in the show notes so that people can go in and look at it. Look at it. Do you have any final advice or tips to share with our listeners who are looking to expand into wholesale?
Cristin Zaccareo
No, I think, you know, it’s an exciting journey wherever you are in your retail. I just use journey, but I was going to say in your retail journey. And it’s you know, I think the hardest part is getting started and it’s super challenging. Roadblocks are thrown at you all the time, but you know, keep trekking through. Be smart with your growth and be profitable with your growth. So, you know, I know growth is something that everybody wants as a founder, but be smart about it. You also wanna make money. So just to make sure you have everything sort of together before you expand at a much larger scale. Amazing.
Glynis Tao
Where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you? Yeah, so my email is Cristin, cristin@cgzconsulting.com. You can also look me up on LinkedIn with my name that Glynis is putting in the podcast.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, all your contact information will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your insight and knowledge about the wholesale business with us today.
Cristin Zaccareo
No problem. Thank you so much for having me and for empowering people and women especially. It’s something that I really love to do. I think that more of it can be done everywhere. I think we should all just try to lift each other up.
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who are ready to pursue their passion and make a living doing what they love. I’m your host, Glynis Tao and today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Thomas Girard, a Canadian Scholar, TEDx Speaker, and the host of the Uniqueways podcast based in Vancouver, Canada.
Thomas Girard has not only been accepted to attend the University of Oxford for lectures equivalent to graduate coursework but has also received multiple Emerging Scholar awards, notably at the Design Principles and Practices conference in Barcelona, Spain, and Emily Carr University of Art and Design. He is also a recipient of the RBC Emerging Scholar award from the Royal Bank of Canada Foundation and an Emerging Scholar award from the New Directions in the Humanities conference in Madrid, Spain for 2021.
The conversation delves into Thomas’ journey as a scholar, instructor, and creator in the arts and design space.
Thomas talks about what inspired him to start his podcast, Uniqueways with Thomas Girard and sheds light on his creative process, especially with over 120 episodes having spoken to influential figures like John Maeda, Debbie Millman, Eric Spiekermann, and Chris Do.
Thomas shares valuable insights he has gathered from these creative minds, and offers tips on building a creative business and personal brand.
He also talks about his TEDx talk, “How to feel at home in the airport.” And the opportunities that have arose from that experience.
Finally, Thomas gives fascinating insights into how he foresees AI is changing the way we do business. He talks about how he has integrated AI into his business, social posts, and research endeavors.
My guest today is Tiffany Wong, Co-Founder & Brand Director at The Ordinary Good.
Tiffany leads brand strategy and marketing at The Ordinary Good, a mission-led creative agency building and scaling sustainable and social impact e-commerce brands. Women led and operated. She has a brand building background layered with integrated marketing management for the past 7 years mostly in responsible fashion, beauty & wellness. Her favorite part of the job is working with early stage brands making our world better.
In this episode, Tiffany offers invaluable advice for emerging sustainable fashion brands looking to establish a strong brand presence and make an impact.
Tiffany explains the core concepts of sustainable fashion branding and why it’s important in today’s conscious consumer market. Learn how sustainable fashion brands can stand out in a competitive market by creating a distinctive brand identity.
Tiffany shares expert insights on leveraging email marketing to build strong connections with customers and communicate sustainability values.
Tiffany provides practical tips on using paid advertising platforms like Meta to promote sustainable fashion brands while upholding their values. Gain valuable advice on how sustainable fashion brands can maintain their commitment to sustainability without compromising on profitability.
Get a sneak peek into the future of sustainable fashion branding and discover upcoming trends and innovations.
My guest today is Sherri Langburt, CEO & Founder of BabbleBoxx and has been a pioneer in the influencer marketing space since 2007. A passion for storytelling and brand marketing, and a desire to create an innovative social media solution led Sherri to create BabbleBoxx – the influencer marketing agency best known for its co-sampling and signature box strategies.
In this episode, Sherri highlights the significance of influencer marketing for fashion brands in today’s digital landscape. She talks about what criteria fashion brands should consider when identifying potential influencers to collaborate with.
You’ll learn why it’s important for a fashion brand to align with influencers who resonate with their target audience. Including what are some key considerations and best practices when negotiating partnerships with influencers.
Lastly, she talks about what are some ethical and legal considerations that fashion brands need to be aware of when working with influencers.
