“Everyone’s in the Same Boat”: Is it worth going into debt when designing fashion?
Turkish-born Findikoglu – who graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2015 – was one of the most anticipated names on the five-day program, which ran from September 15-19.
Her clients include A-list talent that many brands can only dream of – from Rihanna and Lady Gaga to Madonna and Bella Hadid. She’s also responsible for some of this summer’s most iconic looks – including the ruby red silk minidress Margot Robbie wore on the VIP red carpet from “Barbie” in London, and the handmade knife dress that Hari Nef wore to the film’s premiere. Kylie Jenner is also a known favorite. She chose a Spring/Summer 2023 look that she wore during Paris Fashion Week last September, posing in tailored pieces for her 399 million Instagram followers.
From the outside, it looks like Findikoglu has made it. Here are all the ingredients that should take the 33-year-old from an up-and-coming artist to a London die-hard name. But one thing is missing: money.
“I didn’t have enough budget to do the show. It’s as simple as that,” Findikoglu told CNN in an interview outside her studio in east London on the first day of London Fashion Week. “The venue was about to be booked. Then I thought, ‘I can’t do this again with my own money. I’m not doing this to myself.'”
Findikoglu says she is still paying off the costs of the brand’s fall-winter 2023 runway show, which took place in February this year. If the spring-summer 2024 show had gone ahead as planned, it could have cost between 110,000 and 120,000 pounds ($136,000 to $148,000). “I talk to my designer friends and they’re all in the same boat. We do a show, go into so much debt that we have to pay it off by the next show.
This season, a number of young, industry-recognized talents have withdrawn from the official program, including 26-year-old Steven Stokey-Daley (who designs under the pseudonym SS Daley) and 30-year-old Nensi Dojaka, both in 2022 and 2022, respectively .won the prestigious LVMH Prize in 2021. In addition, the 31-year-old American designer Michael Halpern – who has already received two British Fashion Awards in his career – announced just last week that his label would not only be skipping London Fashion Week, but also closing it for good.
Although she believes it was best for her brand, Findikoglu didn’t make the decision lightly. “I couldn’t work for a week,” she said. For days she was “paralyzed” because she feared that her peers and industry insiders would think she was weak. “But I’m a fearless woman. And if I don’t go out and talk about it, then I’m not being true to myself and my brand and everything that I stand for.”
The takeover by the fashion conglomerates
The realities of running an independent high-end fashion label today are grim, and competition for self-funded designers is fierce. According to that Savigny Luxury Index, a general market index published by asset management group Savigny Partners, conglomerates like LVMH and Kering dominate the luxury fashion market, with LVMH alone accounting for a whopping 45.4% of the market. Brands such as Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Celine, Fendi, Givenchy and Marc Jacobs are all owned by LVMH, while Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen and Saint Laurent all have Kering as their parent company.
Owning multiple brands means influence. Smaller brands under the auspices of Kering or LVMH benefit from the leverage afforded by household names like Gucci and Louis Vuitton – which they can use to negotiate better in-store placements. They also benefit from an exclusive (and large-scale) network of suppliers. Above all, these umbrella companies have huge sources of income, which, in addition to cash flow, represent the main burden for designers like Findikoglu.
Her label has been independently funded since its debut in 2016, and Findikoglu says she has long struggled with a lack of government investment. “I was always afraid to apply for anything because I’m not British. That didn’t open many doors for me, especially in the beginning.”
On September 13, two days before the start of London Fashion Week, the British government announced that it would invest 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) over the next two years in NEWGEN, the British Fashion Council’s program to support young people Designers with brands less than three years old. For Findikoglu, that’s not enough. “I think (NEWGEN) should get the money. But I’m also a young designer and I’ve been trying to run this brand on my own for seven years,” she said. “It should be available to everyone on the plan.
‘I want people to see my world’
The question Dilara Findikoglu asks herself is the same one that many independent designers struggle with: How to scale up without selling out? It’s a compromise that she finds almost exciting. Having already produced a successful swimwear line, Findikoglu plans to scale back the couture in favor of a more wearable offering. One motivation is her own office wardrobe. Sitting outside her studio during the late summer heatwave, Findikoglu wears a gorgeous ivory bias-cut satin dress with vampiric puffed sleeves. Is it her own? “No! I want to make more ready-to-wear clothes because I can’t find anything of my own brand when I come to work. I won’t come to the studio in my knife dress, you understand?”
As she finalizes her spring-summer 2024 collection (which will be presented in a Paris showroom later this month), she talks happily about top-secret collaborations that she hopes will be more commercially successful. Your goal? A whole lifestyle brand. “I want to make furniture, I’m very interested in interior design. I want to make pillows. I would like to sleep in my own bed (with the Dilara brand). I want people to see my world with every little detail. Even if it be sheets, mascara or red lipstick.
And while some may balk at the idea of a conglomerate, Findikoglu is no puritan. “I got my brand to this point on my own,” she says. “But I really need a business partner, an investor or a big house to take me to the next level.”
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Those: edition.cnn.com
2023-12-19 22:22:14
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