Entrepreneurship

The city’s unusual status as both a garment manufacturing and entertainment industry hub is proving a potent lure for fashion brand founders.

A number of start-ups are expanding beyond denim, opening stores and navigating an increasingly competitive and fragmented market by staying close to their consumer.

BoF’s Imran Amed talks with grime MC and rapper Skepta about the revival of his clothing brand Mains, the parallels between music and fashion, and how embracing failure has been key to his creative journey.

In the third and final part of this series, BoF Insights spoke with investors and brand leaders about how to secure future growth before pursuing costly expansion activities in today’s tough financing environment.

Today’s brands are constrained by crises across direct-to-consumer and wholesale distribution and limited external funding pools. But it is still possible to scale a small label, even in today’s tough environment. In part two of this series, BoF Insights spoke with investors and brand leaders about how to translate cultural heat into commercial success via diversification.

The recent closure of some of fashion’s buzziest brands laid bare the many hurdles facing even the most promising designers. But it is still possible to scale a small label, even in today’s tough environment. In part one of this series, BoF Insights spoke with brands and investors and drew upon its own advisory experience to outline how to translate cultural heat into commercial success.

BoF speaks to five BIPOC designers based in New York, LA, Chicago and London on the non-profit’s Brand Fellowship programme to learn more about how RaiseFashion’s educational programming, network and financial resources are helping them strategically grow their businesses across the US and further afield.

BoF sits down with five New York-based BIPOC designers taking part in the second iteration of Raisefashion’s Brand Fellowship programme, to hear about their entrepreneurial experience in the fashion capital and how the non-profit is helping them prepare for success.