Three Designers On What it Takes to Run an Independent Label in 2025

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. The 2024 fashion year was bookended by Sarah Burton's swan song at Alexander McQueen and Louise Trotter landing the creative director job at Bottega Veneta. In between, the state of women in the fashion industry, specifically how few of them are in the top design roles, became the talk of the internet again. But let's be real, there is no shortage of female talent in the industry. And that's a point that we were reminded of this season already with Veronica Leone's debut at Calvin Klein. please listen to our interview with her, and Sarah Burton's upcoming debut at Givenchy.

0:42These are women who have already had long careers in fashion, designers whose moment has come. We have to wait until October for Trotter's debut at Bottega Veneta. In the meantime, though, I wanted to speak to the next generation of women designers about the challenges of operating in what can still feel like a man's world. This is my conversation with Rachel Scott of Diatima, Julie Kegels, and Colleen Allen. In the time since our recording, Io Adebri wore a Colleen Allen black velvet u-neck dress to the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary event, and people were losing their minds over how great she looked.

1:19Rachel Scott's Diatima presentation at New York Fashion Week was a triumph and one of the very few to tackle the current state of America. And Julie Kegels is gearing up to show her latest collection at Paris Fashion Week on March 5th. I love speaking with these three, and I hope you'll learn as much as I did.

1:40I want to start by saying thank you all for doing this, and it's a good week for women designers. Louise Trotter got the Bottega Veneta job, and she becomes Kering's first woman designer since Sarah Burton left the role at Alexander McQueen. So one thing I wanted to start quickly just to get our blood flowing is tell me each of you one at a time and let's go in alphabetical order. So Colleen first, when did you launch? Describe your label in three words. Okay. So I launched very recently. I launched in February of 2024. So I've done two seasons under my own brand, which is my name, Colleen Allen.

2:29And three words to describe my brand or my work would be mystical, ritual, and femininity. Thank you. Julie? So for me, actually, it's the same story. I launched my own brand in March 2024. So that was my first collection. Second collection was in September. Now working on the third collection, time is really, really flying. And when I have to describe my brands, I would say maybe social, story, and fun. I launched Yatima in 2021. And I would describe it as sensual, nuanced, and artisanal. So it's funny to be a veteran with only three years of experience. Right, Rachel? What would you say if I asked you who the women are who influenced you?

3:39I mean, I can jump in because I talk about her all the time. I'm obsessed with Micho Prada. And I say this a lot. But I think, I mean, first of all, as a 4C year old myself, having launched her brand at 4C, I have the most amounts of respect for because the industry in general has this idea of newness and youth and emerging in a way that I think, not in her case, but it can be quite classist. And it's even more so difficult for women. So, I mean, just that in itself, I have so much respect for that. And she's built such an incredible, incredible business. And her engagement with art, I think, is super special because I think she understands the value or the importance of fashion and culture.

4:28And so, yeah, I'm endlessly inspired by her. Are there other women in fashion that have businesses that you look to that you think, oh, I'd like to do it that way or the way she's doing it, I can learn from that? I mean, Rachel, you mentioned Muccia Prada, but are there other businesses that you look at that have sort of informed how you've built yours? I think, yeah, I have some. Like, it doesn't have to be really fashion, but for example, Lara Violeta. She launched her brand, a brand new magazine. And it's quite amazing. She's very authentic and she really stays true to her heart. and you also see how creative she is with not a lot.

5:16And also just like starting it from nothing and also working with a lot of other very talented young people and create like a community. I really love that. And I also try to do that with my own brand to create like a group of people and work together. And I also really strongly believe in collaboration because it's very hard to do this just on your own. It's not possible, I think. So that influences me. Yeah, I love Grace Wells Bonner. I think she's made such amazing work and I think she's like really carved out her own space. I saw her Serpentine show in London. That must have been like 2017 or 18.

6:06And I just thought it was really beautiful. And it was really amazing that she sort of had space to express something that felt totally like her and authentic in an outside of fashion way. And that's something that I would love to do eventually as well, while still keeping the identity of the brand. I think for me, it would be Vivienne Westwood. Her work has always been so radical and political, such a force behind it and behind her. and uncompromising, which I think is beautiful. So yeah, it's a Vivian Westwood. Rachel, how do you feel you weave sort of a radical point of view or your politics, if at all, into your clothes?

6:55I like this idea of subversion that's unexpected. People might not recognize that it's there, but I think my whole project is to subvert this idea of value and where value is placed. You know, we live in a world, but in an industry that is very Eurocentric and in some ways supports, you know, the hegemony of white supremacy. And so I think that by saying things like craft is the meaning of luxury, not place or location or, let's say, like pedigree, but really savoir faire and that that can be done anywhere and has been done everywhere for millennia. So I think that that is really the subversive move.

7:43And I also think that even in the ways I portray the characters and the imagery, it's people that haven't ever been included in nuanced conversations about style and life. And so I think that's super important because, yeah, it's just stories have been flattened for so long that we need a much more rounded perspective of what it means to be a Black woman or a trans woman, and that she can be complex and nuanced and be sensual and soft while being all these other things. And I think that's super important to portray. And Colleen, can you talk a little bit more? You mentioned designing sort of within a patriarchy, right?

8:30Yes. Talk a little bit more about what that means to you. I mean, it sounds like you've worked with a lot of women. So, you know, was that intentional, would you say? Did you choose to work with women or was it strategic? I think I got lucky. I think that there was a moment where I realized that I don't think there was, I've mainly worked for women. And I think that's rare to be a woman with mainly not only female bosses, but CEOs. And I think that's been really cool to see. And founders. I think that I started in menswear. And so I think for me, that felt a bit subversive at the time, but it was also a reaction to not seeing a type of femininity that I identified with in fashion.

9:30and so it felt more authentic to be making menswear because women's wear just wasn't resonating with who I am as a woman and I think that I went out on my own because I still didn't see it and it felt like this sort of personal need to create and discover my own identity from my own point of view of what it means to be a woman in this contemporary space. And I think there are a lot of male creative directors who are also, you know, working at houses that were founded by men. And even when women are taking over these houses, they are building on sort of codes that were initially created by men.

10:20And so I think I think it's sort of exciting to just draw from emotional, personal experience rather than, I don't know, these other male points of view. Interesting. So I think, like, looking at fashion in general now, there's two narratives, and we touched on it at the beginning a little bit. There's not enough women designers leading these big houses. And then, you know, another storyline we talk about a lot, especially in the last year or so, is that there are many, many challenges facing emerging designers, independent designers in this world of large conglomerates. The three of you really tick these boxes.

11:10And so I want to talk to you, if you can sort of talk a little bit about where you're at right now in your business. Like, what are the pluses of being independent women designers and what are the negatives? For me, yeah, of course, the biggest challenge is balancing actually creativity with the practical side of running a business. sometimes I have a feeling I have a million things to do at the same time and it goes from calling with the accountant to gluing something on the floor to like zoom calls with the production to draping something on a doll a fashion brand just asks so much work like so much but I feel super super lucky that I have two very strong women aside of me helping me with the whole brand and so it's not alone I'm not alone and I'm very proud of the team what we already have achieved together.

12:06It's only two collections now but I can't really complain actually. Now for the future of course you want to keep on running that business and keeping it healthy and grow very slow and not push things because also if you push things it doesn't work. Also I don't really like to think too much about the future because then it can force things and it doesn't feel natural. And I like to just let it come to me and grow within the business and just to live in it and see the mistakes every day and try to do it better. And my goal is also to make every collection better, not only the collection, but also the communication and the show and just the work between each other.

13:01Yeah, everything. And that's also nice, I think, in fashion that you can always start again every season. That's a plus. But on the other side, it's going very, very fast. So sometimes you can't keep up with it. But yeah, we're trying to do our best. Rachel, what about you? It's definitely what Julie's saying about just the demands on her time. I'm unfortunately design is like this part of what you do as a business owner, at least in my experience, because I'm largely managing it by myself. I'm the only full-time employee of my business. That being said, of course, I have an incredible group of collaborators that are so supportive, but no one's here on a full-time basis.

13:45So that makes it challenging. But I think it's that way because of basically access to capital. And, you know, I have the business is growing incredibly and it continues to grow and it's really amazing. And I'm blown away by the success we've had. And I also feel so lucky and so grateful to everyone that supported me along the way. But with all that said, cash flow is still the most difficult thing because I don't think people really understand how much you have to invest into building a business. And even with growth, if you're, you know, largely wholesale, which I am, any profits or something that might be profit goes back into building the business.

14:29So, you know, I'm going into the fourth year now and I hope that this year will be profitable. But I don't know because we're continuing to reinvest and investing in DTC expansion. And yeah, it's more than I could have ever imagined that you have to put back into the business. So that part's the most challenging, but I love a challenge. That's the thing that motivates me the most. I love when people don't expect me somewhere and I show up there. So yeah, it's a weird addiction to trying to, I don't know what it is, keep going. But it's one that's incredibly fulfilling. And so I'm super happy and I'm super happy that there are more brands that are independent and more voices adding to the discourse.

15:12I think that was missing for so long and at least of the last 10 years. So I think it's really exciting right now. Colleen, do you have anything to add to that? I mean, I think they've definitely hit on the biggest points. I think that that's exactly it. At the end of the day, it does require so much capital to make it happen and to grow and expand to support the vision. And I think for me personally right now, I'm also consulting as a designer for other people in order to support the brand and to support myself. and you know that it's two-sided I think it also is a great relief to be able to do that because it takes away a lot of the pressure and I can work from a place of creativity rather than sort of a place of anxiety and be able to sort of work with you know I think I want to be able to work with the levels of raw materials of fabrics and and work with factories that I feel um are at a level of quality and to do that as a young brand is a big investment um but ultimately I don't want to make the work that doesn't feel supportive of the industry and yeah I want to make quality things.

16:45And I think it's, yeah, and same as well in terms of balancing the creative and sort of the day-to-day management of things. It becomes sort of really practical at the end of the day. But it's, I also agree with Rachel about it's great to have so many voices in the conversation right now because I think there's such a demand for newness within the industry from these luxury houses to create so many collections a year. And I think it would be great to be able to sort of shift perspectives and think about, rather than demanding so much work from these major creative directors, being able to support other bigger or support the industry overall.

17:26And so that newness can be found from different places rather than one source. People on the outside of fashion, I think, look at it like a very glamorous place to be, to be operating. And, you know, listening to you, you really drive home the hard work that's involved. We're going to take a quick break.

18:00Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, Senior Awards Correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men. Oscar season is upon us. Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood. There's a hundred wrestlers in the room, but only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

18:41And we're back. I want to turn to your customers because obviously you launched your brands because you as designers felt you had something to say. But I want to hear, like, how are you finding out what your customers are saying or want to say to you? And how, you know, what kind of interaction do you have with them? And how are you responding to, you know, what you're learning from your customers? Rachel, do you want to start? Yeah, this is one of my favorite parts, actually. So my business is 93 % wholesale. and I have incredible, incredible retail partners and some of them here in New York, a lot there in the US.

19:27And so I just visit the stores all the time. You know, like Bergdorf Goodman, I go to them maybe at least a couple of times, if not more a year. And speaking with the team on the floor is one of the most interesting and exciting things I can do, which it's amazing to meet with the buying team. I have so much respect for them and they give me such incredible feedback. But talking to the people who deal with customers on a daily basis, I've learned so much. I like always talk about the DMM of Alaya in Bergdorf-Hoodman, Akbar. He's told me so many things about what the customers gravitate towards, what he thinks about my price point, what he thinks about the products offering.

20:07So that's been incredible. But also just spending time there, you actually see the customers and you go in the fitting room with them and you understand like, OK, I love this share thing. but like maybe you could make it a little bit easier for me to figure out how to wear it and that's super special you also learn about their lives their like desire for how they want to feel when they get dressed and and also what their day-to-day looks like and where they're going and and how the clothes can support them so i think it's super super fun parts of the job Julie for me it's really new actually and it's super heartwarming also to see it's always like they are really like wearing it and living their lives in the pieces.

20:51And also it's just so different on everyone. And I'm always like, it's so nice. But then on the other one, it's totally different and it's even nicer. And it's like, oh my God, this is, you're like creating a community and you really have to like also stick to them and have and create this relationship with them, I think. So also I try to go to the stores here in Belgium and have this conversation about what the people are seeing in store. Also, when there is a friend buying something, I can text them and ask them things about finishing. Do you like this or that? And it's just super interesting what they think about it.

21:31And also how they style it. I think it's quite amazing to see people style a piece with another brand. And really like they want to communicate their worlds. and their personality just by making this outfit together and it becomes something else. It's so emotional to see, actually. Also, the first star that I visited was H. Lorenzo in LA to see the clothes hanging. And this was also quite a special moment. It really feels surreal and I'm very excited and curious to see how it develops. I'm hoping also that it's selling and that people are just happy with the clothes and feeling like confident in it.

22:15What about you, Colleen? Do you remember the first time you saw someone in your clothes? Yes, it's an amazing feeling to kind of see it reflected back at you. And it's cool to see who resonates with what. I think it can often surprise you. And yeah, it's really a satisfying feeling. I love the way I've been showing at Fashion Week has been with a showroom. And so there's both a rack of clothes and a model there to try things on. And it's sort of such a educational experience walking through item by item on a rack with an editor or a buyer. and then being able to put the piece on a model and see the way that they're responding to seeing it in person for the first time.

23:11It's like a great sort of inside look on how somebody will also interact with it in a store. And so I've really learned a lot from that experience. And that's been a really fun way for me to connect with sort of the community around the brand. So we just talked a little bit about the concrete, you know, interactions that you're having. But when you dream about dressing people, who do you dream of dressing, Colleen? I there's so many people I think that I'm always fantasizing about sort of these women in culture that have such a unique sort of point of view and sort of a bit of magic to them I think about somebody like the launch who exists within this sort of pop universe but she has her own world completely and like such a strong identity or somebody like Tilda Swinton who has been in Hollywood and film for so long but still is her own special carved out face or I love like Nia Gough and people like that that I think just are sort of uncompromising in their identity and I love the idea of women like that interacting with the brand.

24:34Rachel what about you? Yeah I mean of course there's celebrity i mean i would it would be a dream to have rihanna wear it you know like a fellow island gal but um but solange has bought from me before and that was a big dream and it's still like if she were to wear this again i would just be so thrilled um but then it's also you know sometimes i do open studio and and people come in to shop and then someone will come in who's like in their 70s i have no idea what they do but they're so interesting um and just have like this powerful, also like sensual energy to them. And I find that super exciting.

25:11I just think it's more about an attitude. It's like kind of a ease and a confidence and a mysteriousness in people that I find really interesting. Going back to the, you know, the being a woman in a man's business, Do you feel that that is the case, that it's still too much of a man's business? Rachel, do you want to take that one? Yeah, I'm nodding. I mean, it's not hard to see that it's a man's business. I mean, just look at, you know, all of the creative directors. I think one Granary put a post this morning. What was it? It was like the white man musical chairs in the creative director roles.

25:55And it's hard. I think it's such a complex situation because, you know, there are people there, white men, who are very deserving of some of these roles. But for me, it's an issue of just access. You know, there probably are so many incredible women designers that are just not even considered or never get to that point. I mean, I say this a lot, but I started my career in Italy and I don't think I would have been able to open a brand as a black woman immigrant with a disability if I had still lived in Milan. I mean, that was only possible in New York, in America, where there is this more openness.

26:34It's less conservative. So, yeah, it's a really conservative industry at the end of the day, especially where power and money lies. and I don't know that all we can do is just continue to to push um independent brands and voices. Colleen what about you? Yeah I do think that it is still a male-dominated industry but um again I think I've been so lucky to work for so many incredible powerful women and so So, you know, I hope that there is sort of a generational shift as, you know, the world evolves and that, you know, if we just keep making the work that people will see it. And I do think that I have hope for women in the industry.

27:28I think that it's an exciting time and the conversation is being had, I think, perhaps for the first time in a really real way, which is the start. I'm curious, you know, going back to what you were saying, Rachel, about the guys who are moving chairs around, swapping seats. Knowing that this is the way it is for the moment, do you aspire to a creative director job or do you imagine a completely different system? I'm of two minds. In some ways, of course, it would be incredible to be able to contribute and work at a scale like that. I mean, you know, so much of being an independent brand is working with just full of limitations.

28:19It's just you're always up against something in some way, whether it's capital resources, manufacturing partners, time. So, of course, it would be a dream to be able to work in a situation where you have access to the most incredible ateliers and teams and reach. And also to contribute to just a story that has a global impact. You know, that would be amazing. And I have like dreams of brands, maybe ones that don't exist that I would love for a conglomerate to buy up and then call me to run. But at the same time, you know, I think someone like Rei Kawakubo is so incredible to me. And she never did that.

29:05And she's been so, is so powerful, has made such an incredible mark on the industry that maybe that's the dream. What about you, Julie? when you look ahead, do you imagine yourself in a big brand as a creative director someday, or is that not part of your 20-year plan? Oh, never say never, but I can't imagine it at the moment. There is just too much work, and I really want to work on my own brand. But of course, what Rachel told says it all. I think it should be amazing to have, indeed, no worries about the quantities a lot of people working with you I think it's a dream of course for me it's a dream but not yet at all Colleen I think that for me the dream sort of path is something like JW Anderson has done in the sense that he's been a really successful creative director of a major house but has also been able to keep his own brand in a really equally successful way and that they have their own identities while also supporting each other, having a conversation with each other.

30:25I think that's really cool. And I think that the idea of a big conglomerate in not only investing in the designer and bringing them into their brand, but also investing in the brand itself and having sort of belief in that is something that I'd like to see more of. And, you know, bringing it back to sort of my comment earlier about, I think we do end up with this male musical chairs because these houses, again, were founded by men, most of them. And so I think the idea that if we can bring in and elevate more women-founded brands to that level might change the conversation because starting with a female founder, I think, is a really good place to start.

31:14Right. It sounds like in addition to women designers, we need a lot of women entrepreneurs who could dream up a conglomerate of the future where we're not building up heritage brands. We're trying to support and build up brands by living designers. I have heard, you know, over and over and over again that, you know, it costs so much money to support and to build one of these, you know, billion-dollar brands and that it's easier to do it with a name that's been circulating for decades. But this formula now, I guess it was sort of born in the late 90s, the formula is going on 30 years old itself.

32:09And there will come a time when, hopefully, where, you know, a new formula is developed. And it will be nice if we are building up contemporary names rather than decades or centuries old names.