Kaelen Haworth: Fashion Designer and Creator of Absolutely Fabrics

This episode is brought to you by Australian Gold. Use Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Mineral Tinted Face as your everyday BB cream for unparalleled sun protection and for the perfect matte finish. Available in three subtle mattifying shades it's the perfect way to use SPF in your daily routine which we should all be doing no matter the weather or the season. Use Second Life 10 for 10% off your entire order at Australiangold.com through September 30th. That's Second Life 10 for 10% off at Australiangold.com. Hi everyone, I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who Up Wear and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears and what happens when they embark on their Second Life. Today I'm joined by Creative Consultant, stylist and the founder of Absolutely Fabrics, Kaelin Howarth. To say Kaelin has had a multifaceted career in fashion is an understatement. After graduating from Parsons she created her eponymous fashion line Kaelin which was accepted into the CFDA incubator program and sold at retailers like Intermix and ShopBop. Taking her learnings from that experience she launched a Second Line, the director consumer and size inclusive brand Second Site. But after eventually ceasing production on both lines in 2020 she pivoted from design into editorial and celebrity styling and now she's embarking on yet another new journey within the fashion industry. This fall she's opening a retail destination in Toronto called Absolutely Fabrics, a concept store that stocks both designer and vintage pieces, serves as a studio space and hosts programming like trunk shows, shoots and product launch events. Kaelin's fashion industry evolution is so fascinating and I can't wait for you to hear about it all. Now on Second Life, it's Kaelin Howarth. All right, I feel like the majority of our relationship is on Instagram and is so nice to actually be able to chat with you because I haven't seen you IRL in like 100,000 years. Okay, so on this podcast we like to start at the beginning. What did you study in school and much more importantly, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up? Okay, at school I studied English lit. For no other reason than I had no idea what I was going to be and I just thought I like to read so this makes sense. I do think I always wanted to be in fashion that was always on my mind, but I had no idea in what capacity and I didn't know how you could study it or how you would even approach that and I was in the phase of like I go to university now. So that's what I do now and then I'll figure that out later. So I was an English lit major. So then at what point did you decide to apply to Parsons because that is a very clear move and one that you made very early on? Yeah, I think I was coming to that point where I was having those discussions about what I was going to do with my life and everyone kept asking me if I was going to be a teacher because I would now have this English lit degree and that terrified me because I'm so amazed by teachers but I could not do it. It's not something I think I have the mental capacity for. So anyway, I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. I was researching the different avenues, I guess, to go into fashion. I never thought that I would go into the design world of it. I always thought with the English lit piece, I was using that as okay, this is my pathway to fashion. Maybe I'll try and go into writing and think about trying to be an editor and then I just started researching and I discovered that those programs exist. I thought you had to go to fashion school to study a fashion design. I didn't know really that there were all these other worlds and other ways that you could get into the industry. So I looked at FIT, I looked at Parsons, I looked at SCAD and Parsons has a lot of different programs and there were more options there that made sense for me. So I applied for the marketing and merchandising program and I got in and I went to Parsons, I moved to New York at the end of the summer after I graduated from university. First of all, I love that as someone who also went into grad school straight from undergrad basically because I'm like, I just want me to keep studying and figure this out a little bit more and I too moved to New York City for that. So going from LA for undergrad and San Diego from growing up to New York was a lot. What was that experience like for you because just if anyone doesn't know you are Canadian. So there are a zillion Canadians in New York but I feel like it would be a slightly different vibe. Oh, it wasn't slight, it was extreme. Also, I went to university in Halifax which is in Nova Scotia in Canada. So it's like this very charming coastal city but it's not a big city and it's very homey and cute and everybody's lovely and I'd been to New York obviously and I've traveled a lot but I had never lived in a big city. So I moved to New York and I had the whole like Google I'd sex in the city like this is it, this is where I need to be and I did not love it. I thought I was scary and hot because it was the end of August and really like gross and dirty and I lived in a six floor walk up with a ton of water bugs which I used to put my flip flops in the mailbox so that when I came home from the bar I would have shoes to go up the stairs because it's the water bugs and also like heels and six flights. So I always had shoes in my mailbox and I just remember thinking like this is not it and I was really annoyed with myself that I wasn't enjoying it more or that I didn't feel immediately like this is where I need to be and it took at least a year before I was really in love with it. I feel you on this on so many levels because we lived in New York before there was a certain level of like ease and convenience. I always remind people I'm like I lived in New York before you could use a credit card in taxis so you would have to like count your cash money and watch the meter and see if you had enough money to get where you were going. It was difficult in ways that I think it's easier now and folks don't always realize that. The cash and the cab thing is like the pinnacle of how much it's changed totally different world. Different times. So did you enjoy your time at Parsons? Did you feel like you learned a lot? Was it more of like a oh the classes were great but I didn't get as much out of extracurriculars or was it the reverse or neither. I got a lot out of my time at Parsons. I loved it. I thought it was amazing. The best part about it for me was the teachers, the people that work there are people who are in the industry in real time or have just recently exited. They all have so much incredible real-time knowledge to impart and you know we would be using these textbooks and our teacher would say that's not really right anymore and this is more of a realistic interpretation. So I thought Parsons was incredible. Also it's great for helping you network and make connections because that's a reality in New York especially. If you want to be in fashion you need to go out of your way to make connections and to network which you know some people think of that as kind of a dirty word but it's so important that you put yourself out there and there's a different way to think about it. I think that might make it sound more appealing but that was one of the big things at Parsons and they made an effort to really help you with that too and the internship sort of job-boarded Parsons was incredible. I got a lot of internships through Parsons and yeah I mean I think the experience net net was a hundred percent worth it it was excellent. So I want to hear about the period of time after you graduated from Parsons before you started your own eponymous line which happened only nine months later which again it's just like my mind is blown by that for a variety of reasons but it's like 2009 correct yeah you've just graduated we had started who went where a few years prior and I remember we just felt like we were finding our feet and then the economy crashing and we had to reduce costs across the board because digital advertising was the first thing to get cut it was terrifying in a whole new very adult way. What did your time look like? Yeah it was an interesting time so to your point there were no jobs so it wasn't like I was like oh I can get a job and get all this great experience or I can do this it was like no I can sit here and do nothing or I can try and start my own thing also I was on a visa so I had a shot clock you know you get a year after your student visa to stay without having to have ties to its specific employment so I kind of thought well let me do the two years and then I'll do that and then I'll go home obviously that's not what happened but in 2009 when I graduated there were no jobs to be had but it was also a really interesting time for fashion because the whole Zara and H&M and big brands like that had kind of already had their huge moment I think and people were excited about some of the smaller newer designers and were trying to think about the more interesting scrappy elements of fashion that weren't just these big huge corporations so there was room I think for people and there was interest I guess in different brands smaller brands people kind of doing things in a different way I also feel like and tell me I'm wrong but there was so much interest around quote unquote American fashion and new fashion independent fashion and CFDA folk fashion fun there was a lot of attention being paid on sort of the new guard in the fashion world in a way that felt very exciting yes that's exactly it in tandem with this you know really horrific kind of collapse there was also this excitement around trying to lift and elevate new brands and people who were trying to do something differently came out of that time as well so it was interesting it was the best of times on the worst of times so you had done a bunch of internships so you knew the industry to some extent what made you decide to say okay there are no jobs I have just enough information to be dangerous I mean start my own thing how does one even do that I had a good friend who worked at an agency what they did was they helped put me in touch with people who could facilitate the opening or the starting of a line so by that I mean some factories in New York which if you're producing in New York you can do that on your own it's pretty straight forward no one in New York is very geeky about that kind of thing what I did was I spent a lot of that time working with a friend of a friend who is a pattern maker and trying to learn from him the skills I didn't have so that by the time I launched the business I would feel like I had the technical knowledge which I don't think I ever really did but to an extent the technical knowledge and just feel a little bit more comfortable with all the facets of that so it was like a nine month project leading up to when we launched the business we did a presentation at an abandoned warehouse in Chelsea so there were like nails on the floor I had to sweep it that morning but like Kate Landfair came all of the original like really incredible editors that I was obsessed with and revered and held in such high regard they all came which was incredible that's a really next level but I need to back up so what was your point of view what was the concept originally like what were you trying to say what did you have to say well okay I'm gonna just start by saying that was the problem and probably the beginning of the end so I knew I wanted to make clothes I wanted to make really beautiful clothes in New York with novelty fabrics and straightforward silhouette so minimal from the standpoint of the construction and silhouette but something exciting through novelty fabrics but my issue was always that I did not have a strong enough point of view with the benefit of hindsight I see that now but I did not have a strong enough point of view I did not have like a really edited collection and I think that at the time that was okay because we weren't so inundated with brands and you could still make nice clothing and that would be enough or at least for a while but I was trying to cater to everyone I was trying to please everyone I was being told so many different things and I wasn't experienced in the you know working world of fashion and so I didn't put enough energy and emphasis on what I wanted to say and how I wanted it to come across and so honestly I think that kind of set me up for a long struggle it became harder and harder because then I would say well no I'm doing this this is what I want to do I'm gonna focus on this I'm using these really incredible fabrics I'm doing this people would say well no I thought you were gonna do it this way and so it became this thing where no one really knew exactly what to expect for me and I didn't direct them clearly enough that it became a middle ground which is not what you want in fashion you want a strong point of view so tell me about that first collection how looks were there like now looking back do you still have favorites because by the way also like getting a bunch of print editors to come to your show at that moment in time is a huge deal so you had some vases going for you and so that's exciting I did I mean I don't want to demean like the clothes were good I still think that some of the clothes from that first show still stand I mean the fabric was incredible I use a lot of Japanese textiles that had a lot of really interesting fibers and different techniques and I thought they were beautiful and also that first collection we got picked up by intermix cheese but I'm gonna also say I mean intermix was great sometimes so we would have big stores come in and because I wasn't confident enough to say you've got to buy x y and z and this is how you make a comprehensive story out of this line and they would say we're doing blue this season and so you have a blue shirt so we're gonna buy one skew but we're gonna buy 400 pieces which is okay for your cash flow but it's really terrible for your brand identity it helps you in the short term but in the long term it makes it more difficult it was an interesting time and I loved the first collection I loved all the collections but the first one yeah it was cool it was a lot of like drapey silks mixed with these interesting wolves and everything had like a leather trim to it I didn't also at that point think as much about the cost efficiency I was just like I want to do this and this fabric is beautiful and it took me a long time to start thinking about well the price of this is then gonna be astronomical or if you want to position yourself properly then your margin is gonna be low so that sort of stuff took a long time I mean I'm just thinking about the sheer amount of inputs and data and strategy that one really needs in these moments of like okay yes there's the creative side but then there's so much on like the technical side and so much on the business side and like also having the infrastructure to be able to push back on stores if they are asking for one skew or they're asking you to create something just for them because there was a whole spate of that that was going on at that time too every store wanted something exclusive you've been hit might not be exactly the brand fit that you wanted totally there's just so much going on with all that what percentage of your time was spent on the creative versus thinking through the business piece of it because I'm guessing you didn't start designing clothes because you wanted necessarily to focus on all the business side of it but that's critical if you're going to have a line you know what it is critical but at the same time someone I think it was in the CFJ someone gave us the advice of you need to decide whether you are a designer and a CEO or whether you're a designer and then you have a CEO which I think is really smart because if you don't have the skill set complement it with somebody who does if you're a designer it's very likely that you are not also an accomplished business person that's not how my brain works I am 100% happier on the creative side so it took up a lot of time and also I didn't do myself any favors we weren't necessarily able to accelerate we were just sort of existing so I think that would be one thing that looking back knowing my limits and actually solving for the missing skill set would have been incredibly helpful because it takes up so much time almost all your time and unless you have people who are really wanting to partner with you and have your brand grow you can get steamrolled very quickly and I did a lot so of all of those early moments I'm sure there were also some really big proud major milestones yes it's about having some of those like super influential editors come in the very beginning or yes it's about getting picked up by retailers were there any other moments where you're like wow this is a thing I'm doing a thing it's real yeah I think actually the biggest thing was seeing people wearing my clothes on the street that was a huge thing because you're right the editors and everything is great but that's a lot of behind the scenes networking that's a PR company yes they're interested in you and that's amazing but there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff there too so when you see someone walking down the street wearing something you made it's amazing because you're like you just bought that because you think it's cool and that's awesome and it's New York and I'm like this is the like pinnacle of okay it's gonna be fine it's gonna work and getting into the incubator was incredible that was a huge boost all that stuff was amazing but definitely the most exciting was actually seeing people in the clothes or going to a store and seeing it in the store that was also equally exciting it was very cool so you mentioned the incubator I'd love to get into that in 2014 so you'd been in business for a minute you got accepted into a CFDA incubator program so for our listeners who might not know what exactly does that mean why would it be something you were interested in and then was it actually the experience that you thought it was going to be so the CFDA incubator was a business development program sadly it does not exist anymore I was in the I guess the fourth class of the CFDA incubator so for two years you and I think it's 10 designers total occupy a floor in a building in the garment district to each of your own studios you work out of there and it's a mentorship program essentially so the CFDA has this roster of really incredible people who they assign to each of the designers you have them split up into quarters so you work with certain people and then you shift and you work with others so you get access to just this unbelievable network of people in the city who just give you advice and do these things that normally they would be paid very handsomely for you know like I had Rupert Patel who was the fashion director at SACS at the time as one of my mentors April Uchital, Ramiya Giangola who's like a retail genius and so incredibly chic it was amazing the people that they put you in contact with who were genuinely helpful and so giving with their time and energy it was really incredible and they would set up press days where they would bring in people that you know one of us probably couldn't pull on our own and they would bring everyone through each of the studios so they did a lot to help raise visibility for everyone in the incubator and then also help with the development they also had some great brand partnerships like they partnered with the W hotels to send us all in an inspiration trip so anywhere that there was a W hotel you could go and it was so like it was very fun it was basically fashion camp there were a bunch of us in there at the same time and the thing is I don't think anyone is still in business except Yara who has Nomiya who I'm actually going to carry in my store which is fun very full circle but I think the CFDA the incubator program it did a lot but I also think that the timing of it for our brands for everyone that was in it was interesting because there was a shift happening for sure in fashion so there were some mentors who would say you have to do a show you have to do all the PR stuff and there were some that would say and don't worry about it save your money put it into product there was also the you have to do four collections a year conversation so as a newer designer you're doing two collections a year you're doing your main collections but you know then you have people saying well the pre-collections actually live on the floor longer so you need to do those two so you're asking someone to double their overhead which is impossible it's a little daunting because it's kind of like well you have to put all this money into something that's obviously a pretty huge gamble you know some people were very passionate about that some people weren't so it was interesting we were getting a lot of advice all of it was good but some of it was contradictory so it was an interesting time to be in that type of a program because I think the whole industry it was like we don't know what's going on yeah it was kind of wild so at what point did you start to think okay I'm not sure that this specific situation this specific company this specific dream is going to be the thing that I do forever I remember it exactly actually I was doing a presentation in my office at the time which is on East Broadway and it was the year after my name had been I assume auto corrected in a review by women's wear daily from Kaylyn to Marlene and I remember seeing it and being like these people don't care they're taking a box and so I was really frustrated even though obviously a lot of them care and then which is one of those moments where I was like I mean they still think my name is Marlene it's been 10 fucking years I was just like very annoyed and then we're doing this presentation and the PR people who are working with me at the time were like okay we've had a lot of drop-off because Kanye is showing oh yeah at that time people still thought that Yeezy was like I don't know if people thought it was cool or not or if they just had to go but I remember he was doing a show and I think it was on Roosevelt Island it was one of those things where it was going to take all of these editors away from a half of day of shows that had been fully planned out before not just surprise I feel like it exactly and so Kanye was like you know the night before I was like hey put this on the calendar I'm showing on Roosevelt Island at 1 p.m. and I just remember being like I don't want to do this anymore it's not working for whatever reason and that was sort of the catalyst for me to be like this is just not worth this stress is causing me when stuff like this happens and we are still unfortunately in a time where even if these editors don't want to go they have to go it's their job they've got to cover these big things so it's not worth saying oh well people don't care about me but it is just worth a second look in terms of like well this is where the industry's at right now and I think it was that and also I was sort of coming to the realization that what I was doing wasn't quite good enough like I don't want to diminish the work I did but it wasn't good enough and that's fine it took me a long time to be able to say that because it felt you know like I was admitting failure and I don't think that's the truth I don't think it was a failure but I don't think it was good enough it wasn't if it was it would have worked I mean at the end of the day it is as simple as if what you're making is truly special then it will work and things will happen you don't agree I don't fully agree not to contradict you no no go ahead but I do think that there is an element of like art which is fashion to me yes it doesn't exist in a vacuum it's not just evaluated on its own there's the marketing and the money and the structure and all of the other things that conspire with it and the timing and there's so many other things it's not just the art you're right it's not just the art but when you're being pushed into a lane that implies art right like I could have been a merchant Michael Cores is a merchant he's an excellent merchant he makes great collections that people want to wear because he knows what sells and he doesn't posit himself as like a McQueen but when you're in the fashion industry in New York it's like well you're doing the fashion shows and you're doing the things it's almost like there's a distinction between being a real designer and just being a brand right so you're being pushed into this world where then yes it is easy to say it this wasn't good enough because I'm doing runway shows I'm doing all this stuff and I'm putting myself out there on the same level as some of these people and so I don't think that what I was doing was really good enough to be in that world and that's okay but that's where Second Site kind of came from as well so tell me about Second Site which I remember following with great interest I thought it was such a cool idea and correct me if I'm wrong but it felt super personal and like very customer centric and customer forward but for anyone who isn't as familiar who didn't lurk a lot the way that I did because you walk our audience through the concept of Second Site. Yeah so Second Site was sort of a reactionary thing but it was definitely more personal so I was feeling all of these changes that were happening in the industry I was getting dissolutioned and everything else and so I wanted to create something that was direct to consumer so Ecom obviously was still having its meteoric rise at the time it wasn't new but it was still a great place to put your energy and I wanted to create something that would be quicker than the traditional wholesale calendar that would not rely on you know the markdown cadence the seasonal shopping patterns and the idea of a full line of anything and everything because it all had to be merchandise together so Second Site we would release new editions monthly of five pieces that were very edited they were in the same fabrication and the idea was to be able to actually have more of a conversation with the customer and on top of that I wanted to create a line with size inclusivity to the extent that I was able to because that was also something that was really in the forefront of the conversation when I started Second Site so there was little to no inclusivity in terms of sizing I felt like beyond the fact that I do believe that everybody should have access to clothing that makes them look and feel great it's also a business decision it's money on the table so if there is a massive market out there of people who shop differently of people who have different size bodies who have a lot to spend and want to be a part of that conversation and it's very difficult so we invested a lot in creating a broader size range and it was really interesting to see the reaction and it was a much more conversational brand we had a way more personal and interesting connection with the customer we actually able to hear because when you wholesale clothing it goes out into the void and you never hear you might get a sell-through report if you're lucky but you know you're not getting any anecdotal feedback you're not getting any kind of feedback at all from the person is actually buying or not buying you're clothing that's so wild it's wild so you have no idea if you're even on the right path so you know we were doing monthly additions and we were still back ending the production so we were still producing things three months in advance but we were doing it in New York so there is a bit of flexibility and you can be a little bit more agile so we were trying to really pay attention to what people were saying about the fit the fabric everything and we were trying to hone in on that and it was a lot more fun because I was making what I wanted to make and because these are monthly additions we were doing shoots all the time and we were using all different types of models all different types of bodies and I was doing all the styling and I was doing all of the creative oversight of that and so I was just feeling like day to day the flow of creativity and of the work that I was doing was a lot more enjoyable it wasn't that it wasn't as busy it was actually more busy but it was a better kind of busy like it wasn't these hugely high highs and then these really weird lows while you're trying to figure out how to make the next collection it was less extreme and more of a constant creatively engaging work just overall I think it was just more fulfilling well I would think that there would be some benefit to that cadence even though a monthly production feels super overwhelming but at the same time you can't be precious yeah and that I think would lead to more confidence greater creativity in certain circumstances because you can't get in your head about it too much because decisions have to be made it's time to go right yeah that's true and yeah I think also I was able to take what I had learned from Kaelin and think okay well this is the type of thing we sell well and do some deeper dives into that and figure out how we could make the things that we know people like more relevant more interesting and also fit for other body sizes and other body types which is that's a commitment as a brand you have to commit to doing it right or you cannot do it and fit in general is the Wild West there are no rules that's a fact so when people say oh you know it's weird that I'm a size 8 in this brand but I'm a 4 or a 10 in this one it's not weird what brands do is they pick their fit model and they grade off of that right so you have your size 4 and maybe she's a little bit taller than the other brand size for maybe she's got wider shoulders and maybe she's got a small waist and a like bigger hip ratio for a size 4 then this one does the whole garment fits differently and there are no standards so first of all you should never feel weird about like oh this is my size now it is completely irrelevant it's all made up and then on top of that you can comfortably grade a size up to a size 12 you can grade it up or down a handful of sizes before it starts to change in a way that doesn't fit properly so once you get to a size 14 if you continue to grade it in the traditional sense the garment will just be a little bit misshapen it's not going to fit properly anyone so from 0 to 14 one fit model works from 14 to 22 or 24 you need another model whose body is a little bit different that you can grade off of and be confident that within the confines of this you know one inch two inch grading system that will fit a broader range of bodies in a better way and it's very time consuming it's very expensive but you have to do it because if you don't do it right and you just decide you're going to grade from 4 to 24 it's not going to fit anybody and it's not going to serve any community and everyone's going to be angry with you so you have to do it right but it is expensive it's one of the situations where I feel like that almost has to be in the whole proposition from the get go of like start as you mean to go on because it's required to have all that infrastructure I remember speaking with Emma Greed from good American a number of years ago and she was talking about like creating the size 15 and about how there's just so much technical information that goes into everything and it just really requires resource at the end of the day and not everyone has that definitely not I think more often than not that's the impediment is the money and not the desire and I think you're absolutely right if you're starting a business yes think of as many body types ability types everything that you can that's within your ability to address because it only gets more difficult and it only gets more expensive so if you assume that you're going to try and address all of these different types of bodies and types of abilities it will set you up for much more success in the future so you mentioned that you were styling a lot more and certainly on a more regular cadence with second sight how did that impact some of your career choices moving forward because I know that in 2020 after two years of second sight you decided to make a pivot away from design I'm guessing the timing on that has something to do with a few things that we're going on in the world but it seems like that aspect of your creativity and expression stayed as you started thinking about your next moves yeah actually it wasn't even the 2020 of it all it was the fact that I knew from my experience with Kaylen that after two years at second sight I could keep going but it would still continue to be a similar struggle because I didn't know how to scale it and I just got to the point where I was like I'm not able to do this again mentally so I ended up closing it down and I think it was like December of 2019 and I thought to myself I'm just going to take a little break and then I'll get back to it and then the entire world took a very large break so timing-wise it worked out for me because I was kind of like I need to take a step back and figure out if this is what I want to do and also we were moving and I knew we were moving before the pandemic so I was already thinking I need to upend my life a little bit and I didn't want to design close from Toronto because I would be starting all over again from you know production and all that and sourcing and everything and it just wasn't an option and I knew that the most fun I was having during the entire process of both of my clothing brands was the styling and like the curating of the imagery and all the content that came out of it that was the fun part for me so I knew I wanted to do it I knew I could do it so when I moved I connected with as many people as possible and asked them to connect me with other people because Toronto is pretty insular and it's industry there's tons of creative people and really talented people here but they're harder to find and so I networked a lot I had coffee with everyone that I could think of and I ended up doing some creative shoots where I would reach out to agencies it did feel very much like I was like okay I'm really starting over but then what happened was Lauren Chan is a friend of mine she's a model entrepreneur writer a little bit of everything she was being shot for the cover of the kit which is a Canadian fashion and lifestyle magazine and website so she was being shot in New York and she asked the kit if they would hire me to style her because we've known each other for a long time I have an archive of vintage stuff as well that I've lent to her in the past for occasions and everything and she said that she wanted it to be me so I went to New York and I styled her for the cover of the kit it was a lovely experience and it also opened the door for me to have more conversations with the kit they hired me for a couple other shoots I did a cover with Sarah Gaden who's a really incredible Canadian actor and because Toronto is a bit of a smaller world it's actually a great thing because everyone's very excited about something different and you know I was using this really big vintage archive that I've been collecting forever to do this styling so it was different and then I started to do a little bit more traditional styling because you know advertisers so there's a little bit of a mix but I was having a lot more fun than I had been when I was designing clothes doing that I was really enjoying it and I still do I mean I love that part of all of it I mean you know with this next project a lot of that includes doing editorial shoots and doing econ shoots I'm really excited about that aspect of it too because it's still one of my absolute favorite things so speaking of that tell me about how you started thinking about this new project that I am so excited about that I have been spying on from afar so I am opening a concept store and studio in downtown Toronto called absolutely fabrics the retail element we're going to carry vintage and designer I'm not going to use the word emerging designer because I don't love it it does apply a lot of the time but I think it's just for me being called an emerging designer in my 10th year of business I was like I'm not emerging I'm here but ideally my goal was to find designers who did not have brick and mortar representation in Toronto some in Canada at all which is great but it's a mix of vintage and designer on the retail floor and the upstairs is a studio and event space where we're going to have lots of different programming it's where we're going to do all of our photo shoots we're going to rent it out to other brands who have a similar aesthetic for their shoots we're going to host panels we're going to do dinners trunk shows and really try and create this really incredible place where people who care about this type of fashion can come discover or have access to things that are new and exciting I'm really excited about it so how long did it take to realize like oh I could take all of this institutional knowledge that I have apply it in this way still be in the fashion world still get to do all of the styling and creative stuff that I like understand what it's like to be a designer and understand the brand side of it and how that interacts with the store and pull all of that together and get moving on it because it feels like such a natural and cool evolution that said I don't know a ton of people in the industry that have that trajectory which is partially why I was so excited to sit down and talk to you because makes so much sense in so many ways it does make sense but it's also like the upside down I have always loved the idea of having a store I think this has been something I've had in my head for probably five years ten years just that it would be cool to do that one day but then when I moved here I was like oh it would be cool to do that and it would be cool to do it here because there's room for it here and I think that there's an excitement people are trying to love fashion they love discovering new things but sometimes I think it gets thought of as you know the less ideal location than somewhere like New York I disagree I think it's a perfect spot but I think it is actually a really natural evolution like you said it's the opposite in some ways but it is very natural because I know how it feels to be on both sides of this coin now so I know what it feels like to be a designer who is not a huge brand or a huge name and I know what it feels like to find somebody who is really partnering with you from a retail standpoint people don't really do that anymore you know like there aren't as many like Julie Gill hearts of the world she bought the Peronza collection off of the runway at the Parsons graduation show and she launched their whole career that was a different time of course but the sentiment I think has kind of been lost over time because everything feels very product-driven unless holistic and brand and I still think people care about that or I guess we'll see but I care a lot about that I think it's really important and I think from my days of having a big store by 400 blue tops for me I'm now gonna be like well I'm not gonna do that to you because it doesn't help the brand because I'm not able to give them positive or negative feedback I'm not able to give them anything and it doesn't help me because no one understands the brand you know if it's just the color stories and it's only about the merchandising and I want people to come in and discover their new favorite brand I don't want them to come in because they need a blue shirt and I'm sorry that that's my only analogy but I'm just so scarred by it I get it I get it so I'm curious to about you understand it from like the art perspective and from the holistic perspective I'm sure also that on some level too you have such a vast knowledge of like construction and process and all of these things that other buyers might not necessarily understand in the same way what are the other aspects of your specific background do you think give you your distinct point of view or that really lend themselves to this new evolution of your career so I think I'm looking at these designers through the lens of exactly what you just said like the really interesting parts that might not be so obvious to a consumer like so there's this brand I'm picking up the designer's name is Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen she's incredible she's so talented and I emailed her and I was like do you wholesale and she said no and I was like would you and she said yes so I am carrying this brand and so she hand sows she makes these pieces that are sort of like historically influenced and they're made from 1920s tablecloths so there's like all this stuff that I think it's important that it exists in a store because someone used to say that to you I think for you to be like oh wow that's incredible so I am now very specific like highly edited in a way that I never was when I was designing so now I'm like hyper focused on what's the reason people are coming here and why are they buying these clothes and so I think it's like really helped me hone that ability and also to identify the designers who do have such a clear point of view because I think now that I'm on this side of it I can see how important that is for longevity you know the designers that I'm carrying they're so distinctive and they're not necessarily beginner brands so I think it's part of that kind of response to me feeling like I was kind of a drift in my point of view to now having a really clear point of view in what I look for and what I'm gonna buy and making sure that these designers do have that and I think that's hugely helpful to me in terms of setting myself up for success but also making it a really understandable experience when you come in the store and you look at a designer on a rack I want you to be able to say okay I understand this there used to be this boutique department store time you know you would go to the store and you would see multiple pieces from a designer you'd see a rack of a designer and it would feel like a department store but in a really intimate setting for me that's how I want to shop because I don't want to go to a million different stores because the little one I went to had one top from the brand I was interested in I want it to be a one-stop shop but I wanted to feel like an intimate and really lovely experience and edited and curated exactly and I think that that feels like it's missing from retail and so that's the lens that I kind of want to pass everything through how are you finding those brands and was all of the styling helpful in that or have you always been really interested in new brands and new designers in curating from that element of I don't want to say novelty but point of view yeah I've always kept a close eye I guess on new and up and coming brands when I'm thinking about the designers I wanted to buy I wanted it to be a lot about discovery so either my own or the customers so all the brands that you're inundated with constantly I love them they're great brands but it's not what I want to do and that's not who I want to showcase so a lot of the brands some of them I know from my time in New York Nomiya Yara we were in the incubator together I'm going to carry her brand which feels great others I've met through friends so a lot of the brands I actually do have a personal connection to or I've been able to meet through friends of friends or some of them were just kind of blind outreach but for example like I'm carrying interior which is a New York-based brand and I absolutely love them I think they're hugely talented and it turns out that Zoe Gustavea Anna-Wailin was actually working with them in some capacity I think she may have been their intern but it's such a small world and all these super talented people know each other which is really cool and you know some of them I just found so I went to a showroom when I was in Paris and I was buying one brand and then the sales wrap who was also Canadian she told me she was going to visit her friend who was showing it I think it was like a Copenhagen collective showroom and she said do you want to come look at it so I went with her to go look at it and I ended up buying it because it was awesome she was not like an unknown designer she was in the LVMH prize I don't know if she was in the finals but she was in it but she makes technical clothing that is meant for cycling but also it's fashion and all these bags that are like bike bags but they're made from vintage purses so they have like this very technical fabric to like hold it close to your body but then it's like this vintage leather part it's incredible it's so good I'm so excited but I'm trying to be as open as possible and not influenced by what is quote unquote trendy because I also feel like all of this stuff is trendy to a degree everything is we're seeing it all we're taking it in we're deciding whether or not it's relevant it's all trendy to a degree but the idea of the store is for people to be building their own archive from these pieces they're not seasonal they're not right now they're not trendy they are ideally something that you have an emotional connection to and you want to keep in your wardrobe forever style not trend definitely well it's interesting because listening to you speak it really feels to me like yes it's about discovery but it's also about amplification for these designers who have a distinct point of view but maybe are a little undiscovered by the world at large I mean that sounds to me like it would feel incredibly rewarding yeah it does so on this podcast we like to also talk about mistakes and I feel like we've talked about some of that and I think it's important to demystify the fact you know in this Instagram perfect world everyone just gets the highlight real but acknowledging that we all make mistakes in our careers and that we learn from it I think it's not revolutionary but it's important so I'm hoping that you can tell me about a mistake that you've made at some point in your career and what you've learned from it I think probably the biggest mistake is and I touched on it before but trying to please everyone I think you please your customer and you don't try and catch everyone which was one of my biggest mistakes another mistake that I made is to take advice at face value I think there's a lot of people who have great advice to give and can be extremely helpful but at the end of the day everybody's human you need to distill it through your reality before you accept it and a lot of times I didn't do that and I just kind of thought well this person is this really incredibly talented you know whatever and so I have to listen to exactly what they say and while meaning or not it doesn't always and it can't always apply to what you're doing and I a lot of the times just accepted advice as they be all an end all because it was coming from someone who's more experienced or more talented or more whatever and at the end of the day it would have served me better to be more critical of that advice speaking of advice a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first lives they haven't figured out how to take some of that knowledge from the initial industry that they've worked in and translate it to a different aspect of that same industry or maybe they just want to leave whatever industry behind and start something totally different what advice would you give someone who hasn't made that big leap yet but is standing there thinking about it what would you tell them I would tell them if you're thinking about taking the leap and making a change it means that you're already there and it's just a matter of doing it if you're thinking about it there's a reason you're thinking about it also I would say know what skills you're good at and what you're not good at I think the best thing you can do is somebody especially in a creative field is to collaborate with other people myself I'm not great in a vacuum I love to bounce an idea off of someone I think it's the best thing you do to expose yourself to other people who are doing interesting things and collaborate and really allow for personal growth that way which was hugely hugely helpful to me I'm also a big fan of asking questions I had a teacher of Parsons who said ask me any question that you want if the question seems like you're actually interested in learning something and you're actually interested in progressing I'm going to answer it to the fullest of my abilities but if you ask me where the tape is I'm going to tell you to go fuck off so it was like don't ask a question that you can find the answer to immediately but ask the questions that you actually are in a position to gain really important knowledge from especially if you have access to people who can give you an interesting answer that you would not find elsewhere like use those people people are always scared to ask questions and it's like it's the whole point you have to you're not expected to know these things facts so my last question is also my favorite question which is if you could go back in time and give yourself some advice at any point in your career what would you say I would say to worry less about the polish because I had the benefit of experiencing people around me mentors PR all that stuff and a lot of the focus was on like coming across a certain way and I think that was a product of the time but also I would say to myself that doesn't matter it doesn't matter and you're going to connect more with everyone around you your customer your peers if you are authentic and you're not constantly running through this script of the things you think you need to be saying it's easier if you are who you are it's very liberating I love that I love our conversation I love this new world that you've created for yourself thank you you make me want to get on a plane I'm going to come and see you I'm going to come to the store or you have to that sounds divine on a number of levels and congratulations thank you that was the creative consultant stylist designer and founder of absolutely fabrics calen howarth for more inspiring interviews with women like calen head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse if you like today's show please subscribe on apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to rate and review us we love seeing spread the word on social and now you can tag us in your post we are at second life pod on instagram twitter and facebook we always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show so sending your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram I'm at Hillary Curr the show is at second life pod our DMs are always open I'm Hillary Curr and you've been listening to second life this episode was produced by Hillary Curr summer hammeres and Natalie Thurman our audio engineers are at treehouse recording in 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