Katie has slowly been preparing herself to start a clothing line for some time now. She studied and worked in the field for the last several years, but even more recently has spent a lot of time planning out how she would make a succesful attempt.
While I know very little about fashion and clothing lines, I do enjoy starting new businesses. I’ve been a part of several new businesses that have started in the past several years, some successful, some not, but all quite interesting. As everything from an investor to the company President, I truly enjoy the thrill of a new business venture.
One of the best parts about that thrill is actually seeing and identifying a competitive edge that exists, especially when that is the basis of your company.
Well, Katie and I had an early example of this over the weekend. We took a walk down Montana Ave in Santa Monica on Saturday, which is the higher-end shopping area of Santa Monica and is littered with boutique fashion shops.
While walking by what Katie considers the highest price-point shop (only famous designer labels sold there), she pointed to the only dress in their window display. Sure enough it looked incredibly similar to the dress that Katie had designed almost 4 months earlier as her bridesmaids dresses in our wedding.
It became very clear to me how well she knew the trends and colors as I looked at this high end dress. The eggplant color was almost the exact same as the ones in our wedding. There were bunched up parts that matched the way Katie designed hers and the shoulder, waist, and leg lines all looked familiar. Incredibly, after having a closer look, we realized this was a $1295 Alberta Ferretti dress. The dress Katie design and produced cost us more like $50-75 per dress. Mark up!
Now, I may be way off in my analysis of these type of dresses (and Katie confirms this to me daily), but I thought it was very impressive to see how she had effectively predicted what the high end designers would be making this season. Usually it is the other way around where the lower designers knock off the trend-setting high end designers. Not for Katie. She’s got an eye for this industry and I’m excited to be helping her get started.
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Katie obviously has an eye for fashion. Good luck to her (and you) as she launches her new business.
I have loved going to a local boutique (near my cottage) and picking up some of Katie’s piece’s but I live in Toronto and have heard that there is a store or stores that sell her clothing and I would love to know the name and where…if you know?
Also is there a website for Katie’s clothing?
Thanks so much!
Hi Lindsay,
You can follow her at http://www.KatieMay.net or on Twitter (@katiemay). She is just getting started so there are no dresses in stores yet. Hopefully in the next 6 months we will be seeing them!
Conor
I also would like to know where to buy Katie clothes in Toronto. My sister bought cute tops on Yonge Street. She said near either Wellington or Wellesley!
I saw this photo on another forum and it took me forever to find the designer of this dress. Does Katie sell this dress at retail locations or does she offer custom orders?