Should Making It in Fashion Be This Hard?

Fashion runs on these really strange net 60, net 30, net whatever, store pay payment terms. We didn't understand all of this at first. When we first started PD, we asked for a deposit when someone placed an order, that helped at the beginning. But over time, stores overturned those rules. No one really pays on the dot. The reason a lot of brands do... See more

Even category-defining influencers face these hurdles. Many lack access to credit, loans, and a business bank account. Some float five-figure sums for production costs on PayPal. Others are unable to prove income requirements to secure a lease. What’s more, the metrics that define a sustainable digital business – subscription growth, audience engag... See more

When every other designer is scrambling to keep up with the ever-shifting progressive liberal decency mandates, Velez’s refusal to shut her mouth is inspiring. Very few avant-garde American designers feel as authentically American as Velez.

“Coming from the blue-collar Midwest, a majority of my friends specialized in the trades: welding, fabrication, assembling.” Velez now works with some of these friends in crafting her designs as part of an effort to show that fashion can be made “outside of the creative coasts.”

Ultimately, Proenza’s fortunes unravelled for many of the same reasons so many of its peers are no longer in business: misallocation of funds, disagreements with investors, seismic shifts in the industry at large, and a fashion ecosystem that did a poor job of preparing young designers for the realities of entrepreneurship.

The company’s unraveling, which was reported by New York magazine, left dozens of designers reeling. At least two were owed more than $30,000, potentially life-altering sums for freelancers.