Why Colleen Allen Turns Away Retailers That Won't Pay Deposits
The Business of Fashion Podcast
Colleen Allen, a self-taught designer and founder of her eponymous womenswear label launched in 2024, shares her journey from learning to sew
Key takeaways
- Self-funded growth is possible with strict financial discipline, including requiring deposits from retailers to maintain cash flow.
Main topics
- Bootstrapped fashion brand growth
- The influence of Alexander McQueen on creative vision
Notable quotes
We are really only working with people on a deposit basis. Otherwise, it's impossible.
Conclusion
Colleen Allen's story exemplifies how passion, self-discipline, and creative vision can
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:04) Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. Colleen Allen learned to sew sitting on her grandmother's lap, holding the fabric while her grandmother worked the pedal. Growing up in the Midwest, far from the industry, she found her way in through magazines, the first fashion blogs, and old McQueen shows on YouTube. She studied menswear at Parsons. moved to London for a semester abroad at Central Saint Martins, and then asked to stay on to complete her degree. She landed her first job designing menswear at The Row. But then something shifted. She decided to venture out on her own and create a womenswear label in 2024. Since then, she says the business has grown by triple digits year over year, with no outside investment and no full-time team other than herself. So how did she do it? Speaker 1 (1:00) We are really only working with people on a deposit basis. Otherwise, it's impossible. And so I'm very grateful that within the current retail clients, people have been accommodating for those terms because it's the only way it works. Speaker 2 (1:18) This week on the BOF podcast, Colleen joins me to talk about the making of a women's wear label, the discipline behind self-funded growth, and what she's building next. And just to note, we recorded this conversation ahead of the LVMH Prize final in Paris, where she was one of nine finalists. Here's Colleen Allen on the BOF podcast. Speaker 2 (1:43) Hello, Colleen. Speaker 1 (1:44) Hi, I'm Ron. Speaker 2 (1:46) Nice to, this is the first time we're meeting. Well, did we meet at the LVMH Prize, actually? Speaker 1 (1:51) We did. Yes, very briefly. So it's not the Speaker 2 (1:54) first time we're meeting because I did a fly-by visit for my judging last year because I don't know what happened. Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:01) it was a crazy day. So I totally understand. So Speaker 2 (2:06) we have met briefly. Yes. But I'm glad to have this opportunity. to speak more in depth now for as long as our hearts desire. Yeah, thank you so Speaker 1 (2:19) much for having me. It's such an honor. I'm really excited. Speaker 2 (2:22) It's a pleasure. So take me back to your grandmother's sewing machine. Why was that such a defining part of your growing up and how did that lead you to what you're doing today? Speaker 1 (2:40) I was always making something. I think no matter what I was doing, I was making things. And I think my grandmother was the same way. She spent all of her free time. She was a quilter. And so she couldn't sit still and she had to have some sort of. craft happening. And so when she would visit me, we got a sewing machine for the house for when she would visit because she had to have something to do with that. And so she taught me how to sew. I would literally sit on her lap and hold the fabric as she would press the pedal and we would make quilts, we would make pillows. I was always like kind of creating a landscape out of my quilts. I Speaker 2 (3:27) remember we Speaker 1 (3:28) were making Halloween pillows. And I was probably five or six and she wanted to just do strips so I could just learn how to sew straight lines. But we had gone to the fabric store and I had picked out all of these different kind of Halloween themed fabrics. And I had picked like the pumpkins for the bottom. And there were some like haunted houses in the middle and there were witches flying in the sky. I had like composed a landscape. And so that was kind of always the way that I spent time with her. And then we just had this sewing machine sitting in our house. She lived on the East Coast and I'm in the Midwest. And so she would come over just for visits. And then that sewing machine sat in my bedroom and I would just kind of use it and figure it out and teach myself how to sew. So that was the beginnings. Speaker 2 (4:25) I mean, you could have been sewing curtains or you could have been sewing, continued to sew quilts. Like, how did that become an interest in clothes? Speaker 1 (4:36) I mean, I loved fashion and I didn't really have any of. people in my life who had any connection to fashion. And so it was something that I really had to seek out and create for myself. So I was buying magazines and taking apart my own clothes and reconstructing them to be closer to the things that I wanted. And I would take, you know, hand-me-downs from friends and family, and it was chopping things into something new. That was just my way of like getting closer to that world. Speaker 2 (5:18) But then at some point you're like, did you, if you, even if you're far away, I guess you were connected to the internet and everything that was happening there. Like how did that. inform your understanding of fashion as a potential career, right? It's one thing to be upcycling old clothes and stuff. It's another thing to say, no, I'm, this is what I want to do. Speaker 1 (5:44) Yeah, I was in middle school. So around, you know, 11, when it was sort of the beginning of the blog era. And I think it was like an amazing time to be a kid dreaming of being in fashion because there was just this gigantic resource that had never existed before of people taking you behind the scenes of this is what it's like to, you know, go backstage at a show and I'm sitting front row and this is what I'm wearing and here's who I'm sitting with and then reviewing the collection. So I would come home from. middle school. And I would look at the Sartorialist and Susie Bubble and Tavi Gevinson and all of those people. And Tavi was my age. So I was like, there's Speaker 2 (6:30) a Speaker 1 (6:30) 13 year old girl who is also from Chicago sitting front row at Prada. That's insane. And so I think that through that was an amazing education of understanding all of the different facets of the industry, the stylists. the bloggers, the writers, the difference, you know, between the design team and sort of the universe that exists around it. And I think that originally I thought, oh, maybe I could be a stylist. But I think then slowly as I learned more, I started, you know, watching old McQueen runway shows on YouTube. I started thinking, no, I really want to be a part of the making of the creative process and the physical making of the clothes. And so I became. Speaker 1 (7:21) just in love with it from the outside. And so I started trying to find my way to get to the industry. And so I was taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. They had like pre-college courses. So they were fashion illustration courses and figure drawing and introduction to pattern making. And then I was kind of around all of these students who were, you know, in university level of fashion design, seeing what they were wearing to class. And I knew that's exactly where I wanted to be. Why Speaker 2 (7:58) McQueen? Like, why was that the designer that spoke to you? Speaker 1 (8:01) That was sort of, I think, my entryway into really wanting to be a designer. And I think because it wasn't about product, it wasn't about clothing as an item. It wasn't about selling handbags. It was about the performance. And I think I always wanted it to feel like, I think it was almost performance art. And I think that felt so special. And that was ultimately what I wanted to be doing was to create these sort of like the world around it, the experience, the music, the lighting, the casting. And then there was always, you know, an epic moment of transformation and theatrics that I just fell in love with. And I wanted to make something that had that moment of emotional impact. Speaker 2 (8:58) Was there a particular show that you remember seeing around that time? Speaker 1 (9:04) I remember I was 13 years old when it was the Plato's Atlantis show. And That was such a big deal because it was this live stream and it was the first time ever that somebody who was in their childhood bedroom could be accessing the moment and the magic and the emotion of the show at the same time that all the editors sitting front row were. And I know there was like the website crash, there was all these things, but I know that I like came home from school and watched it. as a 13 year old and the, the hair and makeup, they had all the prosthetics, the, the big shoes that was, and it was just like a look that had never happened before. And I think it's even at that time, you kind of thought nobody could possibly design something that I haven't already seen. And it was this thing that you had never seen before and hadn't been done. And I just, it just totally blew my mind that. there was still something to be discovered and something new and something transformative. And then I think that just opened me to go back and look at every other show that he had done. And there's the Shalom Harlow with the robot. And I love the mirrored box. Everybody, the women looking in the mirror, all of those shows were just like, that was the thing. Speaker 2 (10:36) Guess who I interviewed for this podcast on Monday? Speaker 1 (10:40) Who? Speaker 2 (10:41) Nick Knight. And we spent some time talking about Plato's Atlantis. It's so funny that you raise that show because it was such a defining show. You know, it was such a big moment. But when I look at your work, Colleen, when I look at what you're doing. I want to understand how you went from like getting interested in that like theatrical, what you just called performance art, to your journey to finding your creative process. So let's talk about you. So let's talk about how you got into, you decided to go to fashion school, right? You went