“We have an army jacket, because people are joining the SaintSociety Army, as either Sinners or Saints,”StyleSaint cofounder Allison Beal says gleefully. “After the jacket’s fabric is patterned, marked and cut at the company’s downtown LA factory, we send it out to a wash-house in the Valley to get enzyme washed. That creates the distressed look we’re going for.” Then we send it through to a rock and a golf ball wash.” She’s effusive, almost giddy, as she describes the intricacies of production: “I find it so fascinating,” she says, “everything that happens to create your dress.” She points to the roll of fabric leaning against the door in her office that will emerge as a maxi-dress in StyleSaint’s debut, 12-piece collection August 1st.
Beal in StyleSaint’s Venice office.
Consumers assume that if production is done in L.A. the prices will be too high. That’s not the case with StyleSaint: knowing what its consumers want allowsthe company to spend next to nothing on marketing, avoid wasting money on sampling and skip the wholesale to retail markup. “We’re able to pass on all the value that we’re saving by cutting out all those middle steps and middlemen to our end consumer,” says Beal. With those costs cut, Beal and her team can produce alined, silk maxi dress with French stitching for less than $140 retail, which is about what you’d pay for one at Zara.
Zara’s an international retail power player that produces dresses in mass—by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. StyleSaint will limit its production of each piece to fewer than 1,000. Beal says the debut collection will showcase a $137 maxi dress that is unique in addition to its limited numbers, it’s made of Italian fabric with one of a kind mosaic design—printed on silk from a digitized image of an original painting. Keep reading on Wired Wired West
“It’s totally defensible,” says Beal: “This isn’t something you can get better or cheaper somewhere else. We make it once in this fabulous mosaic print and that’s it. When we run out, it’s done. You can never get it again.”
