A Startup Incubator for… Fashion Designers?

Another Fashion Week just wrapped up in New York City, but the real future of fashion was not necessarily happening on runways shimmering under the flash bulbs at Lincoln Center.  In all business ecosystems, power and hierarchy tend to suppress the most interesting innovations.  And so it is in the fashion business, too.  When a nod or a grimace from the editor of Vogueis enough to make or break a new designer, you know the ecosystem is not functioning all that efficiently for everyone.

Thus, I am fascinated by how an emerging company—Nolcha Fashion Week—has become a hot incubator of new fashion design talent.  Think of it as the “other” fashion week.  It’s the equivalent of being off-Broadway (or even off-off-Broadway), a place where the cool, unexpected stuff is allowed to sprout and grow, away from the traditional gatekeepers.

On Thursday, I caught up with Nolcha’s co-founder and CEO Kerry Bannigan, in the center of a swirl of activity at the Fashion Lounge they had set up in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  At this location, Nolcha was providing some of their independent designers private rooms to meet with potential buyers, the day after their runway show.  According to Bannigan, when she moved from England to America, she was surprised at how promising designers often failed not because of their inability to design great clothes, but because they lacked the knowledge and expertise to grow their businesses.  She started Nolcha about six years ago to address this gap.

And the results have been powerful.  This fall, they showcased over 20 designers on their platform.  They have received sponsorship from several top brands in the industry, including hair products maker RUSK.  Their designers have seen significant growth in customers and market attention.

In the course of my conversations with Bannigan and others, what struck me were the similarities between the startup worlds of fashion and technology.  Although the ecosystem of Silicon Valley seems worlds away from the designer runways (which is obvious when you see how people in the Valley dress sometimes), the needs of emerging startups in both of these ecosystems are incredibly similar.  Startups everywhere face similar challenges: they need access to business expertise, sales channels, powerful relationships, capital, brand validation, and sympathetic partners who believe and are willing to stick their necks out and take a chance on them.   You might have the greatest design or invention in the world, but that doesn’t guarantee that anyone will know or care about it.

That gap is exactly where they try to help.  As Bannigan explains, “Maintaining strong, open relationships with industry, brands and advertisers has been extremely influential in our firm.” Nolcha builds relationships with designers characterized by honesty and ability “to understand each designer’s creativity, personality and brand vision.”

According to Arthur Mandel, the other co-founder and President of Nolcha, they give small designers a powerful platform that might otherwise cost over $100,000 at the “big show” at Lincoln Center, they elevate these brands to high visibility, they give them business support, and they sometimes even take equity stakes in their designers.  Obviously, they look for designers who do fantastic work, but just as importantly, they look for people who also can communicate persuasively to customers, media, and other important players and tell an exciting narrative.

What lessons can we learn about business ecosystems from Nolcha’s story?  For emerging designers, Nolcha serves as a keystone, a social role described in our book, The Rainforest.  Similar to keystone species in natural ecosystems–like bees and hummingbirds–business keystones create value in the overall system by breaking down barriers, thus connecting disparate parties together who otherwise wouldn’t connect on their own.  In the fashion business, where the whims of elites often dictate who gets attention, this matters a lot.

Economic systems thrive when little firms with better ideas can take on giants based on merit, instead of waiting for blessing from powers on high. Hierarchy and elitism are destructive forces when it comes to the emergence of innovative ideas.  That’s one of the reasons that Silicon Valley has thrived: the “horizontal” structure of the ecosystem means that there is nothing odd about a successful veteran chatting with a bright-eyed newcomer over pancakes at Buck’s, or another of the local watering holes.  In most realms of business, that dynamic style of mixing and mingling regardless of social hierarchy rarely happens.  Thus, Nolcha occupies the same role in the fashion ecosystem that a well-connected venture capitalist or startup mentor does in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

As people like to say, Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a place.  The under-appreciated gift that Silicon Valley provides the world is a way of looking at how humans organize themselves socially to bring new ideas to life.  And that framework can be applied across all fields of human endeavor, including fashion.  Fortunately, mindsets do not have to recognize any borders.

story by Victor W. Hwang,