“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” ― Joseph Chilton Pearce
from the Blog
We have designed a new group of PopArt Accessories! Check out the sneak peek here. These are wholesale only. For more info please contact us using the contact form. Thank you, Sauvage Private Label LLC [contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’...
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Whenever I read an interview about Madonna she talks about reinventing herself. It may sound clique but it is true. As a kid who grew up in the 1980’s I remember Madonna was gyrating on the floor dressed in crazy ripped dresses, gloves, and giant plastic neon hoop earrings. Now at 58, she is still putting on major sold out shows in concert venues around the globe. Why? Because she reinvented herself every few years. In the fashion industry if you don’t evolve you die out. It seems like once a year I have to reinvent myself. What worked 5 years ago does not work today. Digital Marketing has changed the way people shop and the way we do business. Before the Great Recession, I could sell $10,000 worth of leather handbags a month using Facebook. Today you cannot sell anything without spending hundreds of dollars on Facebook ads. Every week we hear about how companies are shuttering stores. (Macy’s and Pacific Sunwear to name a few) Even Unicorn brands groovy girl brands like Nastygal.com have recently filed bankruptcy. Consumers are not flocking to malls anymore when they can just go to Amazon.com and click and have an item delivered to their door for free. What is hot now is direct to consumer brands like www.Everlane.com and major department stores like Nordstrom have bought up e-commerce websites in the past five years to be competitive. I quit doing trade shows in 2015. I took a new innovative brand to one of the most popular Las Vegas fashion trade shows, Project Las Vegas and we did not get one order...
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In the past several years I have helped dozens of start up and potential start-up fashion brands. I have met them when they are just tossing an idea around or after they have already got their brand idea off the ground and need help with the design or sourcing stage. At Sauvage Private Label LLC, our specialty is start-up consulting for fashion brands. Whether you are just figuring out what your name brand will be or if you are at the point where you need seed money to take your business to the next level, we can help! We are the designer behind your brand. Who said anyone has to know you are not the designer of your products? We have designed several collections for brands that refer to themselves as the “designer.” That is fine. Our goal is to help your brand succeed, not stroke our ego. Need help? Let’s talk money. Many start-up brand consultants put the money talk off for the last minute. We prefer to be up front. The first 20-30 minute call to find out if we are the right fit for you is FREE. Yes, Free. It’s only fair to be able to talk to someone in real life to figure out if what they have to offer is the right fit for you or your situation. If you just need consulting, then our fee is $225.00 per hour on the phone or in person. There is a two hour minimum for in person consulting. Phone calls are a 1 hour minimum. We are based out of Los Angeles and San Diego...
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Happy New Year everyone! It seems like this year has flown by. For the past several months, I have been busy working for a big apparel brand in downtown LA as their Design Director for Handbags & Accessories so I have been crazy commuting between La Jolla and Los Angeles! I really enjoy the work and we have developed some really great collections! I really feel like I need a vacation to some warm tropical place. (: I wanted to thank everyone for their support this past year and for hiring us to work with your brand. I really enjoy building brands and product and I appreciate all the trust that has been given me this past year from clients to help them bring great design and products to the market. Thanks so much! I hope everyone has an amazing new year with great health and happiness. Health is our true wealth! (Prada shoes are great, too!) Cheers! Tara & Dante (Marco...
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I am excited to see one of the brands I worked on in men’s bags & accessories is finally open for business. As a freelance designer and startup consultant I work with a lot of different brands, from start ups to large established corporate brands. Some of my favorite projects are unusual and inspirational projects that reclaim and upcycle existing materials. Ignition Supply Co. is just that. It is an inspiring story of a fireman, firehose and a unique idea. It was very cool to be part of that project and I look forward to working with them in the future. From their website…. “The story begins with a request from my Lieutenant to remove one of our recently failed fire hoses from service after it had been badly damaged in a fire. My curiosity began to run as this section of hose had been tossed out like any other piece of garbage. There was a sentimental value left in that pile, though covered in soot and damaged, it had protected me as I entered a burning structure ultimately bringing me back to safety. As a firefighter, one of the greatest lines of defense we carry with us into a fire is a fire hose. When heavy smoke and flames bank down over our heads, a fire hose acts as an escape rope allowing us to blindly determine means of egress. Shortly after this event, I began to experiment by crafting several different items from this condemned material. I fell in love with the appearance of these failed hoses. Tho damaged, the fire hose I was collecting had such a unique story of how it...
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7 Important Things to Consider Before Starting a Handbag Line. By Tara Sauvage 1. Do you know how to draw? Can you sketch your bag designs and do a tech pack? If so, fantastic! If not, how will you be able to translate your fabulous design ideas so a pattern maker can make a technical pattern for production? To help bridge that gap you may want to consider hiring a handbag designer to help turn your design vision into a functional bag. 2. Price Point Will Determine Materials. It is important to figure out your retail price point before starting a collection, as this will determine the materials you can use. Many new aspiring handbag designers want to make a luxury leather bag collection that retails for under $100. They will go as far as writing this into their business plan before they do their homework and realize that leather costs $5.00-$10.00 per square foot and an average bag uses 6 to 8 square feet of leather. Add labor costs and retail markup and very quickly they realize this is impossible. 3. Educate yourself on manufacturing abroad vs. domestically. The start-up costs are much higher for making patterns and samples in the USA, but on the other hand producing overseas requires high minimums, which very few start-up brands can afford to produce high amounts of inventory. Educate yourself as much as possible about the difference between producing domestically or in Asia. Do you have time to travel to China for example to interview factories? Can you afford to produce in NYC where the labor costs per piece are much...
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