Fun fashion for the young: David Charles Childrenswear

If you’re old enough to think back to the ’70s, ‘great’ and ‘style’ are not necessarily words you would now put together to describe that era.
However, David Graff and his then-girlfriend (now wife) Susan bucked this trend in 1970, setting up David Charles Childrenswear at the respective tender ages of 23 and 20.
The company, which sells designer dresses for girls aged two to 16, is now a flourishing concern, stocked in stores around the world, including Harrods, Neiman Marcus and Saks 5th Avenue, and with standalone shops in China.
Its dresses have been worn by the likes of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, the daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco and Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes.
It was not a huge surprise that Graff – whose middle name is Charles – set up the business, as he had studied fabric design at school and at Hornsey College and had learnt much from his family, which had previously owned an established childrenswear company called Beta.
He followed the studying with an 18-month stint at Liberty department store and then 18 months at Beta, where he met Susan.

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For her part, Susan, now 65, was a fashion designer who had graduated from the Lucy Clayton School and had started working for her father, Sam Cohen (Cornell Dresses) but “switched sides” to work with Graff, teaching him how to pattern cut. She is now the company’s design director and is responsible for her own collection.
Graff, 68, says: “I thought that there was a market for modern-looking children’s clothing. In the early 1970s, kids’ clothes were very basic. There were smock dresses and things like that. We recreated women’s high-street fashion with an edge for kids. We didn’t just copy high street fashion – we made it suitable for children.”
But for this it was necessary to set up on their own and the couple’s big break came when they exhibited at a childrenswear show in London in April 1970. Susan had wanted them to marry, but Graff says he told her it was a big step for him because he was so young and didn’t have any money.
He recalls: “I said: ‘If we sell 12,000 dresses, we’ll get married’, and we sold 11,999 and I said: ‘I won’t hold you to the one,’” he laughs. “After that, we never looked back,” he continues. The couple showed their collection in Paris, “and we started doing exports through that and then we did various exhibitions all over the world, and it just took off from that. We were learning on our feet, but we learnt pretty quickly”.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, of course. “I was naïve in thinking in the early 1970s that one could sell one’s clothes abroad,” Graff says of the first exhibition the couple did in the US. “I had no idea. I just went with UK prices, not realising that they want landed prices – duty-paid and freight-paid. They just want you to give them the prices including everything. I very quickly spoke to somebody and worked it out and gave them a price as near as possible that was landed. I should have known all that before I went.” Graff also recollects setbacks beyond anyone’s control, such as recessions. “I remember the three-day week and when there was no power in the 1970s,” he says. “I bought torches; the boys were packing by torchlight…but it makes you stronger.”
So why, when there are so many other retailers out there selling girls’ dresses, do customers buy from David Charles Childrenswear? “Our edge really is that we specialise in the seven-to-16 age group. The majority of childrenswear companies, although they go up to bigger sizes, a lot of them do what I call blown-up baby dresses; they do a collection that is really suitable from two to 10 maybe and then they offer 12s to 14s and 16s.”
Explaining where the company has decided to pitch itself, the New London Synagogue member says: “We design with 12, 14, 16-year-olds in mind, so we have two collections – one for two to 12s, which is classic party dresses with an edge, and the bigger collection, which is really aimed at the older girls.
They are a much more sophisticated audience. It’s geared to the girls who don’t want to wear pink fluffy party dresses.” Graff humbly attributes the continued success of the company – which exports about 85 per cent of its business – to “a tremendous amount of luck and sticking to what we know and what we believe in”.
He continues: “We’ve not tried to introduce other items into the collection or diversified – we’ve stuck to what we know, to what we believe in and what we think we do well.” He also cites customer care as extremely important – “making sure that people get what they order and that they get it in time. People buy from us because they know we’re going to deliver”.
Creativity certainly seems to run in the family. The couple have three children, with their daughter Tanya a stylist for Martha Stewart Living magazine in New York, elder son Matthew, 38, a television producer, and younger son, Joshua, 35, a senior director at LinkedIn.
On the horizon, Graff has high hopes for the Chinese market. “The people we have a partnership with [in China] have planned 50 shops. They’ve already got four and it’s only been 18 months, so I’m hopeful – it’s very dynamic over there and the opportunity is just phenomenal,” he explains with enthusiasm.
But Graff has his eye on geography for other reasons than pure business. He is a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust and leads treks for the charity all over the world, taking groups of 15 to 35 adventurous people away at a time. “I’ve just come back from Burma – we slept on the floor of monastery,” he says. “It’s something that’s really good for the soul.”
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Words of disco icon Moroder strike creative chord for designer Mikhael Kale

A monologue featured in a song by electronic duo Daft Punk struck a creative chord for Mikhael Kale.
Kale kicked off fall-winter runway shows at World MasterCard Fashion Week on Monday with a collection inspired by the words of prolific Italian songwriter and producer Giorgio Moroder.
Moroder collaborated with Donna Summer on some of the disco queen's biggest hits including “Love to Love You Baby” and “Hot Stuff.” He is also behind the film score for the '80s gangster classic Scarface.
The Daft Punk track “Giorgio by Moroder” features the disco innovator describing his musical career and how he channelled inspiration from sounds of the '50s, '60s and '70s, while also aiming to include "a sound from the future."

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Kale opted to open and close his colourful, opulent showcase of embellished ensembles and slick leather looks set to the soundtrack of Moroder's monologue.
"I think the idea of taking something that's been done, and then using a specific lens and doing it in a new way I think is really interesting and has always appealed to me," he said backstage following the show
"Here he is creating music that references the '60s with this modernist vibe. It's incredible. It really is amazing."
The award-winning womenswear designer translated the past-meets-future influences into his collection, which incorporated orange, red, maroon, pink, black, white and metallics.
Kale showcased both the conventional and cutting-edge with his use of leather, from shift dresses, A-line skirts and dress tops to a boldly oversized jacket flaunting sizable circular cutouts.
The showstoppers in the fall-winter range were the lavishly adorned skirts, dresses and jackets trimmed with shaggy Mongolian shearling or dotted with vintage beads. Sometimes, he opted for both adornments, in addition to incorporating pleating, cutouts and wisps of organza into the mix.
Susan Langdon lauded the show as "amazing."
"To see all the detail in the beadwork, the cutouts — it was almost like haute couture," said Langdon, executive director of the Toronto Fashion Incubator, a non-profit business centre that has fostered numerous designers and style entrepreneurs.
"I've been to his studio and I know he does everything by hand, and it's mind-boggling the number of hours that must have gone into creating that line. It was just breathtaking."
Langdon said the unlikely fusion of fabrics and styles within one design is a Kale signature.
"I think that's why I enjoy his show — because he mixes it up.
"He has some severe leather pieces and then next to some frothy Mongolian fur in a lilac (colour) and then a jolt of orange that hits the runway.
"I think that keeps all of us interested and it captures our imagination."
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At American Apparel, new CEO aims to bring order, culture shift

The alterations underway at American Apparel Inc. are evident in its advertising. Gone are the half-naked young women splayed on billboards and print ads. These days, the models tend to be fully dressed in the company's hip basics.
The salacious images were part of the freewheeling style of founder Dov Charney. His tenure was also marked by loose corporate operations, financial losses and sexual harassment allegations that sparked a board revolt and Charney's ouster last year.
American Apparel ads will still have an edge — some incorporating social issues such as gay rights, bullying or women's equality — but they won't be "sexual for sexual's sake," new Chief Executive Paula Schneider said in an interview with The Times.

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Schneider, a longtime clothing executive who took over in January, hopes to transform more than the advertising at the Los Angeles clothing firm, which employs nearly 10,000 people and operates almost 250 stores. In nearly five years, American Apparel has lost $310 million. Its debt totals more than $200 million.
Beyond toning down the oversexed image, Schneider aims to install a more grown-up structure and culture to replace Charney's eccentric micromanagement. Schneider is focused on the boring-but-important details of hiring — and empowering — experienced managers and drawing up evaluation protocols and organizational charts.
Schneider, 56, has spent decades at clothing retailers and manufacturers. She has held senior executive positions at retailers such as BCBG Max Azria and Laundry by Shelli Segal. At BCBG Max Azria, she helped steer the company to profitability, and at Warnaco Group, she aided in a corporate restructuring.
Since arriving at American Apparel in January, Schneider has sought to order the corporate chaos without sacrificing the brand's soul.
"It's getting everybody in their lane and understanding we have a common goal," she said. "There is tremendous energy here; there is tremendous love for the brand; there are tremendous ideas. It's just a matter of saying: What do we do with them? How do we harness it? What do we do to move it down the road?"
Schneider's management style is sharply different from Charney's, who often inserted himself into the smallest details. Charney handpicked models for ads, selected fabrics and even cleaned retail stockrooms.
American Apparel's new chairwoman, Colleen Brown, said Schneider was tapped in part for her ability to instill organization.
Under Charney, the company didn't have many of the formal controls common at public companies, she said. There was no standard method for performance reviews, for example, and department heads had no regular meetings.
"The really easy things are hard at American Apparel," Brown said. "Just basic systems and processes that allow you to make decisions easily."
Schneider has a track record of boosting ailing companies, Brown said.
"She has driven several turnarounds in her career, and that was an important thing to consider when we were looking for a CEO," she said. "The company has not made money for a while, so we needed someone who could get a strategic plan and put it into place."
Schneider still has until April 5 before she is required to present her operational plan to the board, according to a security filing that detailed her contract. Barely two months into the job, Schneider has already started making changes.
One example: She has bulked up the planning department, which orders raw materials to keep the factories humming. With better forecasting, the company can save money by buying more yarn overseas or can ship supplies and products by ground instead of air, Schneider said.
Another focus is design and marketing.
Last month, the company fired its two longtime creative directors, Iris Alonzo and Marsha Brady, both Charney allies. Schneider said the firings weren't a result of poor performance but merely a shift in creative direction.
"We have a lot of really talented people, but young," Schneider said, adding that some lack the formal training and education typically found at a major manufacturer.
She has already made product changes too.
Fewer styles will be offered in the fall season, Schneider said. Instead the company will concentrate on offering styles in more color variations, a move to avoid a problem that analysts say plagued American Apparel: offering too many products, many that didn't sell well.
E-commerce will also get a close look. Among the new hires is American Apparel's first chief digital officer, who will be in charge of improving the online shopping experience and boosting digital sales, Schneider said.
The company currently gets only 15% of its sales from e-commerce. By comparison, teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch's online side accounted for 20.2% of net sales in the first three quarters of its 2014 fiscal year.
"When we look at it compared to our peers, there is a lot more room to grow," Schneider said.
Each department was also tasked with coming up with its own budget for the year, in sharp contrast to the "top down" approach of the past, she said.
Schneider said she has no choice but to push decision-making power down through the ranks.
"When you have a founder that knows everything about the business … you come in and you are not that person," she said. "You have to have some people in each area that are going to be the leaders in order to function."
Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Assn., said Schneider may struggle to win over employees and institute a more traditional corporate culture.
"Everyone there was hired by Dov — and everyone is still probably loyal to Dov," she said.
One core feature of American Apparel — its made-in-USA model — will remain firmly in place.
Walking through the factory filled with the steady hum of sewing machines, Schneider marveled at the scale of the operations, in an 800,000-square-foot salmon-colored building in downtown Los Angeles.
Echoing Charney, Schneider bragged about the company's ability to quickly whip up new garments and get them to its shops.
The company can get a new product into stores on a Thursday and know if it's a strong seller by Monday, she said. Then the local factory can immediately respond.
"We can make that same version, we can make it in colors, we can make it longer, shorter, long sleeved, short sleeved, and we can put it into our stores in a week," she said.
Schneider compared American Apparel's main factory, which employs more than 3,000 cutters, sewers and other workers, to "a city."
The facility also includes an on-site medical clinic and masseuses that offer free massages. The operation is so vast that Schneider said she prefers to think of slices of the company individually.
"Otherwise," she quipped, "I'd be up all night."
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Providing consulting, fashion sense

Joan Gamble, a retired CVPS executive, began to run two very different businesses out of her home in Rutland in 2012. Wanting, as she says, to “satisfy both parts of my brain,” Gamble is now a strategic change consultant and a fashion stylist. Here she speaks of both enterprises.
What is nature of your business?
In my consulting business, I help organizations and teams thrive through difficult transitions. Through skilled assessment, facilitation and coaching, I help organizations develop a clear motivational vision, focus on their key strategic goals, organize themselves with key action steps and accountability, and achieve high levels of employee engagement.

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Quite simply, as an independent CAbi fashion stylist — (Carol Anderson by invitation), a designer women’s clothing collection sold exclusively by a network of independent consultants, or stylists, through in-home trunk shows — I help women of all ages and sizes look and feel beautiful. As a CAbi leader, I inspire a team of self-motivated women achieve their dreams of running their own businesses.
How/why did the company begin? What was the inspiration, the story behind its beginning?
I had been a successful executive at CVPS for 24 years, and I loved my job, my colleagues and the positive culture we built together. When I retired after the merger I wanted to tap into my entrepreneurial drive and develop a new sense of self and purpose, so I started the two businesses. Although different, the businesses complement each other. I get immense satisfaction both using skills I’d honed over the years and stretching myself in a completely different arena.
With strategic change consulting, I was in my comfort zone from the start. With CAbi, I knew I wanted to empower women who had been held back by self-esteem issues, and also have fun, meeting new women and exploring the creativity of fashion.
How did you get to where you are today with the business (if it has changed focus, grown, downsized, etc.)?
I’ve enjoyed the variety of clients I’ve served in my consulting business, including Project VISION, the Rutland City Police and the Housing Trust of Rutland County. It’s been rewarding being a part of the positive changes occurring in our community.
I’ve been happily surprised by the close relationships and personal growth I’ve experienced through my CAbi business. Also, I love the flexibility both businesses afford, so my husband and I can travel!
How is your business unique?
Running two very different businesses at the same time is an exciting challenge. Both of my businesses are customized to the needs of either the organization I’m working with or the women I’m serving. The CAbi shopping experience is especially unique; women discovering their own style through a magical confluence of positive supportive energy, helpful fashion tips, laughter and wine!
Why Rutland?
My husband and I have both lived here for over 20 years. After we retired, we considered moving, but realized we can get what is important to us here in Rutland, a strong sense of community, easily accessible outdoor activities, cultural events and stimulating friends of various ages.
As a business owner, what is most important lesson you’ve learned?
To take the lows in stride, be persistent, deliver what you promise, and keep growing and learning!
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Bigger Than You, Bigger Than Me

Point of fact: D.C. theater is not producing enough plays about contemporary life in D.C. It’s one thing to put on works about locals withPolitico-approved “skin in the game,” like Arena Stage’s upcoming Antonin Scalia argumentThe Originalist; it’s another to inquire about the lives of those who live and work on the edge of national importance, trying to make sense of themselves.
Field Trip Theatre, in its mission statement, strives to accomplish just that. The troupe’s first season outside of Fringe—traditionally a more hospitable home for District-set works than the regional powerhouses with expensive seats to fill—opens with Bigger Than You, Bigger Than Me. It’s an original work from local playwright Kathryn Coughlin revolving around three public employees in their early 30s. That a new local play concerned with the District should premiere at the Anacostia Arts Center is also a welcome deviation from the ambitious yet frequently imported selections that typically come through the nonprofit space.

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It’s really a shame, then, that the play offers so little inside its sinister soundscape of helicopters and video games. These nightmares fill the air as an elementary school teacher tries to discern whether her colleague is having premonitions about a terror attack. Beth (Sophie Schulman) is, for lack of any other defining characteristics, the sane one, frustrated by her students and by her grandfather’s constant worries over her safety. Her new friend and pot buddy Adele (Mia Branco) seems merely aloof at first: She doesn’t give as much thought to her students as she does to strangers she passes on the Metro. Adele lives alone in an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Capitol, a setting that facilitates a vision of… something awful.
Living on top of so many potential terror targets and an invisible network of high-level intelligence can create a potent tonic of adrenaline and paranoia, a recognizable D.C. mindset that Adele seems to be tumbling through. The themes of windows and news reports, of looking at events happening out of physical reach, would seem to point toward that interpretation. The set design, two diamond-shaped apartments adorned with large views of the Capitol and surrounding neighborhoods, emphasizes characters gazing at things the audience can’t see.
But the play doesn’t have enough nuance to create the ambiguities it needs. Adele’s dream (the first sign of any dramatic tension) arrives halfway through, after a first half that has done little apart from setting her up as a foil to Beth’s boyfriend. Tucker, played by a standoffish Joshua Simon, is a national security analyst whose work is too classified to share and who would rather play video games than talk to anyone. Beth is caught in the middle, with a tragic backstory that pays off in a rather cheap fashion. Coughlin, herself an elementary school teacher, at first seems to be mocking Beth’s naïveté (the character is desperate for “quietly troubled” kids, her favorite brand). But the rest of the play’s philosophy is painted in such broad strokes that any potential for irony gradually seeps away. In this universe, people either Make A Difference or they don’t.
The best exchange in Bigger Than You happens as Tucker struggles to carry on a conversation about what he does at work. It’s strange to embark on a career so classified you can’t tell your significant other, let alone make casual conversation at a party, and Coughlin’s dialogue captures this unsettling feeling well. It’s also a more localized dilemma (many District residents have met someone who can’t talk about his or her job) rooted in emotional reality (what does that level of secrecy do to a person?). But this is one moment of authenticity in a larger thesis that prefers to create conflict between false dichotomies: the baseless premonition stacked against physical evidence; the teacher and the security analyst arguing over whose job is really important.
Schulman and Branco give effective performances as they worm their way through mealy-mouthed monologues about safety and security. The play is set shortly before a 9/11 anniversary, and Coughlin’s mind is clearly on the national fascination with death and destruction. But the actors are hampered by stagnant direction from Nick Vargas, Field Trip’s artistic director. Characters sit around with awkward blocking, reciting their lines with silences so big you could steer a plane through them.
Sorry, was that a tacky evocation of 9/11 to make a boilerplate dramatic point? Tell that to these characters. Early on, Beth offers a grisly fantasy of blowing up a Le Pain Quotidien in the same tone as one might discuss an ideal morning commute (modern America, everybody). Later, Adele gives a stomach-curdling monologue of the horrors that await the District if no one heeds her vision: chaos in the streets, dead children stacked on top of each other. Tucker writes her off as a head case, even as she begs him to take her warnings to his bosses. She later does the same to Beth, pushing her to warn the school of an imminent threat.
We’re meant to feel conflicted over these exchanges, it seems. But any serious national security worker, even one as compassionate as Tucker is abrasive, wouldn’t spend half a second chasing leads to placate Adele. This isn’t Twin Peaks; there’s no Black Lodge of metaphysical intrigue where government workers take dreams seriously. Such a play might have have been fascinating in its own right, but Coughlin hasn’t established the right tonal atmosphere for it here.
It feels wrong to fault Field Trip for filling an unserved void in local theater, particularly with a run as brief as this (the play closes the 15th). It’s not their fault we have so few playwrights willing to take a chance on District-set dramas or so few theater companies willing to sponsor them. But this should be an opportunity to realize we can do better in our efforts to capture the local mood, to find the real dramas that eat away at people like the heroes of this play. This lack of local voices is bigger than Bigger Than You.
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Nylon Magazine Co-Founders Launch Digital Media Brand, Popular

The co-founders of Nylon magazine have launched a media firm aimed at a new generation of women.
Husband-wife duo Marvin Scott Jarrett and Jaclynn Jarrett have started Popular, a digital magazine that features editorial and video content targeted at always-connected women ages 18 to 25 that touches on fashion, music, celebrity, beauty, culture and travel. The tag-line Popular is "the anti-social network," which Scott Jarrett explains "promotes individualism. It's irreverent."
Among the video series launching on Popular is music news-centric The Queue hosted by Brandi Cyrus, beauty-focused Kiss Off with Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, culture showRunaway with model Cailin Russo, and style show Denim Hunters. All the shows and editorial content will be short and snappy with a mobile audience in mind.

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Popular will also feature brand ambassadors, celebrities and other user-generated videos from women from all walks of life. These short user-generated videos, which can be submitted via thePopular website, will show women talking about who they are, what they love and where they draw inspiration. "I want it to be a huge part of the platform," Scott Jarrett tells The Hollywood Reporter. "It's interesting to see these little snapshots and portraits of girls from around the world."
In addition to the digital brand, Popular will publish a quarterly magazine. The first edition will arrive this spring with Sofia Richie, daughter of music mogul Lionel Richie, on the cover. "I think magazines in general need to feel more special and more collectable if they're going to be relevant," Scott Jarrett explains. "But it's still an interesting medium to me. I believe in something tactile, and I believe that it's great for offline messaging."
Popular, which is based in Los Angeles but also operates out of New York, has launched with a full-time team of 12 including former Nylon executive editor Ashley Baker and former Teen Vogueeditors Mary Kate Steinmiller and Katie Dickens.
Scott Jarrett says that he wants Popular to be a digital-first brand with video at the core of its content, noting that consumers have come to expect a multi-platform approach in the years since he launched Nylon in 1999. "The way people consume media is very different today than it was 15 years ago," he adds. "It's exciting to launch a new brand and take into account the media landscape today."
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Dolce & Gabbana

(Photo:formal dresses online) If their men's collection was a celebration of family, it made perfect sense that Dolce & Gabbana's women's show would focus on Mamma, the fulcrum of the family. And what a focus! There were 11 mums on stage with their children. That required a full nursery setup backstage. On the runway, three models walked with their own children (the sheer joy of one little girl to be out theredoing it made the hardest hearts melt). And Dolce stalwart Bianca Balti catwalked with ahuge bun in the oven. Viva La Mamma!
"She's always there, she's the person you can always call." It's just like Stefano Gabbana was saying: "Every man everywhere has a mother." You could score all kinds of sociopolitical points off such a notion in the present headline-driven climate of male-dominated, life-denying madness, but Gabbana was much keener to make a point about fashion, which is often accused of being detached from the eternal verities: life, love, relationship with self and others. The positive message of the show—and the collection—was that everything we are is an extension of where we came from. One more time: Viva La Mamma. (Il Papà had his moment in the spotlight in January.)
Tearing oneself away from the onstage baby-watching (it was impossible to ignore the little ones responding to the unholy stimuli of a gigantic fashion production), it was almost equally entertaining to see how Domenico and Stefano responded to the inspiration. There were prints (and embroideries) based on drawings by Domenico's nieces and nephews that looked exactly like naughty kids had taken some crayons to Mum's best dress. But those showpieces would likely exert less commercial appeal than a classic black dress or double-breasted skirtsuit with a black fox stole (hot mamma) or a simple rose-strewn shift (sweetmamma). The rose was everything to the collection, not just because it's the flower you give your mother on Mother's Day, but because Stefano's favorite childhood memory of his own mother is the rose scent of her red lipstick. That's why Dolce & Gabbana's lipsticks are uniquely fragranced. Memory speaks loudest when it's closest to home.
The spectacle of infants paraded for the entertainment of adults is rarely edifying, but there was something so essentially good-hearted about this show—and so utterly persuasive with the patient participation of the actual mothers and their children—that those reservations would today have been the preserve of the churl. There was a crazy wit in play, too. A green, three-quarter-sleeved fur coat—a real lunch-at-Le Cirque piece—came with a matching tote sized for carrying nappies. Some models were wearing crystal-and-fur headphones, the contemporary crown of the modern queen.

Anyway, that's Mother's Day sorted for 2016. Come May 8 next year, Italian mums across the land will be forgoing red roses for a shiny black Dolce & Gabbana shopping bag.Read more at:formal dresses adelaide