“I tend to work mostly with smaller brands and designers that have a little bit more flexibility. The benefit is that often they're producing a little bit closer to delivery and can work more with seasonality. From that perspective, it’s much easier to negotiate a delivery with a smaller brand.”

INDUSTRY EFFICIENCIES: EFFECTIVE MARKETING AND STREAMLINING PROCESSES

Kate: “The outside industries I work with are mainly marketing and promotion-related. There are all of these companies popping up that are offering platforms that aggregate all of your marketing needs in one place. Honestly, it's a niche that’s just swelled in terms of the amount of business it’s bringing in.

“In tandem with that, there is no longer a need for a showroom relationship—the representation and the intermediary that can get a designer into a store. The whole dynamic is changing pretty quickly. There are a lot of wholesaling platforms that have popped up; I personally like using them. I think they’re great tools for re-ordering products and working with brands from which I already buy. It’s definitely less time-consuming than taking a trip into the city or going to a showroom. Everything becomes pretty streamlined.”

MISSING CONVERSATIONS: TABOO WITHIN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

Kate: “I would really like there to be more honest discussions about the environmental impact of the fashion industry. I don’t know how and where that will ever happen. There have been so many talks with the sustainability coordinator for H&M on down to really great brands like Patagonia. Nothing tangible seems to come from it. It would just be nice to hear people really say, ‘Yes! This is something that’s really serious.’ Fashion is supposed to be fun and make you feel good—those are the two main components of why people shop. They want to feel pretty, or beautiful, or strong, or whatever. The emotional connection that they have to a certain look or garment is strong. When you start talking about how toxic the dye process is and the people that are being abused who make the garment, it’s not fun or sexy.”

“Fashion is supposed to be fun and make you feel good. When you start talking about how toxic the dye process is and the people that are being abused who make the garment, it’s not fun or sexy.”
 

LEADERS OF THE PACK: INDUSTRIES TO ADMIRE

Kate: “Food is always the top tier, with the push towards organics, and getting people on board because we have such a connection to what we eat. In the last five or ten years, the beauty industry has done a great job of communicating the importance of knowing the ingredients in the cosmetics and products we use. Hopefully it will start to shift more for clothing. Europe has done well putting their eco standards in place. There are a lot of different regulations and information that make it easy for consumers to buy products with a higher level of comfort in terms of knowing how they were made.”

IT’S MORE THAN AN OUTFIT: SPREADING KNOWLEDGE

Kate: “People don’t always want to be told something. There’s an element of self-discovery with shopping and buying—people really like that. They want to feel like they found something special. Any way information can be communicated without having to say it explicitly is a really great thing. Not every brand that I carry, but a lot of the brands I carry, have informative hangtags. It’s a really easy, unobtrusive way to get a message across. I mean, I feel that way as a buyer when I discover a new brand who I feel no one really knows about. We all want to have some sort of unique perspective.”

“People don’t always want to be told something. There’s an element of self-discovery with shopping and buying. We all want to have some sort of unique perspective.”