Vogue: Do you think about trends at all?
ES: Not really. Proportion and relevance are two important things for me, and technology, because I do think it affects fabric constructions and things like that. But we’re not interested, and our client’s not interested, in what’s the new hot thing right now. To me, it’s more the hemlines are up or down, little things that are more subconscious than specifically this is the statement for the season. I love when people are like, “What’s the color of the season?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” That feels like such an old-fashioned thing to ask, right? It’s sort of what works for you. You should dress for what works for your shape, your style. For us, tailoring is always more important.
As far as building and growing our base, to me, it’s more about getting our brand in more conversations and having more people wearing it, I think is the biggest growth opportunity. I think we’ve been a hidden secret, and there’s sort of a nice nuance to that. But I think just slowly getting it to other people at a healthy pace that feels manageable that we don’t ever sacrifice the integrity of what we’re doing. And potentially we do collaborations with other categories, but we’re so focused on ready to wear and that’s our expertise.
DQ: We’re open to that. I think building the brand and investing in the marketing is really a focus for now because I think that’s what helps set us apart on top of the product. It has to feel right.
Vogue: How do you plan to maintain this growth from here, what comes next?
DQ: We’ve planned it into the future. Luckily as a privately owned company, we’ve able to evolve into what works for us. We want people that want our brand. I don’t need to force it. [As we continue to expand into Europe], I think the best part will be, we’re a 30-year-old company. We’re not this new brand. We’ve got the stability and the infrastructure to support everything it takes to build a proper long-term partnership.
I am lucky that my partners don’t push me. I don’t have a board. I don’t have a boss, so I don’t focus on a metric like having to hit double-digit growth. Single digit is fine. It’s an extremely open-book type of operation that we’re running, and my team has been with me through the bad times, and I want them to be with me through the good times. We’ve had some really tough times in the last five years, and now I see a really bright future, so I’m excited. I’m more excited for them than for anything else.
